And yet I think these oaks at dawn and even
Will whisper ever more of Robin Hood…
…You, good Friar,
You Much, you Scarlet, you dear Little John,
Your names will cling like ivy to the wood.
And here perhaps a hundred years away
Some hunter in day-dreams or half asleep
Will hear our arrows whizzing overhead,
And catch the winding of a phantom horn.
TENNYSON: The Foresters (1881)
After Robin Hood’s death, Marian dwelt on in Kirkleys Nunnery where she soon became Prioress under the name of Matilda. And of the goodness of the Prioress Matilda and of how she was ever ready to help the sick and the afflicted many tales were told. At the last she died in the room where Robin had died, and was buried beside him under the greenwood tree.
Little John, however, did not stay at Kirkleys after he had laid his beloved friend and master in the grave. For some years he dwelt in Ireland, where his feats of archery are still remembered then he returned to England and was no more heard of, though his grave is still shown at Hathersage in Derbyshire.
There is a story, however, that long after King John’s death his son King Henry III hunted the deer in Sherwood Forest. And there he started the finest stag that ever a man hunted, and pursued it so fast and so far that as night came on he found himself separated from his followers and lost in the wildest parts of the forest.
Wandering in search of a night’s lodging he came at length to a well-worn path, and following it found himself at a little chapel by which stood a hermit’s cell. There was a light in the chapel and entering the King found two hermits at their prayers, two very old men, one tall beyond the ordinary and the other broad and fat even in age.
The two hermits seemed very loath to entertain the wanderer, and when at last they let him enter their cell, gave him a truss of straw to lie upon and regretted that they had no supper to offer him but bread and cheese and to drink only the water from a nearby spring.
‘Surely,’ said the King, ‘with the forest all about you, you could fare better than this? Come now, do you never draw a bow when the verderers are asleep?’
‘Alas, we are poor men,’ said the tall hermit, ‘I fear that you seek to entrap us by forcing a confession that we have broken the forest laws.’
‘Never would I betray the man who gave me a good square meal tonight,’ said the King, ‘for never have I needed it more!’
Presently the King bethought him of the flask of strong old wine that hung at his saddle, and after a little persuasion the fat hermit consented to drink of it with him and speedily grew merry.
Then one thing led to another and the two hermits brought out wine and ale of their own, and presently the board was heaped with venison pasties and delicacies of all sorts.
‘Can you draw a good bow, sir huntsman?’ asked the tall hermit presently, and upon the King saying that he could the three of them went out into the twilight and tried their skill at a willow wand set up at thirty yards’ distance. But only the tall hermit could split it.
Later as they sat drinking the King exclaimed:
‘Never have I seen such archery nor been so well entertained in the forest. I could almost believe that we were back in the days of King Richard of the Lion Heart when bold Robin Hood ruled in the Forest of Sherwood of whom so many songs are sung and so many tales are told – know you any tales of that king of outlaws, that noble prince of thieves?’
Then the two old hermits seemed to grow young again, and the morning came while they were still telling their guest of all that had chanced in Sherwood so long ago – adventures which they themselves had seen, in which they themselves had played a part.
With the first light the King mounted on his horse once more (albeit unsteadily, for he had drunk deep throughout the night) and rode away in search of his followers. But before he went he turned to his two hosts and said:
‘Reverent hermits, if I have not dreamt it, I supped last night in Sherwood Forest with Little John and Friar Tuck!’
When he found his courtiers once more the King told them of his strange adventure, and all marvelled to hear of it. But, though he and they sought long and eagerly, they could never again find their way to that hidden cell in Sherwood Forest.