Sherwood Forest

“ For the most part, the huge bolls of the forest-trees stood far apart, in long sweeping aisles, as regular as if planted by the hand of man, allowing the grass to grow luxuriantly in the shade, nibbled, by the vast herds of red and fallow deer and roes, into the softest and most even sward that ever tempted the foot of high-born beauty. ”

“ From Nottingham Richard proceeded on a journey of pleasure through Sherwood Forest, which extended over a space of several hundred miles, to the centre of the county of York. [2] "He had never seen this forest," says Roger of Hoveden, "and it pleased him greatly." There, through quiet glades and grassy lawns, "under the greenwood tree," the king solaced himself for his long imprisonment, and tasted the sweet breath of liberty. Sensuous enjoyment is born of privation, and means nothing more than a want supplied. ”

“ Here were innumerable hiding-places for the forest outlaws when hunted too closely by their foes. They lacked not food; the forest was filled with grazing deer and antlered stags. There was also abundance of smaller game,—the hare, the coney, the roe; and of birds,—the partridge, pheasant, woodcock, mallard, and heron. Fuel could be had in profusion when fire was needed. For winter shelter there were many caverns, for Sherwood forest is remarkable for its number of such places of refuge, some made by nature, others excavated by man. ”

“ All day, until the sun was high at noon, he strode onward across the barren heath and wild moors into which the forest had now subsided, when, after catching from a hill-top a distant view of a town and castle to the northward, which he rightly judged to be Skipton, he reached an immense tract, seeming almost interminable, of green, oozy morasses, cut up by rivulets and streamlets, and often intersected by dangerous bogs, from which flowed the interlinked tributaries of the Eyre, the Ribble, and the Hodder. ”

“ Sherwood forest, indeed, is not less interesting for the natural beauty which charms the eye, than for its venerable antiquity and historical associations. But in many parts the soil is far enough from being rich. ”

“ But their cruel game-laws could not keep men from the forests, and the woods they planted served as places of shelter for the outlaws they made.
William the Conqueror, so we are told, had no less than sixty-eight forests peopled with deer, and guarded against intrusion of common man by a cruel interdict. His successors added new forests, until it looked as if England might be made all woodland, and the red deer its chief inhabitants. Sherwood forest, the favorite lurking-place of the bold Robin, stretched for thirty miles in an unbroken line. ”

“ These rude pageants are the lingering remains of the old customs of Plough Monday, when bands of rustics, fantastically dressed, and furnished with pipe and tabor, dragged what was called the “fool plough” from house to house, singing ballads and performing antics, for which they were rewarded with money and good cheer.
But it is not in “merry Sherwood Forest” alone that these remnants of old times prevail. They are to be met with in most of the counties north of the Trent, which classic stream seems to be the boundary line of primitive customs. ”

“ SHERWOOD FOREST. New Forest, as we have now seen, still retains its completeness as a forest—its herds of deer, its keepers going their daily rounds, its wild horses, and swine almost as wild, and all its ancient extent of wastes, woodlands, and forest people. A widely different condition does this once noble forest exhibit. It was more than all celebrated as the scene of the exploits of Robin Hood, and his merry men. In his day, it extended from the town of Nottingham to Whitby in Yorkshire, or rather it and the forest of Whitby lay open to each other, in perfect contiguity. ”

“ A forest is in all mythologies a sacred place; as the oaks among the Druids, and the grove of Egeria, and even in more familiar and common life, as "Barnsdale wood" and "Sherwood." Had Robin Hood no Sherwood to resort to, it would be difficult to invest his story with the charms it has got. It is always the tale that is untold, the deeds done, and the life lived in the unexplored scenery of the wood, that charm us and make us children again, to read his ballads and hear of the greenwood tree. ”

“ The birds screamed or sang or chattered over the girl's head as she tripped along. Squirrels peeped at her, barked, and then whisked their tails in rapid flight. Through the cool, dark depths where the forest monarchs had been untouched by the woodsmen, great moths winged their lazy flight. Nan knew not half of the creatures or the wonderful plants she saw. ”

“ This promised a little excitement, so on the very spot from which they had made their first entrance into Sherwood forest, Bess and Louise waited while the boys dropped down and disappeared behind the bushes. In a few minutes they came rushing back empty handed, to report that not a trace of anything was to be found, and that a man with a scythe was at work on the other side of the garden cutting down the grass. ”

“ Nor was there lack of living sounds and sights to take away the sense of loneliness from the mind of the voyager in the green wilderness—the incessant songs of the thrush and blackbird, and whistle of the wood-robin, the mellow notes of the linnets, the willow warblers and the sedge birds in the watery brake, the harsh laugh of the green-headed woodpecker, and the hoarse cooing of the innumerable stock-doves, kept the air vocal during all the morning and evening hours ”

“ It is a wild, wide region, in which you may satiate yourselves with nature in its primitive freedom. In Bilhaghe, in the forest of Sherwood, you find a fragment of an ancient forest unique in its kind,—a region of old oaks, shattered by the tempests of five hundred years, and standing in all the hoary grandeur of age ”

“ Then all the people craned their necks and gazed in the direction whence the sound came, and the crowding and the pushing and the swaying grew greater than ever. And now a gallant array of men came gleaming into sight, and the cheering of the people ran down the crowd as the fire runs in dry grass. ”

“ They are our support, and our strength, and we must avoid in all things giving them just cause of complaint. Scathelock?--Scathelock?--I have heard that name."
"You must have heard if often, my father," said Alured de Ashby. "It is the name of one of our good forest outlaws of Sherwood. I have seen the man twice in the neighbourhood of our own place, and though I did not mark this fellow with the arrow much, he has the same look and air."
"Seen him twice, and did not arrest him?" cried Richard de Ashby, with marked emphasis. ”

“ In the sandy wastes of Old Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, many thousand acres, principally of larch, have been planted on the estates of the Dukes of Portland and Newcastle, Lord Scarborough, Earl Manvers, Colonels Need, Wildman, and other proprietors. Even the cold hills of the Peak of Derbyshire have been planted in some parts extensively; and lands in those districts which were literally unproductive, are now a source of considerable income from the thinning of the woods. In Scotland the same change is very visible. ”

“ Let us make the best of our array, my Lord of Monthermer. Yonder wood is a point that must be maintained. Hugh, line the hedges of that little field with archers--place me there our stout foresters from Sherwood: it is a point of much importance. Take up your post beyond them there with your men-at-arms--have some archers and slingers in your front, and keep the ground between the further hedge and those scrubby bushes and hawthorn trees, amongst which their horsemen cannot act. ”

“ The forest was atune from daybreak to midnight with winged denizens, for insect and bird life seemed unquenchable in the Big Woods.
Especially was this true of the tamarack swamp. It was dreadfully hot at noontide on the corduroy road which passed Toby Vanderwiller's little farm; but often Nan Sherwood went that way in the afternoon. Mr. Mangel, the school principal, had written Nan and encouraged her to send a full description of some of Corson Vanderwiller's collection, especially of the wonderful death's-head moth, to a wealthy collector in Chicago. Nan did this at once. ”

“ Set like a gem of purest water in a rough frame of savage mountains, their lower sides mantled with rich deciduous woods, their purple heathery brows dotted with huge Scotch firs, single, or in romantic groups, their scalps bald and broken, of gray and schistous rock, Kentmere fills up the whole basin of the dell it occupies, with the exception of a verge of smooth, green meadow-land, never above a hundred or two of yards in width, margined with a silvery stripe of snow-white sand, and studded by a few noble oaks. ”

“ Even to this day, it is, comparatively speaking, a bleak and barren region, overswept by the cold gusts from the German ocean, abounding more in dark and stormy wolds than in the cheerful green of copse or wildwood, rejoicing little in pasture, less in tillage, and boasting of nothing superior to the dull market towns of the interior, and the small fishing villages nested among the crags of its iron coast. ”

“ Nan cried. “You mean all around the edge of his farm where it meets the woods?”
“Yes. A ploughed strip may save his buildings. Fire can't easily cross ploughed ground. Only, if these woods get really ablaze, the fire will jump half a mile!”
“Oh no, Tom! You don't mean that?”
“Yes, I do,” said her cousin, gloomily. “Tobe's in a bad place. You don't know what a forest fire means, nor the damage it does, Nannie. I'm right troubled by old Tobe's case.”
“But there's no danger for Pine Camp, is there?” asked the girl, eagerly.
“Plenty of folks there to make a fire-guard. ”

“ They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever. ”

“ We are always, and all of us, most patient over our city bad smells until we go into the country and realize what a bath of delicious odors a forest is—a bit of woodland, a field of growing grass, one sweet cherry-tree, an apple-blossom, a violet! The perfume of lilacs is the perfume of luxury; and the first scythe of the mower, as it sweeps through the young blood of the grass, reveals a thousand scent-bottles all uncorked for our use. A lady in giving a garden party should always have a bundle of new-mown hay somewhere about the grounds. ”

“ From it, and, indeed, from many points on this side of the park, some strikingly beautiful views of the mansion, the lake, and the grounds are obtained.
In the part of the grounds known as “The Wilderness;” in the various [1355] drives that intersect the forest; in the remains of “Merrie Sherwood,” which form a part of the estate; and, indeed, in every direction, noble oaks many centuries old, limes of marvellous beauty, and chestnuts of enormous growth are abundant, and give an air of unsurpassed grandeur to the domain. ”

“ Behind them the bulk of the forest loomed as another barrier. Nan had really never believed that rain could fall so hard. It almost took her breath.
Moreover, what Tom said about the smoking tree began to trouble the girl. She thought of the fire at Pale Lick, of which she had received hints from several people. That awful conflagration, in which she believed two children belonging to her uncle and aunt had lost their lives, had started in the sawdust.
Suddenly she cried aloud and seized Tom more tightly.
“Cracky! Don't choke a fellow!” he coughed. ”

“ Hares, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and many, many birds, peopled the forest and swamp. In sunken places where the green water stood and steamed in the sun, turtles and frogs were plentiful; and occasionally a snake, as harmless as it was wicked looking, slid off a water-soaked log at Nan's approach and slipped under the oily surface of the pool.
On the day Nan walked to Toby's place the first time, she saw many wonders of plant life along the way, exotics clinging to rotten logs and stumps ”

“ Many American forests are similar to the Sherwood that Camden describes; the writer has not unfrequently heard the crash of some tall forest tree, whose roots were strangled and starved; indeed a traveller is often surprised, on entering some grand-looking wood, either in Canada or the States, to find it paved with huge trunks between which a more recent growth appeared. ”

“ For in the early summer months the hues of the whole region are too generally green, without any variation except that produced by the effect of sunshine and shadow. The sides of the turf-covered mountains, the birch and oak coppices on their lower slopes, the deep meadows, at their base, are all overspread with the richest and most intense verdure ”

“ From this magnificent and time-honored tree we continued on our sylvan research, in quest of another oak, of more ancient date and less flourishing condition. A ride of two or three miles, the latter part across open wastes, once clothed with forest, now bare and cheerless, brought us to the tree in question. It was the Oak of Ravenshead, one of the last survivors of old Sherwood, and which had evidently once held a high head in the forest ”

“ Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?{90}
Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,
Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,
Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,
And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.
Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together
With quarter-staff and drinking-can and gray goose-feather;
The dead are coming back again; the years are rolled away
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day. ”