A. E. Chandler

At four years old, I first saw the Disney cartoon movie of Robin Hood, and since then he has been one of my heroes. I read Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, which is still my favourite novel, in grade five. A teacher took the book from me, read a paragraph aloud, and asked if I understood it. I said I did - though, being eleven, I didn’t understand every last word of the dialect Pyle used - and the teacher returned my book. From that year, my Robin Hood obsession became an annual occurrence. In grade eight, for a self-directed projects class, instead of my fallback - dinosaurs - I decided to do something different and research the real Robin Hood. That was when I first developed a passion for history.

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I started university as an English major, changing halfway through my undergrad to Ancient and Medieval Studies, a multi-disciplinary degree that allowed me to take courses on publishing and creative writing, while focusing on the history in which I wanted to set my fiction. Later, as a Medieval Studies grad student at the University of Nottingham, I took history and archaeology, as well as Middle English language and literature courses, with the goal of writing a well-rounded dissertation on the social history behind an early to mid-thirteenth century Robin Hood figure. While it was difficult to be away from my family, friends, and cat, it was also the best time of my life. Studying at Nottingham was an amazing opportunity to pick the brains of a number of expert medievalists, gain access to a dizzying amount of source material, and experience the places where Robin Hood is said to have trod. Thanks to recommendations from Dr. Gwilym Dodd, I was able to examine all of the known extant medieval Robin Hood “ballads” at Cambridge University and the British Library, as well as the schoolbook verse at Lincoln Cathedral. (One of the best smells in the world is that of medieval parchment.)

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Living in Robin Hood Country was a joy. Like Little John in A Gest of Robyn Hode, I’ve walked up to the Sayles, from Wentbridge. I joined the university’s archery society, practicing three to six hours a week, shooting within the grounds of Nottingham Castle, as well as in Sherwood Forest, where I “poached” a plastic deer. I also spent three days at a workshop in the woods on the Derbyshire-Leicestershire border hand carving a bow named Towton, who broke my heart when he snapped during the training process. On Sunday mornings, my usual haunt was St. Mary’s parish church in Nottingham, where Robin Hood is said to have been captured by the Sheriff - like Robin, I would usually fast until after the service (there not being enough time for breakfast before running for the bus). Gaining a spot on the annual tour of the Kirklees Priory grounds to see the gatehouse and Robin Hood’s grave was once in a lifetime, and it was an honour to be able to lay a sprig of yew, collected from Sherwood Forest on May Day, by that stone.

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Having dreamed about Sherwood practically daily for years, I worried about being disappointed the first time I saw it. - It was better than I ever imagined. Sherwood Forest is the most beautiful place on earth. There is nowhere that the greens are more alive. You can tell whether you are getting nearer or farther from Sherwood by the liveliness of the greens. When in England, I usually carry a copy of Alfred Noyes’s poem “Sherwood”; it has visited numerous places, such as the graves of Will Scarlet, Little John, and Robin Hood. While staying in Edwinstowe, I got to fulfill a longtime dream, getting up before dawn to re-enact the poem, in which the narrator can hear Robin calling on his horn at dawn. England being England, I saw clouds rather than the sunrise, but spending two days exploring the forest, and getting to know most of the paths, was inspiring.

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When I visited Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, I saw the field where Robin, Anne, and Stutely played as children - where Anne finds Robin after he falls out of favour with Pypa. It’s strangely gratifying and disconcerting as a writer, to realize that you’ve accurately described a place (or a person) that, up until that moment, you thought only existed inside of your imagination.

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The rough draft of The Scarlet Forest: A Tale of Robin Hood spans six coiled notebooks that have my literal blood, sweat, and tears in them - as well as someone else’s sneezed up Pepsi. I spent at least an hour each night imagining what my characters were doing. Most of it never made it into the book, but it helped me to really get to know the characters. The rough draft took exactly one year and one week to complete. To write the ending verse that closes the book, I went outside, and for the very last line I set the notebook against an eyelevel tree branch. I’d expected to feel elated at completing a novel; instead, it was like all the characters and their voices had vacated my head, leaving me isolated, and feeling appallingly empty.

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However, the crafting of a manuscript is very far from over when the rough draft’s last line is written. I ended up completely rewriting the first forty pages of the manuscript. Probably the only thing that made it was when Robin sees Marian for the first time in six months and doesn’t “know whether to flush red or drain white.” This is not the only massive rewrite The Scarlet Forest has seen. Some sections have been cut entirely, new sections added in elsewhere. Individual scenes have been combed through over and over and over, shaving every last unnecessary word - until the next edit found more. Over time, The Scarlet Forest’s word count has gone up forty thousand words, down thirty, up a completely different twenty. Editing can be a much longer process than writing.

 

In case anyone wants to know what happens to the characters after The Scarlet Forest ends, here it is, spoilers and all: Will Stutely returns to his life as a forester and never marries, inwardly punishing himself for betraying Robin. Little John marries a buxom red-haired woman and they are very happy living in the greenwood. Eventually, Little John contracts an illness that shrivels his legs, and he dies peacefully, making the most of the time he has. Anne takes her children to Will Scarlet and his wife Meg, who is barren. Anne spends her time raising Michael and Mary, and creating accounts of Robin’s adventures. Michael meets and later marries a young woman selling goods at Nottingham’s market. He rejects his martial heritage, opting to be a simple farmer on land granted to him by Will Scarlet as lord of Gamewell. Anne spends many days playing with and telling stories to her grandchildren, teaching them how to shoot and fight despite Michael’s wishes. Anne dies in 1306. This is the longest she could live while spending more years with Robin than apart from him. While out walking, she stops to take a nap under a tree, at the edge of a field by Sherwood Forest. In a dream she sees Robin come down from heaven, and she takes his hand. Michael finds her body, carrying her in his arms back to Gamewell to be buried.