Robin Hood and the Eleventh Crusade

Robin Hood and the Eleventh Crusade

By John Witherington

Once upon a time, Little John was sitting on a fallen tree trunk on the edge of Sherwood Forest idly whittling away a piece of wood and his time and watching his ever-growing brood of children. Summer was fast approaching, the time of year when Robin Hood was bound to suggest another crusade. Little John thought longingly of the Italian Riviera and perhaps, if he made the arrangements soon enough, he might have an excuse for not-

His dreams were interrupted by a pigeon landing nearby.

"Eee, Mail! squealed one of his children with delight. "Can I open it?"

Little John could never keep up with these new-fangled communication systems, so he let the child rip off the message tied to the pigeon's leg.

"I think you're supposed to untie the message first", suggested Little John, but the child was already reading...

" '11th crusade imminent. Be there. Robin.' "

This was unusually brief for Robin, thought Little John, presumably in deference to the (now one-legged) pigeon. Just as well the poor bird doesn't have to carry one of Robin's lectures.

"What's a crusade?" asked one of the children innocently.

"It's when you go off to the Holy Land, dig trenches and have endless arguments in them", said Little John.

"Can anyone do this?" enquired the child.

"No", answered Little John, "only important people like Robin get to do the arguing. The rest of us keep our heads down and try to avoid getting caught in the cross-fire".

"But what do they argue about?"

"That's a very good question. Territory, mostly; a struggle between land and sea".

"What do crusaders actually do?" persisted the child.

"Well", said Little John, "that depends on who you are. If you're an ordinary volunteer like me, you're likely to be sent down a deep hole jammed between two walls in the blazing sun and forgotten about. If you're a supervisor, however, you get to sit at a high table under a shade cloth, drink coffee from a thermos cup and smoke and chat all day".

"Where is the Holy Land, then?" asked the child.

"It's a long way away and can only be reached with a stop-over in Amsterdam or a 28-hour delay in London in which you barely have time to visit the British Museum and the airline never tells you-"

This potentially epic monologue was interrupted by -shhhhhdoing- an arrow just missing him thudded into a tree, a message tied to its shaft. Mobile phones were all very well, thought Little John, but they made an awful noise at inconvenient moments and could, one day, be found to be harmful to your health.

'Did you get my mail?' it said. 'Come soon. Maid Marion ill'.

Clearly this persuaded Little John that Robin really did need his help and so he gathered up his ten children and travelled to the Holy Land.

"I've got some good news and some bad news", said Robin on Little John's arrival. "You're working with Maid Marion again and-"

"Now tell me the good news", said Little John.

Just at that moment Maid Marion herself appeared, from behind a Black Bush, looking surprisingly at ease with the world, greeted Little John and skipped off humming a tune.

"You said she was ill", said Little John, "but I hadn't realized things were this bad. How long has she been like this?"

"Ever since she met the Black Prince", replied Robin.

"What? The veteran warrior who breathes fire and smoke and lives in the Far Land?"

"The very same", said Robin. He's won her heart."

"Heart? What heart?" said Little John. "The man's a genius".

"And", continued Robin, I want you to find out how he turned the perfectly grumpy Maid whose language is a series of rasping coughs before morning coffee, monosyllables till breakfast and turns the air blue after that, how he turned the Maid we all know and love into this sweet, charming, demure young lady".

"And how am I supposed to do that? asked Little John.

"I want you to share a room with the Black Prince and discover how he has bewitched her".

"You must be mad", cried Little John in horror. "When it comes to sharing a room, the Black Prince makes the Cyclops look hospitable".

"Don't worry", said Robin, "one night should be enough and his cough is worse than his bite. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to find out how he has changed Maid Marion. We must restore her to health as soon as possible. I can't bear her so compliant."

"But-"

And Robin disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Despite little John's fears, the Black Prince could not have been more welcoming and the night passed without incident except for the hourly crowing of the Prince's pet rooster. Little John did, however, spot a large white box in the corner of the room....

Next day Little John went to find Friar Tuck -always a stout man in a crisis. Alas, as Little John found out, he had not come to the Holy Land this year. After severe problems at the end of the last crusade he had stayed at home to take evening classes -in plumbing.

Little John then decided to begin his quest by venturing into the Far Land. This country was also known as Terra Promissa, or TP for short, a land of ease and indolence, whose inhabitants enjoyed the shade of luxuriant date palms and did little work. Their king, a benevolent autocrat, spent much of his time in contemplation and would be enthroned at the same place each meal time, with a girl either side of him and, folding his arms across his ample midrift, would regale his listeners with stories about electric guitars in bathrooms.

Armed with his dictionary of Far Landish, Little John enquired of the great king about Maid Marion and the Black Prince.

"Yup", said the king. "They sure are walking in tall cotton. Right hogwild".

Little John took this to explain the symptoms of Maid Marion's illness, but it told him little of its cure. He was at a loss and made his way back to LL, a name which originated with Maid Marion's repetitive swearing and does not, as some historians erroneously maintain, have anything to do with the Land of the Lost (that's Kansas).

In LL, Little John sought solace amongst the real crusaders, the tough, adventurous, intelligent, friendly and hard-working body of men and women, crusading legends who think nothing of carrying eight buckets at a time with a couple of rocks for good measure. It was here that crusaders fought off scorpions, vipers, hornets and a plague of locus, plunged the depths of bins and scaled heights hitherto unrecorded, for thus it is written in the Book of Elevation. Or damn well ought to be.

Here of all places Little John would find out how ill Maid Marion was. He consulted Mistress Sandy, but just as she got up to speak there was a twang like the snap of a bowstring. He looked behind to see who was firing at him but saw no one. He turned back only to see Mistress Sandy heading for the compound clutching herself.

Next, Little John tried Maid Marcie. "Heart? What heart?" said she. "Don't be fooled by this apparent change in Maid Marion. Just look at the whip lashes on my back. 'Marcie, plot this. Marcie, tag that. Marcie, make coffee'. I can't take much more of this. You've seen me stumble around the site. I'd rather have my face on a screen saver. Good bye".

Little John tried to reconcile this with the other evidence, for there was no doubt that since the last crusade, LL seemed calmer, more settled....stabler, even. Yes, that was it. But he had to find the cure of Maid Marion's illness -after all, if everyone was polite, charming and co-operative with each other, that would be the end of crusading as he knew it.

In desperation he decided to consult the Wicked Witch of the Compound. As he entered her palace (this was easy as all the locks had been picked), he noticed her broomstick parked beneath a vine abundant with grapes. He approached cautiously, bearing a gift of a lamp he'd found (Samaritan, 4th-5th century).

"Please, I have come to find out how the the Black Prince has charmed Maid Marion. I thought you'd know. And I've brought you this present".

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes", she intoned.

"No", countered Little John, "I think they were that nice couple you met in Portugal last year. I'm Little John and this is for you".

"Is it tableware, cookware or storage jar?" she screamed, waving her black metal pincers. "And what colour is the clay?"

Little John realized that he wasn't going to find the answer to his quest here, turned tail and went to find a house called the Red Lab. Here lived a hermit called Peter who cleaned coins in a strange solution and hung them on a wire, for he was a money launderer by trade.

"Do you know how the Black Prince has bewitched Maid Marion?" he asked Peter.

Peter said nothing and cradled a cat of unclear lineage whom he addressed "O puss incertum".

Continuing his quest, Little John met an itinerant architect bent over his plans and nodding his head.

"Do you know how the Black Prince has charmed Maid Marion?" asked Little John.

But the architect clearly never heard him and carried on nodding. Little John noticed a black wire coming out of the architect's ear and going into the pocket of his shorts. He wondered what the connection was.

A young girl approached.

"Do you know how Maid Marion has become so ill? asked little John.

The girl replied "I will tell you, but first you must do a deed of outstanding bravery for me".

"Name it", said Little John eagerly.

"You must-"

"Yes?"

"-open a locus".

"What?" cried Little John. "No. Anything but that. I'm too young to die".

"And what is more", continued the girl cruelly, "I must film you while you are doing it. You must remember all the locus numbers of every feature and layer related to it within a distance of twenty miles to put it in its context, the exact direction the camera is facing to the nearest degree, the elevation correct to four decimal places, the Munsell number and Wentworth Scale. O.K.?"

Little John gulped.

"Now, are your hands clean?"

Little John wiped his hands till they were as clean as a baby's bottom, and bravely endured the rigours of this awesome feat.

"Now tell me", pleaded Little John, "wherein lies the secret of Maid Marion's illness.

"The answer lies in the large white box", she said mysteriously, and disappeared.

Perhaps, thought Little John, the answer did lie where he began his quest, but first he decided to visit the land of a strange race of people called Divers -a disparate maritime population whose women looked like mermaids and men like beach bums. Little John had heard of the legendary idleness of the Lotus eaters, but the land of the Divers put even them to shame, littered as it was with cafe tables and deck chairs. Occasionally, they would paddle in the sea -if it wasn't too rough- or take trips to a museum or have a party. Most were afraid of the land except one, and she had a black eye -the sign of the Zodiac.

The king of this indolent race was an amphibian who would venture inland occasionally to argue with Robin, dressed in his full regalia of royal purple....speedos and jellies on his feet.

Little John bowed before the mighty ruler:

"O Great King, Master Omnipotent on Land and Sea, Father of his Country, Source of all Wisdom, Fount of all Knowledge" (Little John had wondered whether he should begin by flattering the king, but had decided against it). "Do you know the cause of Maid Marion's illness?"

"Of course I know", growled the king. "I know everything. "It's all a matter of junctures."

"Junctures?" queried Little John.

"Naturally", said the king. "Here, let me show you". And he attacked a nearby baulk with a pick.

Little John did not wait for the inevitable collapse and discreetly departed.

As he wearily climbed the marble stairs to the room of the Black Prince, it began to rain -not water, but small stones. He picked one up and instantly recognized it as an olive pip, for he had stayed awake throughout the archaeobotany lecture. As he neared the top of the stairs he realized, through a hail of stones and saliva, that he had happened upon a rare congregation of the Cult of the Olive Pip. The propulsion of this sacred icon towards a receptacle some distance away (which incidentally was empty) was accompanied by the drinking of a red liquid which, Little John noticed, not only made everyone as ill as Maid Marion, but also came from the Black Prince's room.

The warrior greeted Little John. "Would you like some Blood o' Mary?" he asked.

Little John gasped and, seeing just how ill Maid Marion and her friends were, rushed downstairs again and found Robin in the air-conditioned lecture theatre where Mistress Marsha was speaking. Robin was sound asleep. Little John was wondering how to wake him when at that very moment Robin's glasses fell off his nose and he awoke at the clatter.

"I have found the secret of Maid Marion's illness", said Little John. "It's a liquid called Mary's Blood, or something".

Robin was astonished. "Is there an antidote?"

"Apparently the only cure", replied Little John, "is a strange concoction made with cucumbers, oranges, mint, lemonade and a secret brown ingredient. Plenty of this every night and she'll be back to her old self each morning".

"Have you got any of this potion? asked Robin.

"No, I gave it to the king of the Far Land and he won't part with it".

"Your mission, should you decide to accept it, -"

Just at that moment, back in Sherwood Forest, Little John woke up and realized it had all been a horrible dream. He was utterly relieved he would never have to meet such strange people in real life and with a smile of contentment decided to return to sleep. Just as his eyelids began to close, he glimpsed a pigeon landing nearby.

It only had one leg.