froginthecreek

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La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Robert Anning Bell (1893)

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dandelion halo німб-кульбабка

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[froginthecreek]

things you can do as a goblin in the modern age:

treat AI like you would shapeshifters. look out for the warning signs. avoid engaging with them as much as possible. if you can't avoid them, don't trust them

thrift and repurpose whatever and whenever you can

educate yourself on what edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants you can grow in your habitable space (especially if you've been forced to become an urban dweller)

educate yourself on what tiny little critters are actually positive for your living environment (for example: how to identify non-venomous spiders that actually contribute to pest control, so you don't accidentally kill or disturb them)

treat bureaucracy as you would malevolent fae. learn your loopholes. memorize the wording that will get you off the hook. follow the letter and not the spirit of the law. let them tie themselves into knots with their own rules and procedures

your workplace is the ideal place for mischief; hinder the powerful and support the powerless. learn who is affected by your tricks and plan accordingly

treat ads as you would sirens: don't listen to them and get out of there as fast as possible

claim what little power you have. decorate yourself however you want to. adorn your lair until it feels like home. sleep as much as you can. adjust your diet to feel alive. drink water and listen to music and remember to write by hand. find the magic in the ordinary

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Holly berries!

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✨ ye olde daily planner ✨

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The Forest Nymph Overheard the Hermit by Alexander Rothaug (1870-1946)

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TO RETURN TO MY TREES

“The Overstory” (2019), by Richard Powers; // “Wild Fruits: Thoreau's Rediscovered Last Manuscript” (2001), by Henry David Thoreau; // Kim Novak; // Chinese Proverb; // “To the lighthouse” (1927), by Virginia Woolf; // Santosh Kalwar; // Albert Szent-Gyorgyi; // “Cosmos” (1980), by Carl Sagan; // “Timeline” (1999), by Michael Crichton

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@outlawsofavalon I hear you, and I want to open the floor. I know I'm not the only person on this site with a Robin Hood shelf, and there's nothing I love more than seeing everyone else's Robin Hood shelves. Would the good people of Sherwood please consider reblogging with their Robin Hood shelves? I'll start!

[froginthecreek]

🌲”I am not lost in the forest.

I am simply home.”🌲

~Linda Blackmoor

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"Not For the Faint of Heart" by Lex Croucher

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024 || Read and reviewed in August 2024

Lex Croucher’s “Not For the Faint of Heart” is another book for the short, but growing list of sapphic Robin Hood novels. It’s interesting that this is the first entry where our main queer characters are not Robin and Marian themselves, but original characters who interact and exist within the Robin Hood universe, which makes it somewhat easier to explore the Robin Hood story setting without worrying as much about centuries of lore. The author describes this as a “historical fantasy romcom”, which is exactly how I’d describe it.

This book follows Mariel (Robin Hood’s granddaughter) and a healer named Clem who gets swept along in an adventure with the current iteration of the Merry Men. Robin is retired and gone from Sherwood, and leadership has fallen to his son-in-law who runs the outlaws more like a militia, focused on violently protecting their territory rather than helping the local community. In this confusing era of Sherwood Forest outlaws, Mariel, Clem, and their small company of quick-witted, queer outlaws slowly shifts the mission and priorities back to its roots. And they're all hilarious, too.

For any reader who wants to go on an adventure with a queer found family through Sherwood Forest, cracking (knowingly anachronistic) jokes and counting squirrels, this is the book to read! For sure! I had a great reading experience most of the time, despite some personal issues that I had with it. 

Coming into any Robin Hood book, I come fully equipped and over-informed, along with my deeply personal preconceived ideas. With books like “Not For the Faint of Heart”, I knew that it was important to set as many of those aside as I could and enjoy it for what it is intended to be. In this case, a queer adventure romcom. 

And I did enjoy it! But I have some qualms, too. It won’t affect the reading experience for the majority of people, but I found it disappointing that Marian was given such short shrift, with only a few one-off lines to let readers know that she existed. For a character who has an origin story of cross-dressing, running to the forest, and getting into sword fights, she seems well-suited to be more involved than she was in a sapphic Robin Hood novel.* (See below the “read more” for a spoiler related to this comment.) 

Although I was cruelly deprived of seeing Marian as a grandma, Robin as a grandpa was the sweetest thing, and I have no complaints. My favorite thing about this book is undeniably grandpa Robin, who does have an impact on his granddaughter and is a kind and supportive figure in her young life, and someone that she clearly looks up to and respects. I loved that.

Some fun easter eggs I enjoyed: 

The book opens with Clem making a bycocket for a fox

They use a horn (one time) as the predetermined signal for help, and it’s actually hilarious. “We have purchased a particularly horrible horn. You’ll know it when you hear it.”

I identify as a lesbian, and I’m writing this in my Robin Hood Corner™, so I am the target audience for this book in many ways. I enjoyed reading this! I read a good 60% of it in one sitting. It’s hard to say no to a bunch of queer characters adventuring through Sherwood Forest making Robin Hood puns and jokes. But even though I enjoyed reading this, “Not For the Faint of Heart” is not my perfect sapphic Robin Hood book and it made me consider what I’m really looking for when I search out and read books like this. What is it that I want? Can I actually find that in a sapphic Robin Hood novel? 

Here’s what I landed on: I’m not sure that I can find the perfect sapphic Robin Hood story for me, but! I don’t need to feel personally represented by characters on-page in a Robin Hood story because my personal identity is already so wrapped up in Robin Hood. I’m already there, whether or not my specific sexual and romantic identity is included. Even if this isn’t the perfect fit for me, it's delightful to know that sapphics and other queer folks get to read books like this where they can find a niche for themselves in the wide world of Robin Hood stories. The story of Robin Hood is for everyone.

Robin Hood Shelf: for more Robin Hood book reviews

*Minor spoiler below the cut!

In the distant past of this book, Robin and Marian amicably end their relationship so that Robin and Will Scarlet can get married, with Marian’s complete encouragement and support. With my aforementioned deeply personal preconceived ideas, I feel kind of weird about Robin and Marian being with anyone other than each other. But okay! That’s fine. I can appreciate the heart of this. Unfortunately, rather than allow Marian to stick around as a capable outlaw and a good friend, she dies without explanation and has little to no impact on the Merry Men or her granddaughter. Sigh. Marian has a habit of dying off-page in Robin Hood novels, and I was disappointed to see that continued here. 

In the end, none of that matters to the average reader. I mean, I learned this information in a grand total of four brief lines across the whole book, so it could be very easy for the average reader to skip right over this. It’s just that I have a shelf of Marian books and a Marian spreadsheet, so I care more than most about this.

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for she was a gallant dame || images of Maid Marian || 3/∞ Artist: S. Van Abbé Illustration for "Robin Hood: The Prince of Outlaws" by Carola Oman, 1939

She wasted little daylight sewing, singing, or eating, for every moment she could she spent out of doors, fencing, drawing the long bow, and even essaying to play at single-staff. She rode cross-saddle, like a young lord, knew every point of horse, hawk, and hound, and was beloved by all. Once, when a mettlesome steed bucked her off, in midstream of a river, she swam to shore, cool as a mermaid. Her favourite dress was a page's doublet and hose. Thus attired she would disappear with the outlaws into the greenwood to learn forest secrets and woodcraft.

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Artist: 📸 The Pulp Girls

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The patron

The alien came to the library again, shortly before closing time, and quickly found a book.

"May this entity borrow The Complete History of Knitting?"

They always return the book they borrow after five minutes, but the ritual of checking it out seems important to them. 

"Of course. Did you bring your card?"

I looked them up, after the first time I saw them for real. They first registered with us over ninety years ago. The senior librarian who first told me about them said I shouldn't stare, or pry.

"Whatever else they are, they are a patron, and should be treated as such," she said. "If they seek knowledge, it is our duty to help them find it."

There isn't an ancient and secret code of librarians, but that is definitely a core part of it. If such a code existed.

I scan the card and the book. "There you go," I say and hand them over. "Please return it within two weeks."

They tilt their head. "This entity will honour your terms."

"Oh! That reminds me, we have updated the terms since your last visit." I hand them the pamphlet we got from the printers last week. "It's mostly about internet usage, but I'll need you to read them and agree."

They study the pamphlet.

"These are terms this entity can abide by." They pause. "Is there no requirement to keep your existence secret?"

"Of course not," I say, "we always welcome new patrons."

They stand silent, long enough for me to realise the implications of what I have just said. 

"This entity had made an assumption, based on prior experiences on countless worlds, where knowledge is always closely guarded and costly to obtain" they say at last. "You will provide knowledge for free to all who seek it?"

In my mind, I weigh humanity's ignorance of those countless worlds of alien civilisations against the code.

"Yes," I say, "this is a library."

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A new viewpoint on antlers reveals the evolutionary history of deer (Cervidae, Mammalia)

fullview recommended!

something i've wanted to do for a while now. i've scoured the internet for something like this and can't find anything that compares all the different types of antlers together. except one recent study on their evolution, which is also very interesting on its own! i simplified it to provide a visual reference, while still trying to be scientifically accurate. some things differ between this and trophy scoring terminology like where the beam is and whatnot, so if something looks weird that's why.

small additional note, this study and others provide a lot of evidence that eld's deer should be in their own genus as it doesn't appear similar enough to barasingha and schomburgk's deer. however this doesn't seem to be adapted anywhere yet, so they're still in Rucervus for this guide.

🔴 KO-FI

⚫ COMMISSION INFO

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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.

Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves

Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,

Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:

All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon,

Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mist

Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.

Merry, merry England is waking as of old,

With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:

For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Love is in the greenwood building him a house

Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs:

Love is in the greenwood, dawn is in the skies,

And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.

Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep!

Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?

Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,

Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,

Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,

And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.

Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together

With quarter-staff and drinking-can and grey goose-feather.

The dead are coming back again, the years are rolled away

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows.

All the heart of England his in every rose

Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,

Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old

And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold

Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep,

Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?

Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glen

All across the glades of fern he calls his merry men—

Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day—

Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash

Rings the Follow! Follow! and the boughs begin to crash,

The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly,

And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.

Robin! Robin! Robin! All his merry thieves

Answer as the bugle-note shivers through the leaves,

Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,

In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.

-Alfred Noyes, A Song of Sherwood