“That’s no crime as I see it,” said Robin. “You have told me just in time. If they are to be hanged today, I must be along quickly now.” And he hurried off, towards the site of gallows. As he walked, he pondered how to save the widow’s sons.

“I need some sort of disguise, to get me in to the town without the sheriff knowing,” he thought. At that moment, he happened upon an old man dressed in rags, a palmer² back from his journey to the Holy Land. “What news have you?” Robin asked the man.

“There’s to be a hanging today—three hangings to be exact. And a shame it is. For the three who are to be hanged are no villains, I say.”

“Why then are they to be hanged?” asked Robin.

“The sheriff finds killing the king’s deer to be a crime. He wishes to make an example, for he is charged with stopping the hunting of the king’s beasts. Yet, he sees nothing wrong with the likes of me and the likes of the three going hungry for want of meat, when a bit of venison would be a treat.”

Robin looked at the man shrewdly. “Thank you for the news, good man. And for your troubles, I propose a trade. I will give you my clothes and thirty silver coins in exchange for your clothes. What say you?”

“Don’t poke fun at an old man, who has but little in this life,” he protested.

“I am in earnest. Come, come, I haven’t all day,” urged Robin. “I’ll give you these pieces of gold for your hat and your cloak, and your tattered old breaches.”

“’Tis not a fair trade,” thought the man, “but it will do me a world of good.” So he did not protest when Robin plucked the hat from his head and placed it on his own. Robin dressed himself in the patched breeches and the threadbare cloak. He tucked his arrows under his clothes, unstrung his bow and leaned upon it as a staff. He had his disguise, and he thought, perhaps, a plan.

Robin continued down the road, looking for all the world like the worn, old palmer he pretended to be. He reached the town and found that quite a crowd had gathered in the square. He asked some of those near him what all the hubbub was about.

“The sheriff is to hang three men today.”

“For what crime?” asked Robin.

“For poaching on the king’s land,” came the reply.

“And this is a spectacle for all the town to see. Does nobody protest such action? For shame!” Robin cried.

“We dare not protest the sheriff, for he would have our heads as well. Besides, the fellows did break the law. And there’s the sheriff now.”

Robin caught sight of the sheriff and began to move through the crowd. He neared the gallows and approached the sheriff. “What price do you pay your hangman today?” Robin asked. “Might you permit this old man to do the job?”

“Clothes of the hanged, of course, and by the looks of it you could use them,” said the sheriff with a laugh. “Plus sixpence, two pence per man—the usual hangman’s price. The job is yours if you do it right quick.”

“Allow me first to take the last confessions of the men; they should not die without that.”

“Very well, but be speedy, old man,” said the sheriff impatiently.

“And mind you if I string up my bow that I might end their misery once they begin to swing from the ropes?”

“Fine, but again I say be quick about it.”

So Robin prepared his bow and approached the widow’s sons. The prisoners were bound at the hands with the nooses ready round their necks. Robin leaned in to the first man, as though to hear his confession and give him absolution.³ But what he said was this: “Stand still, my good man, as I cut your hands free. When I throw off my cloak, pull the noose from your neck and run quickly to the forest.”

To each man in turn Robin did the same. Then turning from the last, he faced the crowd and the sheriff and shouted, “I’m no hangman, nor do I wish to be!” He pulled a horn from under his rags and blew it long and loud. Then with a flourish, he tossed off his cloak. At this sign, the three men pulled the nooses from their necks and scrambled for the forest.

“After them,” ordered the sheriff.

“Halt!” shouted Robin. He had an arrow ready on his bow. “The first man to approach will have my arrow for a souvenir. And any who have seen me shoot know I can hit my mark.”

“Yet, even you cannot shoot all at once,” laughed the sheriff. “I have you now, Robin Hood.” But at that moment, a hundred men in green streamed into the square, for Robin’s men had heard the blast of his horn.

“Stop them,” the sheriff shouted into the confusion. But the sheriff’s men could not stop the men in green. Robin leapt down into the crowd. He and his men let off a shower of arrows as they edged backward out of the town. They disappeared into the forest, as the widow’s sons had done before them.

And that is how Robin saved three of his men from wrongly losing their lives.