The Last Arrow of Robin Hood (Campfire Story)

Robin Hood lived in Sherwood Forest for many, many years. Little John's beard turned gray. Friar Tuck's belly grew even rounder. And Robin's hair, once brown as an oak leaf in autumn, turned white as frost.

The Merry Men had done a great deal of good in all those years. The Sheriff of Nottingham never did catch them. The poor of Nottinghamshire had bread on their tables, and stories to tell their children. And there was not a man, woman or child in all of England who had not heard the name of Robin Hood.

But one winter, Robin fell ill with a terrible fever. He grew weaker every day. 'John,' he said, 'my cousin is the prioress of Kirklees Priory. She's a healer. Take me there.'

So Little John helped Robin onto his horse, and they rode to Kirklees. But the old ballads say the prioress was not the friend Robin thought she was. She took Robin up to a little room at the top of a tower, and locked the door, and Little John waited outside and did not know what was happening. And Robin grew weaker, and weaker.

At last, Robin knew that his time had come. With the last of his strength, he lifted his horn to his lips and blew. It was only three faint notes, nothing like the great blasts that used to call the Merry Men from every corner of the forest.

But Little John heard. He broke down the door, and took the stairs three at a time, and came into the little room, and knelt down beside his oldest friend.

'Robin,' he said. 'Let me burn this place to the ground for what they've done.'

'No, John,' said Robin. 'In all my life, I never hurt a woman, or a child, or anyone who couldn't fight back. I won't start now.' And then he smiled. 'Give me my bow, old friend. And one arrow.'

Little John helped Robin sit up beside the window. Out past the walls of the priory lay the fields, and beyond them, the green edge of the forest.

'Wherever this arrow falls,' said Robin, 'dig my grave there. Lay a green sod under my head and another at my feet. And put my bow beside me, which was always my music.'

Robin drew the bowstring back one last time. His arms shook. But his aim was as true as it had been on the day he won the golden arrow. He let go, and the arrow flew out the window, high and far, over the wall, over the fields, and came down at last beneath an old oak tree at the edge of the wood.

And Robin Hood lay back, and closed his eyes, and was gone.

Little John and the Merry Men did just as he had asked. They buried Robin Hood under the oak tree where his last arrow fell, with green sod at his head and his feet, and his bow at his side.

And then the Merry Men went home to Sherwood Forest. They didn't stop helping people. They didn't stop sharing what they had with those who had less. Because that was the thing Robin Hood had taught them all.

They say you can still find Robin's grave at Kirklees, in Yorkshire, in a quiet corner of the woods. And they say that on summer evenings in Sherwood Forest, if you listen very carefully, you might still hear three notes of a horn, very far away, calling everyone home.

Storyteller tips: speak quietly, and pause before Robin's last shot. Afterward, ask the group what they'd like to be remembered for, or what they'd want their own "last arrow" to land on.

Based on the ballad "Robin Hood's Death" (Child Ballad 120). A gravestone said to be Robin Hood's still stands in the woods near the ruins of Kirklees Priory in West Yorkshire.