'Robin Hood' as told by Nanny Piggins

When Nanny Piggins finds out that Samantha has been learning about Robin Hood at school, she tells her the true story of her distant relative and the forgotten story of the cake she ate.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to ‘Bedtime Stories’ with me, R.A. Spratt.  Today’s story is… 

‘Robin Hood’ as told by Nanny Piggins

Here we go…

Derrick, Samantha and Michael had just returned from school. The found Nanny Piggins in the kitchen taking dougnuts and jamming blocks of chocolate into the doughnut holes, for their afternoon snack. Boris was helping by nibbling the doughnuts to make the holes bigger so she could get in more chocolate.

‘So what did you learn about today at school?’ asked Nanny Piggins. She was usually horrified by what the school considered to be educational, but she quite enjoyed being horrified so she always asked. Sometimes the things the children learned were even more shocking than the revelations on her favourite daytime TV soap opera. 

‘I had to learn about parabolas,’ said Derrick.

‘Hard luck,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But still, it’s important to know when you want to blast yourself out a cannon. One misjudgement and you can end up landing face first in a bucket of popcorn in someone’s lap in the front row. And that’s if things go well.’

‘I learned about Hadrian’s wall,’ said Michael.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You know a wall is a good wall if it’s still standing 2000 years later. The fence Mrs McGill built between our back yards only last 6 months.’

‘That was because you kept climbing over it to ‘borrow’ sugar and other cake ingrediants from her kitchen when she popped in to town,’ said Derrick.

‘Yes, which is why she should have built a wall just like Hadrian,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Something nice and sturdy for his neighbours to clambour over when they forgot to buy eggs.’

‘We’re learning about myths and legends,’ said Samantha. ‘We’re starting with the story of Robin Hood.’

‘But that’s not a myth,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That’s entirely factual.’

‘That’s not what our English teacher says,’ said Samantha.

‘Well what would he know?’ asked Nanny Piggins. ‘Was he there?’

‘No,’ conceded Samantha. ‘It is an 800 year old story.’

‘Pish, that’s no excuse. I know all about it because my great times 37 greats cousin was there,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Really?’ said Michael.

‘Oh yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘In fact, her name was Robin Hood. Her birth name was Robin Piggins, but she changed her name to protect the identity of her family when she took up her life of crime.’

‘But Robin Hood was a man,’ said Derrick.

‘I don’t know why you’d assume that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Robin can be a girl’s name as well as a boy’s name. No, my cousin Robin was definitely a girl. She was stunningly beautiful in fact. As you know, extreme beauty is a genetic curse all of us Piggins’ must endure.’

‘You’re very brave about it though, Nanny Piggins,’ said Michael.

‘I have to be,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It does grow wearisome having men constantly falling in love with me at first sight, before they’ve even tried a bite of my chocolate cake, the numbers sky rocket once they do that. But we Piggins must learn from birth to withstand the constant adoration.’

‘So the story of Robin Hood is all true then?’ asked Samantha.

‘Well… I wouldn’t say ‘all’ true,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘There are a few inaccuracies.’

‘What inaccuracies?’ asked Derrick.

‘You know how Robin Hood was famous for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Yes,’ said the children.

‘Well that’s not quite how my cousin did it,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Robin would rob from the rich. Full stop. End of sentence.’

‘She didn’t give to the poor?’ asked Samantha.

‘To be fair,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She was quite poor herself. So technically she robbed from the rich and kept for one member of the poor, herself.’

‘Still,’ said Derrick. ‘That’s not a good look. Stealing is wrong.’

‘Technically, yes,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘I think pretty much everyone agrees about that,’ said Samantha.

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It was a terrible immoral lapse of judgement on her part. But you have to understand times were hard 800 years ago in Britain. Chocolate hadn’t been discovered yet. Sugar hadn’t been discovered yet. It was a dreadful time to be alive.’

‘But was there honey?’ asked Boris.

‘Yes,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Pheuw,’ said Boris.

‘But glass jars hadn’t been invented, nor supermarkets,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘So the only way of getting honey was by sticking your hand in a beehive.’

‘The bees don’t like it when you do that,’ said Boris sadly.

‘No,’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘It was a harsh life. To make matters worst while the vast majority of people had next to nothing. The nobility and the royal family were so rich it was insane. They lived lavish lifestyles in castles, with fancy robs and solid gold crowns.’

‘And as many honey sandwiches as they could eat?’ asked Boris.

‘Yes!’ agreed Nanny Piggins. ‘So it was only natural, that my cousin Robin when she was staggering through the forest one day, searching for a beehive, and she came across a totally unattended royal picnic with dozens of cakes, trifles and puddings - what was she to do?’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Derrick. ‘Why was there a totally unattended royal picnic lying in the middle of the forest?’

‘Royalty are notorioiusly dim witted,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘I think it’s all the crown wearing. Gold is very heavy you see and I think the compression on their brains causes permanent damage. Anyway, they’d made their servants lay out the picnic, but before they sat down to eat the king and all his courtiers decided to have an archery competition.’

‘That’s crazy,’ said Michael.

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Who would leave a cake lying unattened. Only a fool. But remember, chocolate had not been invented yet. So there was no chocolate cake. Still, you’d never catch me leaving a dundeed cake or a madeira sponge lying around for a millisecond. Anyway Robin stepped into the clearing, saw the spread of cakes and…’

‘Ate it all?’ guessed Michael.

‘We can’t be sure,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She was so overwhelmed by the situation that she flew into a frenzy. When she woke up all the cake was gone and she was lying in a patch of cake crumbs, with icing stains all down her robes and a very full feeling stomach. So we assume that’s what happened.’

‘She must have got in a lot of trouble,’ said Michael.

‘Yes, the King had no sense of humour about it at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. 

‘Off with her head!’ he shouted. ‘If I can’t have cake, then I will dine on bacon for my tea.’

‘How rude!’ exclaimed Boris.

‘Exactly,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Robin leapt to her feet and took off running into the forest.’

The King put up wanted posters everywhere and offered a reward for anyone who captured Robin alive or dead. 

‘What was the reward?’ asked Michael. ‘Lots of gold coins.’

‘No,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The King offered something much more valuable. He offered 500 golden sponge cakes.’

‘When Robin saw the posters she knew there was no escaping for her,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘Because someone was going to dob her in?’ asked Samantha.

‘No, because she was going to dob herself in,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She wanted those cakes. But she had to be careful that no one captured her and claimed the cakes first. So she donned an ingenious disguise. A big bushy false moustache and snuck in to the castle. She had planned to find the King, present herself and demand the cake.’

‘But why would he give her the cake, once he had her?’ asked Derrick.

‘Yes, it isn’t the most logical plan,’ conceded Nanny Piggins. ‘But she was cake addled at the time, so her reasoning probably wasn’t top notch. But it doesn’t matter because she never got that far. You see when she snuck in to the castle, the back door she creapt in through, just happened to be the door – to the kitchen.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Derrick. He could sense how a story about a member of the Piggins family could go wrong in a kitchen.

‘And as soon as she stepped in to the room she fell in love,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘With a beautiful cake?’ asked Samantha. Members of Nanny Piggisn family often fell passionately in love with baked goods.

‘There was a lovely brioche on the bench that she did scoop up and eat,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But that was not what captured her heart. It was the man who made them. It was the cook. His name was Man Marion.’

‘Don’t you mean Maid Marion?’ asked Derrick.

‘Oh no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘That is mistranslation that has been misinterpreted through the mists of history. Marion, like Robin, can be both a girl’s and a boy’s name. And this Marion was a boy. Well a man. No, man Marion made the cakes, so they were made by Mariorn, or rather Marion Made. You can see how easy it would be for people to confuse that.’

‘So she fell in love with Marion and the cakes made by Marion,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘She immediately forgot all about the King and tried to kidnap Marion. But Marion was a tall man who took great pride in his work, and as you know, a good baker must sample their creations. So he was – what is the politest way to put this – not a slim statured fellow.’

‘Hey!’ protested Boris. Being a fully grown Kodiak bear he was not slim statured himself.

‘Not that there is anything wrong with that,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But Robin was a diminutive pig and when she tried to sling Marion over her shoulder she collapsed on the grown. So she had to win Marion over another way. Luckily he liked a pig in tights, and was very impressed with her ability to swing from vines, and as I say – she was staggeringly beautiful. So she soon won him over. Marion ran away with Robin and they lived cakefully ever after. 

‘Is that like living happily ever after?’ asked Michael.

‘Oh it’s much better,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Because when you live cakefully ever after, you’re happy and you have cake. 

Baking and eating cake brought them so much joy, that they always had plenty of left over to share with the poor. And eventually, just 600 years later Britain got a full parliamentary democracy, so that showed the king, and they all lived happily ever after. The end. 

‘That’s definitely not the version they’ve been teaching us at school,’ said Samantha. 

‘I know,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘It’s a disgrace the way cake based issues are erased from the history books. Which is why it is so important that we must all eat cake. As a mark of respect to the history of cake and all it has given to our culture.

‘Now, who’d like another chocolate stuffed doughnut?’

The end.

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That’s it for now, until next time. Goodbye.