The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Black Arrow
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Whiling away my time in the library of The American School in London, I found this book purely by chance. I was in the seventh grade at the time.

The Black Arrow is set in England in the days of Henry VI. It opens with the knight Sir Daniel leaving a trail of rack and ruin across the countryside surrounding his Moat House. The villainous archer Appleyard (veteran of Agincourt), man-at-arms Bennett Hatch and Sir Oliver Oates assist Sir Daniel. The outlaw Jon Amend-All vows revenge against all four of them, taunting them in this note nailed to the door of the church:

Dick Shelton took the page in his hand and read it aloud. It contained some lines of very rugged doggerel, hardly even rhyming, written in a gross character, and most uncouthly spelt. With the spelling somewhat bettered, this is how they ran:

I had four blak arrows under my belt,
Four for the greefs that I have felt,
Four for the number of ill menne
That have oppressed me now and then


One is gone; one is wele sped;
Old Appleyaird is dead.
One is for Master Bennet Hatch,
That burned Grimstone, walls and thatch.


One is for Sir Oliver Oates,
Who cut Sir Harry Shelton's throat.
Sir Daniel, ye shall have the fourth;
We shall think it fair sport.


Ye shall each have your own part,
A blak arrow in each blak heart.
Get ye to your knees for to pray,
Ye are dead theeves by yea and nay.

From Jon Amend-All of the Green Wood and his jolly fellowship

"Now, well-a-day for charity and the Christian graces!" cried Sir Oliver, lamentably. "Sirs, this is an ill world, and daily groweth worse."

The book was filmed in 1911 and 1948. It was also an Australian TV special in 1973.