"Ho, my merry men! Come quickly!"

I've been reading the Howard Pyle Robin Hood to Eric at bedtime the last few nights, from the same now-slightly-musty copy I had as a child. A 1946 edition, it was probably from the same box of my mom's childhood books that made me anachronistically fond of the classic Christian children's series The Sugar Creek Gang, especially We Killed A Bear and whichever book it is where Circus gets bit by the black widow spider and finds Jesus.

Reading a particular favorite to your child feels risky. The book was written in the 1880s--what if he can't follow the language? What if he can, but he just doesn't like it? Can our relationship survive his indifference to a book I've loved for 35 years?

So far, so good, but reading aloud I stumble sometimes over passages like this, and I do wonder if Eric gets the jokes:

"Halloa! Art thou deaf, man? Good friend, say I!"

"And who art thou dost so boldly check a fair song?" quoth the Tinker, stopping in his singing. "Halloa, thine own self, whether thou be good friend or no. But let me tell thee, thou stout fellow, gin thou be a good friend it were well for us both; but gin thou be no good friend it were ill for thee."

"Then let us be good friends," quoth jolly Robin, "for ill would it be to be ill, and ill like I thine oaken staff full well to make it but well, so friends let us be."

"Ay, marry, then let us be," said the Tinker. "But, good youth, thy tongue runneth so nimbly that my poor and heavy wits can but ill follow it, so talk more plainly, I pray, for I am a plain man, forsooth."

"And whence comest thou, my lusty blade?" quoth Robin.

"I come from Banbury," answered the Tinker.

"Alas!" quoth Robin, "I hear there is sad news this merry morn."

"Ha! Is it indeed so?" cried the Tinker eagerly. "Prythee tell it speedily, for I am a tinker by trade, as thou seest, and as I am in my trade I am greedy for news, even as a priest is greedy for farthings."

"Well then," quoth Robin, "list thou and I will tell, but bear thyself up bravely, for the news is sad, I wot. Thus it is: I hear that two tinkers are in the stocks for drinking ale and beer!"

"Now a murrain seize thee and thy news, thou scurvy dog," quoth the Tinker, "for thou speakest but ill of good men. But sad news it is indeed, gin there be two stout fellows in the stocks."

"Nay," said Robin, "thou hast missed the mark and dost but weep for the wrong sow. The sadness of the news lieth in that there be but two in the stocks, for the others do roam the country at large."

"Now by the pewter platter of Saint Dunstan," cried the Tinker, "I have a good part of a mind to baste they hide for thine ill jest. But gin men be put in the stocks for drinking ale and beer, I trow thou wouldst not lose thy part."

Loud laughed Robin and cried: "Now well taken, Tinker, well taken! Why, thy wits are like beer, and do froth up most when they grow sour!"

Eric seems to listen happily, and I think tonight he did enjoy the story of Robin going to the shooting match in disguise to win the golden arrow from the Sheriff of Nottingham.

Pyle's Robin Hood will always be my touchstone Robin: unnaturally gifted with the bow; always merry, yet touched by tragedy from the moment he let anger and pride drive him to kill, first, a King's deer, and then the King's forester who had taunted him to commit that crime. I like other tellings--earlier this year I read Robin McKinley's Outlaws of Sherwood, and I liked her version well enough. It had a strong Marian, wrote Robin across the grain by making him an indifferent archer who had to be pushed into outlawry by Marian and another friend, and addressed questions like, "How do you have threescore and ten stout yeomen wandering the forest without creating paths the King's foresters can easily follow, and what did they do with their garbage and poop?"

But McKinley's book, and others like it, are best appreciated, I think, in contrast to the more classic Robin we get from Howard Pyle. You need to be well-versed in the legend to be able to enjoy playing around with it. Or so it seems to me. I don't know if Pyle created the version we're all so familiar with, that underlies everything from the 1938 Errol Flynn movie to the 1973 animated Disney version, but he certainly exemplifies it: Robin as the jolly, clever trickster in green who always triumphs.

I loved Robin Hood as a child, and I still do. Robin keeps inviting people to join his band, and this is what he tells them:

Say, good fellow, wilt thou join my merry men all? Three suits of Lincoln green shalt thou have a year, besides forty marks in fee; thou shalt share all with us and lead a right merry life in the greenwood; for cares have we not and misfortune cometh not upon us within the sweet shades of Sherwood, where we shoot the dun deer, and feed upon venison and sweet oaten cakes, and curds and honey. Wilt thou come with me?

What a sales pitch! Is it any wonder they always say yes? I certainly would.