The Saplings of Sherwood

Robin Hood and Maid Marian

Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
Telling his beads,
All in the greenwood
Among the green weeds. 

~from the nursery rhyme "Robin Hood and Little John"

 Having grown up in a house surrounded by woods, I have always had a fascination with life in the forest, with the solitude, the dangers, the sense of freedom inherent in wilderness dwelling. Robin Hood has long been one of my heroes. He is essentially a noble character forced by circumstances to rebel against unjust laws. There are many tales about Robin Hood, ballads and poems spanning the centuries, including an account of his death. And not to forget the wonderful poem by Alfred Noyes, Sherwood Forest, which captures the magic of the Robin Hood tales:

Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Grey and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake,
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.

In Book 1 The Saplings of Sherwood of her new series The Telling of the Beads, Avellina Balestri revives the mystery and magic of the great forests of England which were the settings for many legendary quests and adventures, from those of King Arthur and his knights to those of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Saplings imaginatively recounts the childhood of the folk hero called Robin of Locksley, the son and heir of a Saxon noble in the century following the Norman conquest of 1066. As Robin comes of age in the country where his people have been defeated and are second-class citizens, he finds the sufferings of the common folk more and more unbearable. Not only the poor suffer, however, as Robin's nemesis Roger Cavendish endures abuse at the hands of his own family, crippling him emotionally and spiritually. Meanwhile, Robin's devotion to his neighbor Marian Fitzwalter, a highborn Norman maiden, grows amid local quarrels and misunderstandings as well as festivals and happy times.

From Dr. Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative:

It was in the light or shadow of such historical abuse that I plucked a new novel, Saplings of Sherwood, from those shelves in my library that contain contemporary fiction. Published last year, it is billed as Book One of a larger work, The Telling of the Beads. As the title suggests, Saplings of Sherwood has as its setting the area surrounding Sherwood Forest during the years when Robin Locksley and Maid Marian were children and later teenagers. This is the first thing that gripped me. This is a book in which children are the principal characters, but it’s not a children’s book. On the contrary. Some of the content is decidedly not suited for children. In most fiction written for adults, children are decidedly absent, as creatures not really belonging in the adult world. Similarly, in most children’s literature, adults are decidedly absent or at least only visible in the periphery of our vision, as though adults do not really belong in the world of the child. It is difficult to have the both worlds not merely presented in parallel but in an interwoven drama of intersecting and conflicting desires. Only the greatest writers can do this successfully. One thinks perhaps of Dickens. In this sense, the young author of this novel, Avellina Balestri, has the mark of a great author, or at least a great author in the making.

As I continued reading with a heightened degree of interest and avidity, I wondered why such a novel had been self-published. Why had Miss Balestri not secured a reputable publisher for this work of indubitable literary merit? As I read on, the reason became apparent. On the one hand, the real presence of Catholicism would have precluded its acceptance by any secular publisher in our political and ideologically-charged culture. On the other hand, Miss Balestri’s unflinching approach to sexual activity would preclude its being accepted by any Christian publisher, except the most adventurous, such as Wiseblood Books.

With regard to the presence of sexual practices, Miss Balestri shows an all too rare sensibility. She is certainly not prudish nor puritanical, nor is she even coy; yet neither does she succumb to the lascivious voyeurism which is all too common in contemporary fiction. We are not left at the cabin door in the manner in which Waugh leaves the reader in Brideshead Revisited when Charles and Julia cross the threshold into Julia’s cabin and into the commencement of their adulterous affair; nor are we invited into the room to become a fly-on-the-wall. Instead, Miss Balestri shows us rape, attempted rape, child abuse, marital relations, and adulterous relations, without ever losing control of the descriptive language necessary to keep such incidents from becoming either offensive or titillating. This is a rare gift indeed.

Most important is the historical realism which pervades the telling of the tale. Even allowing for the fact that Sherwood Forest is a place of mystery, shrouded with mythic mist and haunted by the shades of the legendary spirits which walk in its shadows, the backdrop of twelfth-century England is alive with historical verity. Miss Balestri has done her homework. The tension between the Saxon population and their Norman overlords is shown as it must have been at the time. The daily lives of the protagonists seem to reflect what we know or imagine we know about the daily lives of people in medieval England. There is no gatecrashing of the past with anomalous and absurd characters from the present day, parachuted in to deliver the moral agenda of the nihilistic zeitgeist. There are no radical feminists or militant atheists. Instead, there are sinners innumerable and noble souls who try to live virtuously in spite of temptations to pride, hatred, anger, violence, and lust. They are not saints themselves, but they revere the saints enough to want to become more like them. They are, therefore, whether they know it or not, saints in the making. Such are Robin Locksley and Maid Marian.

It is perilous to offer the final word on any work of literature until the final word is written. I have no idea whether Miss Balestri has yet even written the final word. As such, I have no idea whether Book Two of The Telling of the Beads will be as good as this first book or, for that matter, whether there will be a Book Three or a Book Four. I do know, however, that I have just finished a truly masterful piece of storytelling. It is not without flaws, which I will desist from listing, but they are remarkably few in number. Above all, it is historical fiction which offers a true reflection of what is known of the historical facts. Although the story moves in the mysterious spaces in which the historical pieces are missing, it does so in a way that fits comfortably beside the historical pieces that are present in the documentary records. (Read more.)

Robin Hood and Maid Marian

 About the Author:

Avellina Balestri is a Catholic author and editor based in the historic borderlands of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Her stories, poems, and essays have been featured in over thirty print and online publications. She has published two books: "Saplings of Sherwood", the first book in a Robin Hood retelling series, and "Pendragon's Shield", a collection of poetry. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Fellowship & Fairydust, a magazine inspiring faith & creativity and exploring the arts through a spiritual lens.

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