Walking Sticks
Musings
~ by Mark Blackwell“ Without my walking stick, I’ d go insane.”
— Irving Berlin
One of my all-time favorite stories is about Robin Hood, the medieval outlaw of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, Merry Old England. A thousand years ago that forest was a little bigger than Brown County State Park but big enough for a band of merry men to hide in.
What I like best about the story is the way it was portrayed by Errol Flynn in the 1938 movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood. When I first saw it as a young man, I was convinced that camping out in the woods with a bunch of your buddies and relieving rich folks of their surplus wealth could be a valid lifestyle. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Robin Hood meets John Little.
Robin is hiking down a trail in Sherwood Forest when he comes to a stream. Across the stream is a log that is used as a footbridge. As Robin sets foot on the log a very large fellow on the opposite side of the stream steps up on his side. As they approach the middle of the bridge neither man gives way.
So, here are two guys walking in the woods with their trusty walking sticks and they wind up nose-to-nose on a fallen tree trunk. On one side we have John
Little, upwards of seven feet tall and probably weighing around twenty-one and a half stone( that’ s about 300 pounds American weight) telling Robin to yield.
On the other side is Robin Hood, who is average height and weight but sporting an outsized ego. Robin refuses to yield and challenges John Little to a fight with quarterstaffs( old English for hiking stick). The fight doesn’ t last very long. John Little gives Robin a fair drubbing and knocks him into the stream.
Robin, his ego now dampened but in better control, laughs at his predicament, reverses his foe’ s name and dubs him Little John. Little John helps Robin out of the creek and a beautiful friendship is born.
30 Our Brown County • March / April 2024