Ethel the frog thought to herself.
Just then the knight heard a bugle calling all knights to arms. It was hard work getting out of the deckchair with all that heavy armour on, and in doing so he accidentally trod on the frog.
“Ah, poor froggy, I seem to have flattened you,” the knight said with a tear in his eye. “Never mind, I'll take you to the kitchen and they can fry you up for my supper.”
From the original story published on the Internet as Burdett's, the Universe and everything. Copyright © Les Burdett 19 April 1997
This story version Copyright © Les Burdett 10 January 2023
Robin
The mist rolled back as the sun came up on Sherwood Forest. It was a chilly September morning, though not quite chilly enough for a frost, the moist air had simply laid down a heavy dew. As the mist continued to roll back slowly it revealed a man sleeping beneath a mighty oak tree. The sun shone upon the man highlighting his green clothing, the green hat, the green jacket, the green shoes, and, yes, he was wearing green tights. The man had slept under the mighty oak for many hours, for he was very tired following a long journey on foot from Leicester. The sun crept up his face and, passing over his eyes, awoke him.
"Oh, sod it, now I'm all soaking wet!" he said to himself aloud. "I'll have to dry my clothes off before continuing my journey to Nottingham Castle."
"Hmm, if I could hang my clothes up somewhere the sun would soon dry them. I know, I'll hang the wet clothes on this small bush, while they're drying, I can go and have a bath in that river."
He made sure there was nobody around, undressed, hung his clothes on the bush, and went to take a bath in the river.
As he played around in the water, he noticed a military man walking along the forest trail, being a shy person, he swam downstream a little so as to remain out of sight of the soldier. Had he known that the soldier was in fact Captain Marbell, he wouldn't have bothered. The poor captain had very poor eyesight, he had to walk everywhere because it wasn't safe for him to ride a horse these days.
Marbell turned a bend in the trail and was confronted by the clothes hung on the bush; he stopped dead in his tracks.
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