Robin Hood and Wolf or When Fairy Tales Collide

Just some fun nonesense I was working on.

The smell of burning flesh permeated the cold, clinging to a martyr’s breeze from Rouen. I waited beneath the wide boughs of the Major Oak. Winter in Sherwood. Snow, the silent death, painted boughs a striking black against a bleached and bloodless background, an image strangely similar to that piece of Byzantine art hung by the Lionheart outside the rectory in Prince John’s castle. Priests walked past that mysterious cat scratching shaking their heads, whispering blasphemy, heresy, witchcraft and death. I laughed at the old men tugging at their beards, bent low beneath the weight of their cold passion and angry arms.

My steed pawed the snow and whinnied. A crow settled on the limb above, shadow black against flurries spinning down like heaven’s web crushing everything with its pale pristine goodness. I thought it might taste like sugar, but no, it deceived like so many things in the world.

In the winter, his seven score men dwindled to a mere three score and so I anticipated little issue with my intent to join the jesting marksman, the Yorkshire man they called the son of Loxley but whom the Prince called a knave of the lowest rat-catching order. They walked in from the north like wraiths, unwrapping themselves from the muted forms of naked birch and oak. Thin, ragged men slipped from shadow to shadow, glancing with furtive eyes in every direction, stopping, listening and then lurching along, their leathers crunching white powder like so many mice in a farmer’s sugar bowl. They spotted my horse and within an instant, a dozen bows drew back and a dozen arrows cocked in my direction. I removed the red hood that hid my face and they all inhaled as one with a sound liken to the wind, or like the cries of maidens burning while priests watched and murmured dark words that swirled within the tempest of flying sparks and tinder. I felt a snarl biting the inside of my face, scratching for release.

What’s this, he said, and laughed. I dismounted. He came forward and smiled the way he does, all glitter-toothed like a Cheshire cat, eyes full of green and blue. I said the seven dwarves sent me and he roared back and crooned. He said, and well they did for such a maiden fair he had not seen in all the seven kingdoms. I don’t think I smiled at that for if I had my teeth might have given me away, my hungry teeth. I pulled my red cloak tighter and picked a piece of her dried blood off, dropping it behind my back, coquettish in the batting of my eyes and tilt of my head. He leaned forward and flashed his devil eyes at me again.

So I joined with the son of Loxley and we walked together and he talked the way men do when enchanted, incessantly and forever on. I may have smiled, though I do not know why and I may have flirted a bit, for effect mind you, and by the end of the day, I had him, body and soul. That night he slept a fitful sleep, for I had spurned him as a chaste young maiden should and now rested among the warm furs of my dead brethren on the far side of camp, awaiting my opportunity. When the moon climbed the eastern sky and dripped quicksilver magic upon the naked forest, I took my natural form and slipped through camp to watch him toss and turn near the campfire. His blankets wrapped and garroted him and he lay in a sort of tortured state, the kind where dreams take haunted souls on dark odysseys between heaven and hell. I wondered what maiden he had lost to flames and what gods crept into his dreams and fought for dominance.

I leapt for his throat.

I heard the axe whisper through the air before it struck me down. My forepaws crumbled and my mouth snapped shut and I fell to the forest floor inches away from his laughing face, his whiskers a-twitching and his eyes a-teasing my very last breath. To shock him, I took her form again, the willowy girl in the red cloak and his laughter ceased, his eyes burst tears and he moaned the way the north wind moans through the willows down by the river. The woodsman emerged from behind a stand of birch and maple, looked down upon my nakedness, and then fell next to me, an angry sword still wet with blood protruding from his chest.

They placed my body in a wrapping of silks, likely stolen from some fairy princess on a forest jaunt, and laid me on the friar’s wagon. They sang sad songs as they took me through the forest, diffused sunlight drifting down and smell of fire in the air. That night they stopped near a village and while they slept, moonlight warmed my skin; life flowed back into my veins, and I dashed away on four strong legs through the woods, over river and past grandmother’s house. I arrived at the Prince’s castle where a fire burned near the moat and men hung from gallows, swinging in the wind, frost their only grail. I took her form again, the one I’d eaten softly, and walked across the lowered drawbridge, where men fell to my beauty side by side like chess pieces frozen in postures neither warlike nor of this flesh. Tis her, they said, the maiden of Rouen and they fell to their knees as if they had seen a ghost. I laughed and passed, flicking my tail beneath my cloak.

Soon I stood before the John the ugly Prince and told him there is no need to kill the son of Loxley for he will search the world for my face, forgetting all and everyone for I had cast my spell upon him. In every woman’s face he would see mine and in every woman’s walk he would see my slim hips and in every woman’s smile he would cry out for me and he would trouble the kingdom no more. I said, one day the Prince’s men would find him sitting in an old tower on the Plain of Salisbury awaiting his death, thinking that in this end he would join me in the after life. I laughed and turned away. The Prince cried out, stay with me oh child in red, youngling with the face of angels for I too have grown accustomed to your crystalline eyes, raven hair and snow pale skin, but I laughed again and vanished into the forest.

The Prince did search for many years, until his death, and many a maiden met the fire; I wept for them, and my hunger grew. When they buried Bad King John, Ivanhoe and I traveled to the Norman tower of Worcester and the graveyard of kings. That night we lit a beacon and cast the spell of holding, the priests watching from their gothic windows. However, the spell failed and the bonfires raged. Maidens still died in flames and young men still hung from gallows while priests circled and whispered rage and condemnations. The forest filled with ghosts. We shook our heads and wiped our tears, for who can fight the changing times. Soon there were no more of us, the forest stood stripped and naked in the blinding sunlight that burned away all magic and set the world in stone.

Still, over generations, the story is told that on moonlit winter nights in Sherwood Forest, a young lady in red travels from glen to vale and over the river and on to the Hollow of Sleepy and oftentimes she is followed by those men brave enough to grapple with ghosts, silver wolves and feathered angels. However, you shall find when the morning mists lift that she has turned them all to wood and they decorate the great forest like those dark terracotta statues in the castle garden where pale ladies take their tea and whisper tales like this to one another while their faces fill with pleasure at winter’s frozen touch. And the priests march on, bending ever lower beneath their guilt.

Reviews

[Holly-Marie]

I loved this story, it was beautiful and the imagery was wonderful.
I thought it was a wonderful fairytale.

[I. Fynn]

Very well written with a distinct style. Could do with a few more commas, in my opinion.

...cold passion and angry arms. -> cold passion and angry FISTS. [Is what I would go with.]

...through camp to watch him toss and turn near the campfire -> through camp to watch him toss and turn near the [DELETED]fire [as camp was already used previously in this sentence, and just "fire" should do.]

...I heard the axe... ...protruding from his chest. [This section confused me. What I got from it was that she was killed by an anonymous woodsman (specifically not Robin Hood), and that the woodsman was then slain by Robin. Even if this is correct, the section could still do with a bit of clarification, as it made me stop to figure out what was going on, breaking the flow of the story.]

...before the John the ugly Prince -> before [DELETED] John the ugly Prince

This was quite interesting. Reminded me (somewhat) of "The Brothers Grimm" (the movie), only your writing seemed more original and engaging. There's a lot of hidden depth to it, making me curious and eager for more.
I was kind of expecting an easy read, but I really had to stay focused to follow the story, which in this case was a good thing.
(80/100)

[Brette Medb]

I loved this. You are so good at creating a story and letting the imagery delve you so deep. I loved how you created a fairytale through that of so many others. Wonderfully written!