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Robin Hood’s Miracle

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 18, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 52, No. 4.

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Robin Hood’s Miracle.

By H. H. Butterworth

Fair, fair was the forest of Sherwood in the days of Robin Hood: long were the summers that robed the forests with green, and bright were the autumns that browned the thickets and coverts from which the merry hunters, clad in Lincoln-green, started the deer. The silver horns of Robin Hood’s merry men divided in the morning, and their notes were lost in the great deep forests, but they blended again at evening, echoing at first from afar and then drawing near.
Then merry were the tales of the hunters, as the red moon rose in the dusky shadows, and poured her light over the forest like a silver sea.
Robin Hood performed a most wonderful miracle in his day.
Perhaps, though, you may not think it so wonderful after all.
We will tell it to you as a very old ballad told it to us.
One day Robin, being in a merry mood, took it into his head to go into the king’s highway in the disguise of a friar. He put on hood, gown, crucifix, and beads, and walked off slowly, looking very demure and woe-begone.
He had not gone far, when he met two lusty priests, clad all in black, and riding gallantly along.
“Benedicite!” he said, “have pity on a poor friar; who has been wandering since morning, without meat or drink.”
“In the name of the Virgin,” said one of the priests, “we cannot help thee. We’ve been robbed, and haven’t a penny to help ourselves.”
Robin laid hold of the priest’s robes, and drew him from the horse. Robin was so stout a man that the priest could not resist, and when he commanded the other priest to dismount, he dared not disobey him.
“You say you have no money,” said Robin. “Neither have I.”
“You know how to pray?” said Robin.
“Yes,” said the priests.
“Then let us all fall on our knees, we three together, and for money we will pray earnestly, and we will see what Heaven will send.”
The priests knelt down.
“Now pray,” said Robin.
They prayed very dolefully. At last they began to weep and wring their hands. Then Robin began to dance.
The priests’ prayers became more doleful than ever. But Robin said,—
“Pray! Pray!”
They prayed a very long time.
“Now put your hands into your pockets, and see if you have received an answer to your prayers.”
The first priest felt in his pockets, then rolled up his eyes very solemnly and said,—
“Nothing.”
“Let me feel,” said Robin.
The priests now looked more troubled than ever.
Robin searched the pockets of one, and drew forth a purse heavy with gold.
“What an answer to prayers!” said Robin, and he searched the other, and found another purse.
The two priests were struck dumb—what could they say? If they had spoken truly at first, here indeed was a miracle! The old ballad says that they “sighed wondrous heavy.”
“You have prayed well,” said Robin encouragingly, seeing their dejected looks. “Here are five hundred pounds. Now we will divide it.”
And divide it he did. He gave each priest fifty pounds for praying so well, and kept the rest himself. But the two priests did not seem very much pleased with Robin’s division and liberal present, but rode away looking more woeful than ever.
“Always speak the truth,” said Robin to the two priests, as they departed; and we have a sort of suspicion that if they had spoken the truth about their money to the bold outlaw, as good priests ought, the miracle would not have been so great.—H. H. Butterworth, in January Wide Awake.