Post by Dennis of Ravenscar on May 23, 2014 17:20:37 GMT
Robin of Sherwood: Series 2, Episode 3
Lord of the Trees
Original Transmission Date: 23rd March 1985
Written by Richard Carpenter
Story
There is a celebration going on in Sherwood Forest. The outlaws meet up with the villagers of Wickham at a clearing in the woods, with some of the female villagers showing a particular interest in the ‘merry men’, and John giving Meg some flowers surreptitiously. Edward, the headman of Wickham, greets Robin, Marion and Tuck, saying “Blessed be”. Tuck replies “Amen” to which there is no dissent; clearly all religious beliefs are welcome here.
In Nottingham Castle Abbot Hugo barges in on Gisburne, who is acting as sheriff. He’s angry because Gisburne is holding one of his men. He’s even more furious when Gisburne tells him that he released his man: after sentencing him for poaching and having his hand cut off. Gisburne says that as sheriff he had the right to do it, but Hugo doesn’t agree and warns that he will speak to his brother upon his return.
Some foresters are also at the castle, to explain the increase in poaching. One says that it’s probably because of the Blessing, which Hugo clearly knows of but Gisburne does not. The forester explains that it is an ancient festival that the people of Sherwood keep, a celebration to the coming of summer, and that it begins that night. He says that there is feasting in Sherwood, but that nothing can be killed during the festival. Gisburne accuses the man of letting the villagers poach and staying out of their way before the Blessing, which the forester strenuously denies, saying that it is difficult to do anything about it.
Guy appears to be thinking of doing something about the situation, and Hugo warns him against doing anything silly.
Hugo: “Sherwood’s no place to be after dark.”
Guy: “Do you think I’m afraid of shadows?”
Hugo: “No, I don’t. But what about your men?”
Guy: “Soon I shall have men that fear nothing.”
In an alehouse, some French soldiers are getting very drunk and smashing the place up. The innkeeper tells a boy to fetch Robin Hood.
The outlaws are enjoying themselves in Sherwood, eating and making merry. An older woman has set her sights on Tuck, much to the amusement of Robin and Marion.
At the castle Gisburne and Hugo are also eating, in a far less celebratory mood. The French soldiers from the tavern let themselves in, and when Gisburne sees them he greets their leader, Bertrand, and they embrace as ‘old friends’. Bertrand notices the scars on Guy’s face and says, “You’ve been in the wars, I see.” Guy replies, “Yes, that’s why you’re here.”
Bertrand also declares that Guy has put on weight, which he denies. Bertrand then starts reminiscing about a battle they fought in at Argentan. He suddenly draws his sword on Guy, who is given a sword by one of the other Frenchmen. During their fight Bertrand quickly disarms Guy, who starts talking about another battle in Montauban, where Bertrand became trapped under his horse. The Frenchman vehemently denies this, even though Guy is sure it was him. Bertrand, however, remembers Chauvigny, when Gisburne fell off a siege ladder and killed two of his men. The visitors all laugh at this, then Bertrand tells Guy that they are here at his command, if he can afford it.
In Sherwood the outlaws and villagers settle in the clearing, and Herne appears. Children lay out offerings of food, and they all bow their heads.
Back at the castle Hugo is introduced to Bertrand, and says he has already heard of him.
Gisburne: “One of the finest soldiers in Europe.”
Hugo: “And one of the richest.”
Bertrand: “That’s true. Fighting is nearly as profitable as praying.”
Bertrand tells Hugo that Guy asked them to come, which the abbot is not happy about, given the reputation of these Brabancon cutthroats for rape and pillage. Hugo wants them out of Nottingham but Gisburne tells him he has brought them in to destroy Robin Hood, “and every man, woman and child who supports him!”. Hugo leaves, still not happy.
The celebration in Sherwood continues with music and dancing. The next morning the outlaws are practising fighting, and Nasir is overpowering John with his own brand of wrestling. The boy from the alehouse appears and tells them about the strangers smashing everything up. They all rush off back with him, and the innkeeper tells them it was Brabancons.
Robin: “Why do they do it?”
Tuck: “It’s their idea of a good time.”
Robin reminds them that it was Brabancons who killed Will’s wife. Scarlet, in a rage, wants to go after them but Robin points out that they were on horses so that they won’t be able to catch them. He does promise, however, that they will get them.
Gisburne and the Brabancons arrive at Wickham. Guy tells Edward that he’s looking for venison and the means of acquiring it. Edward says that there’s nothing in the village, but Gisburne sees an altar with a stag’s skull with antlers on it and seizes it as proof of poaching. Edward tells him that the antlers are nearly a hundred years old but Gisburne just breaks the skull in half.
The Brabancons call Guy. They have found a decorated tree, which Edward tells them is sacred to Herne. They go up and look in the tree but can’t find any bows, arrows or venison. Guy is furious, and shouting, “You’ll burn in hell, you filthy heathens!” he starts chopping at the tree. Edward begs him to stop, then says that he is cursed. The Brabancons seem to notice an odd feeling, then Edward calls on Herne to curse him. Just for a moment we see an image of Gisburne flailing around in the woods.
At Nottingham Castle Gisburne is talking to Hugo about Herne, saying that he should stop this witchcraft. Hugo is not bothered. He doesn’t see it as witchcraft and says that as long as the villagers go to Mass, have their children baptised and get married and buried as Christians, he doesn’t mind what they get up to in between.
Hugo: “You leave well alone, Gisburne, or you may find the old gods aren’t as dead as you think.”
Gisburne: “Dead! They never existed!”
Guy storms out in a rage, and Hugo, feeling that he has gone too far, decides to write to his brother.
In Wickham, now the Brabancons have gone, John comforts Meg and Will comforts the girl he was dancing with the night before. Meg tells them that they went towards Elderford and the outlaws prepare to follow, but Marion stops them. She reminds them that they can’t kill them because it is the time of the Blessing and Edward agrees, saying, “If you shed blood, then Herne’s blessing will be denied and the harvest will fail.”
Will and John are furious, but Robin tells them that they will just have to capture the Brabancons unharmed. In a short ceremony Robin asks for Herne’s protection and drinks from a cup with Edward, to seal the bond between the outlawed and the oppressed.
The outlaws find and stop the Brabancons in the wood and tell Gisburne that they can leave alive if he pays them off. Gisburne realises that they won’t kill them because it’s the time of the Blessing, so Robin and John run off, hoping to entice them into a trap. Unfortunately, Guy realises what they are up to and stops short. He decides to go and eat at Wickham, and he and the Brabancons leave.
Scarlet is very frustrated, “Blessing?! Not much of a blessing for us, was it?!”
The Brabancons make themselves comfortable in Wickham while the villagers feed them. Edward comes up and tells them that the mummers have arrived to perform a play. Gisburne is getting increasingly paranoid and decides that it is another pagan ritual, to the ridicule of the Brabancons.
The mummers appear, dressed in rags, and it soon becomes apparent that they are the outlaws in disguise. Robin is St George, and John is a Saracen knight in a hobby horse, both with large wooden swords. Tuck is George’s mother, with string pigtails and a large pair of false bosoms, while Scarlet is a doctor with a large bag and sacking over his head. Much is inside a sort of haystack and Marion and Nasir are similarly disguised. The play starts, with the outlaws putting on strong peasant accents, and the Brabancons are very entertained.
Robin and John announce themselves, then parry with their wooden swords. Robin falls down dead, and Tuck runs up, calling for a doctor. Scarlet ‘cures’ Robin, and as he jumps up the outlaws suddenly attack Gisburne and the surprised Brabancons, using the wooden swords and their fists. They overpower all of them and tie them up, then they and the villagers leave to go into Sherwood.
The celebrations begin. Scarlet takes Robin off to one side and asks him what he’s going to do about Gisburne and the Brabancons. Will thinks that they should kill them, and when Robin says that they can’t, he points out that they’ll have to do something about them, because if they let them go they’ll just come back and kill the villagers.
Bertrand manages to free himself and knocks out the two villagers left to guard them. Gisburne and the Brabancons head towards the celebrations. In the woods the outlaws and the villagers wait for Herne and Gisburne decides to kill him.
Herne appears and Bertrand shoots him. The villagers run off in panic as the Brabancons attack, killing the men and carrying off the women. Guy sees Herne get up and follows him, getting lost in the process. It was Robin he was following, wearing the stag’s head, as Herne is injured. Herne tells them that the Blessing has been made, and that they should leave Gisburne to the trees. Guy runs through the woods, tripping in the undergrowth and hearing voices. He eventually arrives back at the castle, gabbling, “Save me! Save me!”
Hugo: “Save you? What are you talking about?”
Guy: “The forest, the trees. The trees!”
Hugo: “Save you from the trees? Have you been drinking?”
Guy: “Herne! Herne!”
Hugo: “I warned you, didn’t I Gisburne?”
The Brabancons, having left Sherwood after Gisburne disappeared, are on their way home, and stop at the alehouse again for a drink. Robin is sitting in there, quietly. A couple of the Brabancons go over to him and, getting no response to their taunting, start pouring ale over his head. He continues to ignore them until he suddenly erupts from his seat and the other outlaws burst in and start attacking the Brabancons.
The outlaws have them beaten so Bertrand tries to run away, but Robin stops him and they have a sword fight. Robin wins but Bertrand suddenly grabs Marion and rides off with her in front of him. Robin waits until he has ridden just the right distance away then lets fly with his longbow. The arrow kills Bertrand but leaves Marion unharmed.
They send the remaining Brabancons off without weapons or money, and Robin swears that if they ever come to Sherwood again they will be buried there.
The outlaws say their goodbyes to the villagers, and Tuck gets a kiss from his new lady friend.
Best lines and moments
There are lots of memorable lines and moments in this episode.
When Nasir is showing off his martial arts skills to John:
John: “That’s not wrestling!”
Marion: “But it works!”
When Gisburne finds the altar in Wickham:
Gisburne: “That’s proof of poaching.”
Edward: “Those antlers are nigh on a hundred years old. If you want the man who killed that stag you’ll have to dig him up.”
Gisburne breaks the skull.
Edward: “You call this law?”
Gisburne: “The only law.”
Best curse:
Edward: “Herne, Lord of the Trees, let him see your power. Let the terror of darkness hunt him down and hold him in the coldness of death.”
Best put-down:
When Bertrand grabs Meg as she is serving the Brabancons, and kisses her.
Bertrand: “Do you like handsome men, ma petite chou-chou?”
Meg: “Yeah, d’you know any?”
Robin: “Maybe Gisburne’s learning to think!”
John: “That makes him dangerous.”
Robin (to Gisburne): “It’s a pity you’ll miss the blessing. You’re badly in need of one!”
Bertrand: “You’re a dead man, peasant!”
Robin: “I don’t feel dead”
The mummer’s play is great fun, though it’s interesting to speculate on where they got the costumes, not to mention the script. Here it is in its entirety:
Robin: “In comes I, St George is my name. With my great sword I mean to win this game. If I could meet the Saracen knight here I’d fight him and bite him and stick my sword in his ear.”
John: “Then in comes I, the Saracen knight. I’ve come from the farthest lands to fight. I’ve come to fight St Peter the bold...”
Robin: “George!”
John: “...George the bold, and if his blood runs hot, I’ll make it cold.”
They parry with their wooden swords.
Robin: “Battle to battle, to you I call, to see who on this ground shall fall.”
John: “Battle to battle, to thee I pray, to see who on this ground shall lay.”
Robin falls down dead, and Tuck runs up.
Tuck: “Ooh doctor, doctor, oh where can a doctor be, to cure my son who lies like a fallen tree.”
Scarlet: “In comes I, a doctor good, and with this hand shall stop the scarlet blood.”
Tuck: “Oh, what can you cure?”
Scarlet: “Anything! I can cure a magpie with toothache.”
Tuck: “How?”
Scarlet: “Cut his head off! With this bag I can cure all ills. The itch, stitch, palsy and gout. Pains within and pains without. Rise up!”
Robin: “Once I was dead and now I’m alive! Blessed be the doctor who did me revive!”
The exchange between Will and Robin, where Robin tries to explain why they shouldn’t kill their prisoners, is great. Scarlet poses questions that many viewers have considered, and it’s easy to appreciate his practical point of view, especially considering the brutal world they live in. In the end, Robin doesn’t have to address the problem, and Herne deals with Gisburne for them. To be fair though, if it wasn’t for the Blessing they wouldn’t have had to capture them, and would have been able to get them in a fair fight.
Will: “What about Gisburne and his mates? I mean, we can’t exactly let them go.”
Robin: “Well, we can’t exactly kill ’em either.”
Will: “Why?”
Robin: “They’re prisoners, Will.”
Will: “Then I’ll do it.”
Robin: “You can’t kill prisoners.”
Will: “Look, when I was a soldier, we killed everyone we captured. Now, you’ve spared Gisburne twice. He ain’t exactly shown himself grateful, has he?”
Robin: “If we killed Gisburne in cold blood, then we’d be no better than he is.”
Will: “Well, what makes you think we are? I mean, what about the men-at-arms we’ve killed? How do you feel about them? Now, you kill Gisburne and you’ll be doing the world a favour. As for that bunch of mercenary scum, the sooner we send them back to hell, the better.”
Robin: “We can’t do it.”
Scarlet: “Then you’d better come up with an answer, ’cause if you don’t all these people, your people, are gonna die.”
Review
This is a very good, basic episode of RoS, with the usual mix of drama, humour and action, but with the twist of dealing with the element of Herne and the pre-Christian religious beliefs that make RoS stand out from other versions of the Robin Hood legend. Here we see that the villagers of Wickham have a strong belief in the old ways, and revere Herne as much as the outlaws do. Edward of Wickham makes his debut and proves to be an interesting character. He supports and believes in the outlaws, but still has to live with the consequences of the actions of the Sheriff and Gisburne. His unwillingness to accept their, often brutal, treatment of himself and the other villagers frequently has unpleasant consequences, making him in some ways even braver than the outlaws, which they clearly respect. This is shown in the ceremony featured in this episode where Robin and Edward drink from the same cup to seal the bond between “we of the forest and you of the village, between the outlawed and the oppressed.”
Edward’s strength of belief in Herne, as Lord of the Trees, is at the heart of this episode, as it is his curse that eventually punishes Gisburne. It is fair to say that not all the outlaws believe in his power. Robin, as Herne’s son, certainly does, but he has great moments of doubt, as we saw in The Children of Israel. Marion believes as well, and seems more secure in her belief. I think she has a strong spiritual side to her nature, perhaps stemming from her previous lack of worldly power in Norman society which led her to place her trust in God and then in the spiritual power that Herne represents. Tuck, also, seems to be able to align his belief in a Christian God with the powers he finds around him in Sherwood, and Much would go along with whatever Robin believes in. John, Will and Nasir, however, are all men of action, and believe principally in themselves, never really trusting in anything intangible. They may have seen proof of Herne’s power, for example in the events at the end of The King’s Fool, but they don’t rely on it.
We also get to see Hugo at his most sensible in this episode. One might have expected to see a contrast between Herne and the old beliefs and the corrupt and intolerant Church, but instead we have the powerful and almost vengeful forest deity and an abbot who accepts the reality of the old gods and is perfectly happy for the villagers to believe what they want. It is instead Gisburne, in his ignorance and cruelty, who suffers from the power of the Lord of the Trees.
Cast in order of appearance
Robin Hood....Michael Praed
Marion....Judi Trott
Much....Peter Llewellyn Williams
Friar Tuck....Phil Rose
Nasir....Mark Ryan
Will Scarlet....Ray Winstone
Little John....Clive Mantle
Meg....Claire Toeman
Meg’s friends....Leigh Samuels, Jaz Abineri, Deborah Cranston
Edward....Jeremy Bulloch
Guy of Gisburne....Robert Addie
Abbot Hugo....Phillip Jackson
Forester....Ian Brimble
Walter....Mark Lewis
Bertrand de Nivelle....Oliver Tobias
Guillaume....Patrick Gordon
Alehouse Keeper....Nicholas Brent
Pot Boy....Jacob Powers
Widow....Jill James
Herne the Hunter....John Abineri
Episode Guide written by Lucy of Ravenscar
First appeared in Nothing's Forgotten newsletter issue 8, January 1998
