A young man was walking in Sherwood Forest. His clothes were green like the trees in forest, and he had his long bow and ten good arrows.
He heard the cry of a child. Then he saw a woman. She was walking into the forest with her child. The child was crying. The woman was not crying, but she was very, very unhappy.
The young man asked, "Where are you going?" "I'm going to look for Robin Hood. He helps poor people, and I want help. I was the wife of Wat, a workman in Nottingham. The Sheriff of Nottingham did not like him. The Sheriff's men killed Wat and burnt our house. Now I have no home, no money---nothing. But Robin Hood will help me. Robin and his men live here in the forest. They are good men. They take money away from rich people, and they give it to poor people. Yes, he will help me."
The young man said, "You are right. We will help you. I am Robin Hood."
Long, long ago, Richard was King of England. Richard was a Norman, and most of the people were not Normans. Many of them were Saxons.
Richard was a good man and a just ruler; but he went away to war. Then his brother John ruled the country.
John was bad. He was unjust, and he did not like the Saxons. He wanted the Normans to have more and more. Many of the Normans wanted that, too, and they became hard and unjust rulers.
The Sheriff of Nottingham was a Norman. From his castle at Nottingham he ruled all the country from Derby to Lincoln. Sherwood Forest was in this country.
There was one Saxon who still had land and a caste. He was the Earl of Huntingdon. The Sheriff of Nottingham sent five hundred men to drive the Saxon earl out of his castle. They burnt the castle and took the Earl to Nottingham. He died there, and the Sheriff of Nottingham took all his land. His wife and his son Robert had no home and no money.
Robert's mother died soon after, and Robert went to Sherwood Forest. He lived in the forest and changed his name to Robin Hood.
There were other Saxons in Sherwood Forrest. They were men without homes, because the Normans had their houses and their land. There were deer in the forest. The Saxon men killed the deer for food. But the deer were the King's deer, and the Normans were very angry. They called the men outlaws. If they caught an outlaw, the Normans killed him.
Robin Hood became the leader of the outlaws in Sherwood Forest. He and all his men dressed in green clothes---Lincoln green.
They said:
"We will always help poor people. We will take money from the rich men. They have a lot of money because they have taken it from poor people. We will take the money and give it back to the poor."
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