Adventure · Legend
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Outlaws, archery contests and tricks on the Sheriff of Nottingham in the green shade of Sherwood Forest.
Five levels, about 80 languages
- A2ElementaryShort sentences and everyday words.
- B1IntermediateYou follow clear stories about familiar things.
- B2Upper intermediateLonger sentences, richer vocabulary.
- C1AdvancedClose to the original, lightly condensed.
- C2ProficientThe complete novel.
One purchase is one book, in one language, at one level: $4.99. Another level of a book you own is $1.99. Editions nobody has asked for yet are written on request: chapter 1 in a few minutes, the rest while you read. How the levels work.
About the book
Sherwood Forest
Howard Pyle’s book gathers the old ballads of Robin Hood into one cheerful story. Robin, outlawed as a young man after a quarrel with the king’s foresters, gathers a band of free men in Sherwood Forest. One by one they join him, usually after a fight that Robin loses: the giant Little John on a narrow bridge, the tanner Arthur a Bland, Will Scarlet, and the jolly Friar Tuck, who dumps him in a stream. Between feasts they rob rich travelers, help poor ones and play tricks on the Sheriff of Nottingham, who never learns. Pyle published the book in 1883, in an old-fashioned English style of his own.
Why it works for learners
Each chapter is a complete adventure, often with a fight, a joke and a feast, so you can read one in a sitting and stop with a sense of having finished something. The episodes repeat a satisfying pattern (a stranger, a challenge, a contest, a friendship), and that repetition helps vocabulary stick: bow, arrow, staff, forest, inn, purse, gold, sheriff, disguise. The tone is light-hearted throughout; even the villains are mostly comic. Pyle’s original, full of “quoth he” and “thou”, is a challenge of its own, so the lower levels tell the stories in plain modern language.
Which level to start at
A2 is a great start: short episodes, clear action and a cast you’ll come to know well. B1 adds more of the banter and the songs. At C1 and C2 you’ll meet Pyle’s archaic flavor, which is fun once you’re comfortable.
Read next
- The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Pyle’s retelling of the Round Table
- Ivanhoe, where an outlaw archer called Locksley steals the tournament
- The Arabian Nights, another book of short, self-contained adventures
