falling, for he also saw the fellow that so shouted and knew him to be Friartuck, and moreover behind Friartuck he saw the faces of Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlett and Will Stutley and Allana Dale and others of the band. How now, said the King hastily, art thou ill, sheriff, that thou growest so white? Nay, your majesties, said the sheriff, it was not but a sudden pain that will soon pass by. Thus he spoke, for he was ashamed that the King should know that Robin Hood feared him so little that he thus dared to come within the very gates of Nottingham Town. Thus rode the King into Nottingham Town on that bright afternoon in the early fall season, and none rejoiced more than Robin Hood and his merry men to see him come so royally unto his own. Even tide had come, the great feast in the Guild Hall at Nottingham Town was done, and the wine passed freely, a thousand waxen lights gleamed along the board, at which sat Lord and noble and Knight and Squire in goodly array. At the head of the table, upon a throne all hung with cloth of gold, sat King Richard, but the sheriff of Nottingham beside him. Quote the King to the sheriff, laughing as he spoke, I have heard much spoken concerning the doings of certain fellows hereabouts, one Robin Hood and his band, who are outlaws and abide in Sherwood Forest. Canst thou not tell me somewhat of them, sir sheriff, for I hear that thou hast had dealings with them more than once? At these words the sheriff of Nottingham looked down gloomily, and the bishop of Herford, who was present, nod his nethered lip. Quote the sheriff, I can tell you, your Majesty, but little concerning the doings of those naughty fellows, saving that they are the boldest lawbreakers in all the land. Then up spoke young Sir Henry of the Lea, a great favourite with the King under whom he had fought in Palestine. May it please your Majesty, said he, when I was away in Palestine, I heard alph-times from my father, and in most cases I heard of this very fellow Robin Hood, if your Majesty would like, I will tell you a certain adventure of this outlaw. Then the King, laughing, bade him tell his tale, whereupon he told how Robin Hood had aided Sir Richard of the Lea with money that he had borrowed from the bishop of Herford. Again and again the King in those presents floored with laughter, while the poor bishop waxed cherry red in the face with vexation, for the matter was a sore thing with him. When Sir Henry of Lea was done, others of those presents, seeing how the King enjoyed this Mary-Gel, told other tales concerning Robin and his merry men. By the hilt of my sword, said Stout King Richard, this is as bold and merry a nave as ever I heard tell of. Mary, I must take this matter in hand, and do what thou couldst, not the sheriff, do it, clear the forest of him and his band. That night the King sat in the place that was set apart from his lodgings while in Nottingham town. With him were young Sir Henry of Lea and two other knights and three barons of Nottinghamshire, but the King's mind still dwelled upon Robin Hood. Now, quote he, I would freely give a hundred pounds to meet this roguish fellow Robin Hood, and to see somewhat of his doings in Sherwood Forest.  If your majesty is willing to lose one hundred pounds, I will engage to cause you not only to meet this fellow, but to feast with him in Sherwood. Mary, Sir Hubert, quote the King, this pleaseth me well, but how wilt thou cause me to meet Robin Hood? Why, thus, said your Sir Hubert, let your majesty and us here present put on the robes of seven of the order of blackfriars, and let your majesty hang a purse of one hundred pounds beneath their gown, then let us undertake to ride from here to Mansfield Town tomorrow, and without I am much mistaken we will both meet with Robin Hood and dine with him before the day be passed. I like thy plans, Sir Hubert, quote the King merrily, and tomorrow we will try it and see whether there will be virtue in it. So it happened, that when early the next morning the sheriff came to where his liege lord was abiding to pay his duty to him, the King told him what they had talked of the night before, and what merry adventure they were set upon undertaking that morning. But when the sheriff heard this he smote his forehead with his fist. Alas! said he, what evil counsel is this that hath been given thee? Oh, my gracious lord and king, you know not what you do. This villain that you thus go to seek hath no reverence either for King or King's laws. But did I not hear a right when I was told that this Robin Hood hath shed no blood since he was outlawed, saving only that of that vile gi of Gisborne, for whose death all honestmen should thank him? Yeah, your majesty, said the sheriff, you have heard a right, nevertheless. Then, quote the King, breaking in on the sheriff's speech, what have I do to fear in meeting him, having done him no harm? Truly there is no danger in this, but may hath thou wilt go with us, sir sheriff? Nay, quote the sheriff hastily heaven, forbid! But now seven habits such as black fires were brought, and the King and those about him having clad themselves therein, and his majesty having hung a purse with hundred golden pounds in it beneath his robes, they all went forth and mounted the mules that had been brought to the door for them. Then the King bade the sheriff be silent as to their doings, and so they set forth upon their way. Onward they traveled, laughing and jesting until they passed through the open country, between bare harvest fields whence the harvest had been gathered home, through scattered glades that began to thicken as they went farther along, till they came within the heavy shade of the forest itself. They traveled in the forest for several miles without meeting anyone such as they sought, until they had come to that part of the road that lay near us to Nusted Abbey. By the holy saint Martin, quote the King, I would that I had a better head for remembering things of great need. Here have we come away and brought never so much as a drop of anything to drink with us. Now I would give half a hundred pounds for somewhat to quench my thirst with all. No sooner had the King so spoken than out from the cupboard at the roadside stepped a tall fellow with yellow beard and hair and a pair of merry blue eyes. Truly holy brother, saying he laying his hand upon the King's bridal reign, it were an un-Christian thing to not give fitting answer to so fair a bargain. We keep an inn hereabouts, and for fifty pounds we will not only give thee a good draft of wine, but we will give thee as noble a feast as ever thou did tickle thy gullet with all. So, saying, he put his fingers to his lips and blew a shrill whistle, then straight away the bushes and branches on either side of the road swayed and crackled and three-score broad-shouldered yeoman in Lincoln Green burst out into the covert. How now, fellow, quote the King, wow, who art thou, thou naughty rogue, hast thou no regard for such holy men as we are? Not a wit, quote Mary Robin Hood, for though fellow was he, for in sooth all the holiness belonging to rich friars, such as ye are, one could drop into a thimble and the good wife would never feel it with the tip of her finger. As for my name, it is Robin Hood, and thou mayest have heard it before. Now, out upon thee, quote King Richard, thou art a bold and naughty fellow and a lawless one with all, as I have often heard. Tell, now, prithee, let me and these brethren of mine travel forward in peace and quietness. It may not be, said Robin, for it would look but ill of us to let such holy men travel onward with empty stomachs, but I doubt not that thou hast a fat purse to pay the score at our in since thou offered freely so much for a poor draft of wine. Show me thy purse, Reverend Brother, or I may perchance have to strip thy robes from thee to search for it myself. Nay, use no force, said the King sternly. Here is my purse, but lay not the lawless hands upon our person. Ah, tot, tot, quote Mary Robin, what proud words are these? Wilt thou the King of England to talk so to me? Here will take this person, see what there is within. Will Scarlet took the purse and counted out the money. Then Robin bade him keep fifty pounds for himself and put fifty back into the purse. This he handed to the King. Here, brother, quote he, take this half of thy money and thanks, Saint Martin, on whom thou didst call before, that thou hastn't fallen into the hands of such gentle rogues that there will not strip thee bare as they might do, but wilt thou not pat thy cow, for I would vain see thy face. Nay, said the King, I may not put back my cow, for we seven have vowed that we will not show our faces for four and twenty hours. Then keep them covered in peace, said Robin, and for be it from me to make you break your vows. So he called seven of his yeoman and bade them each take a mule by the bridle, then turning their faces toward the depths of the woodland they journeyed onward until they came to the open glade and greenwood tree. Little John, with three score yeoman at his heels, had also gone forth that morning to wait along the roads and bring a rich guest to Sherwood Glade, if such might be his luck, for many with fat purses must travel the roads at this time when such great newings were going on in Nottinghamshire. But though little John and so many others were gone, fire tuck and two score or more stout yeoman were seated or lying around beneath the great tree, and when Robin and the others came they leapt to their feet to meet him. By my soul, quoth Mary King Richard, when he had gotten down from his mule and stood looking about him, thou hast in a very truth a fine lot of young men about thee, Robin, me thinks King Richard himself would be glad of such a bodyguard. Ah! These are not all my fellows, said Robin proudly, for three score more of them are away on business with my good bright-hand man, Little John. But as for King Richard I tell thee, brother, there is not a man of us all but would pour out our blood like water for him. Ye churchmen cannot rightly understand our king, but we yeoman love him right loyally for the sake of his brave doings which are so like our own. But now, fryer tuck came bustling up. Gee ye good den brothers, said he, I am right glad to welcome some of my cloth in this naughty place. Truly me thinks these rogues of outlaws would stand but an ill chance were it not for the prayers of holy tuck who laboreth so hard for their well-being. Here he winked one eye slightly and stuck his tongue into his cheek. Who art thou, mad priest? said the king in a serious force, albeit he smiled beneath his cow. But this fryer truck looked all around with a slow gaze. Look ye now, Quothee, never let me hear you say again that I am no patient man. Here is a nave of fryer, calleth me a mad priest, and yet I smite him not. My name is fryer tuck, fellow, the holy fryer tuck. There tuck, said Robin, thou hast said it now, prithee, cease thy tuck and bring some wine. These reverend men are a thirst and sin they have paid so richly for their score, they mustn't have the best. Fryer tuck bridled at being so checked in his speech. Nevertheless he went straight away to do Robin's bidding. So presently a great crock was brought, and wine was poured out for all the guests and for Robinhood. Then Robin held his cup aloft. Stay, cried he, tarry in your drinking till I give you a pledge. Here is to good King Richard of great renown, and may all enemies to him be confounded. Then all drank the king's health, even the king himself. Me thinks, good fellow, said he, thou hast drunk to thine own confusion. Narrow wit, quoth Mary Robin, for I tell thee, that we of Sherwood are more loyal to our lord the king than those of thine order. We would give up our lives for his benefitting, while ye are constant to lie snug in your abbeys and priors, let reign who will. At this the king laughed, quoth he, perhaps King Richard's welfare is more to me than thou waltest of, fellow, but enough of that matter. We have paid well for our fare, so canst thou not show us some merry entertainment? I have often heard that ye are wondrous archers, wilt thou not show us somewhat of your skills. With all my heart, said Robin, we are always pleased to show our guests all the sport that is to be seen. As Gaffer Swenthalt saith, tis a hard hearth that will not give a cage-starling of the best, and cage-starlings ye are with us. Ho lads, set up garlands at the end of the glade. Then, as the yeoman ran to their master's bidding, Tuck turned to one of the Mac from Mock Friar's. Here is thou our master, both he, with this line-wing.  Thoth spake Friar Tuck, but in a low voice so that Robin could not hear him. For he felt somewhat netled at Robin's cutting his talk so short. In the meantime, the mark at which they were to shoot was set up six score Pace's distance. It was a garland of leaves and flowers, two spans and width, which same was hung upon a stake in front of a broad-tree trunk. There, quoth Robin, yawn is a fair mark, lads. Each of you shoot three arrows there at, and if any fellow misses by so much as one arrow, he shall have a Buffett of Will Scarlett's fist. Hark into him, quoth Friar Tuck. Why master, thou dust-pisto, Buffett's from thy strapping nephew as though they were love-taps from some bouncing lass. I warrant thou art safe to hit the garland thyself, or thou waltz not to be so free of his cuffing. First David of Dankaster shot, and lodged all three of his arrows within the garland. Well done, David, cried Robin. Thus hath saved thine ears from a warming this day. Next Midge the Miller shot, and he also lodged his arrows in the garland. Then followed Watt the Tinker, but alas for him, for one of his shaft missed the mark by the breadth of two fingers. Come hither, fellow, said Will Scarlett, in his soft, gentle voice. I owe thee somewhat that I would pay for within.  Will Scarlett rolled up his sleeves, and standing on tiptoe to give the greater swing to his arm, he struck with might and mane. Woof! Came his palm against the Tinker's head, and down went Stout Watt to the grass, heels overhead, as the wooden image at the fair ground goes down when the skillful player throws a cudgel at it. Then as the Tinker sat up upon the grass, rubbing his ears and winking and blinking at the bright stars that danced between his eyes, the yeoman roared with mirth till the forest rang. As for King Richard, he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, thus the bands shot each in turn, some getting off scot-free, some winning a Buffett that always sent them to the grass.  The first shaft he shot split a piece from the stake on which the garland was hung. The second lodged within an inch of the other. By my halledom, said King Richard to himself, I would give a thousand pounds for this fellow to be one of my guard, and now for the third time Robin shot. But alas for him, the arrow was ill-feathered, and wavered to one side, it smote an inch outside the garland. At this a great roar went up, those of the yeoman who sat upon the grass, rolling over and over, shouting with laughter, for never before had they seen their master so miss the mark. But Robin flung his bow upon the ground with vexation. Now, out upon it, cried he, thou shaft had an ill-feathered to it, for I felt it as it left my fingers. Give me a clean arrow, and I will engage to split the wand with it. At these words the yeoman laughed louder than ever. Nay, good uncle, said Will Scarlet in his soft sweet voice, thou hast and I fair chance, and hast missed thine aim out and out. I swear the arrow was as good as any that hath been loosened this day. Come hither, I owe thee somewhat, and would feign pay it. Go, good master, roared firetuck, and may may blessing go with thee. Thou hast bestowed these love-taps of Will Scarlet's with great freedom. It were pity on thou, gottest not thine own share. It may not be, said Mary Robin. I am king here, and no subject may raise hand against the king. But even our great King Richard may yield to the holy pope without shame, and even take a tap from him by way of penance. Therefore I will yield myself to this holy friar, who seemeth to be one in authority, and will take my punishment from him. Thus saying, he turned to the king, I pretty brother, will thou take my punishing into thy holy hands? With all my heart, quoth Mary King Richard, rising from where he was sitting, I owe thee somewhat for having lifted a heavy weight of fifty pounds from my purse, so make room for him and the green lads. And thou makes me tumble, quoth Robin, I will freely give thee back thy fifty pounds, but I tell thee, brother, if thou makest me not feel grass all along my back, I will take every farthing thou hast for thy boastful speech. So be it, said the king. I am willing to venture it. Thereupon he rolled up his sleeve and showed an arm that make the yeoman stare, a Robin with his feet wide apart stood firmly planted, waiting the other, smiling. Then the king swung back his arm and, balancing himself a moment, he delivered a buffadette Robin that fell like a thunderbolt. Down went Robin, headlong upon the grass, for the stroke would have felled a stone wall. Then how the yeoman shouted with laughter, till their sides ached, for never had they seen such a buffad given in all their lives. As for Robin, he presently sat up and looked all around him, as though he had dropped from a cloud and had lit in a place he had never seen before. After a while, still gazing about him, at his laughing yeoman, he put his fingertips softly to his ear and felt all around it tenderly. Will Scarlet, said he, count this fellow out his fifty pounds, I want nothing more either of his money or of him, or a merman seized him and his buffeting, I would that I had taken my dues from thee, for I verily believe he hath deafened mine ear from ever hearing again. Then, while gusts of laughter still broke from the band, will Scarlet count it out the fifty pounds, and the king dropped it back into his purse again. I give thee thanks, fellow, said he, and if ever thou shalt wished for another box of the ear to match the one thou hast, come to me, and I will fit thee with one for naught. So spake the merry king. But even as he ended there came suddenly the sound of many voices, and out from the covert burst little John, and three score men with Sir Richard of the Lee in his midst. Across the glade they came running, and as they came, Sir Richard shouted to Robin, make haste, dear friend, gather thy band together, and come with me. King Richard left Nottingham town this very morning, and cometh to seek thee in the woodlands. I know not how he cometh, for it was but a rumor of this that reached me. Nevertheless, I know that it is the truth. Therefore hasten with all thy men, and come to castle thee, for there thou mayest lay hidden till thy present danger passeth. Who are these strangers that thou hast with thee? Why, quote Mary Robin, rising from the grass, these are certain gentle guests that come with us from the high road over by Newstead Abbey. I know not their names, but I have become right well acquainted with this lusty rogue's palm this morning. Mary, the pleasure of this acquaintance, hath dost me a deaf ear and fifty pounds to boot. Sir Richard looked keenly at the tall friar, who, drawing himself up to his full height, looked fixedly back at the night. Then, of a sudden, Sir Richard's cheek grew pale, for he knew who it was that he looked upon.  At this, the king, seeing that Sir Richard knew him, threw back his cowl, and all the yeoman saw his face, and knew him also. For there was not one of them, but had been in the crowd of the good town of Nottingham, and had seen him riding side by side with the sheriff. Down they fell upon their knees, nor could they say a word. Then the king looked all around, right grimly, and last of all his glance came back and rested again upon Richard of Lee. How is this, Sir Richard? said he sternly. How darest thou step between me and these fellows, and how darest thou offer thy nightly castle of the Lee for a refuge to them? Will thou make it a hiding place for the most renowned outlaws in England? Then, Sir Richard of the Lee raised his eyes to the king's face. Far be it for me, said he, to do ought that could bring your majesty's anger upon me.  For to them I owe life, honor, everything. Should I then desert him in this hour of need? ere the night had done speaking, one of the mock-friars that stood near the king came forward and knelt beside Sir Richard, and throwing back his cow, shewed the face of young Sir Henry of the Lee. Then, Sir Henry, grasped his father's hand, and said, here kneels one who hath served thee well, King Richard, and as thou knowest hath stepped between thee and death in Palestine. Yet do I abide by my dear father, and here I say also that I would freely give shelter to this noble outlaw, Robin Hood, even though it brought thy wrath upon me for my father's honor, and my father's welfare, are as dear to me as mine own. King Richard looked from one to the other of the kneeling knights, and at last the frown faded from his brow, and a smile twitched at the corner of his lips. Mary, Sir Richard, quote the king, Thou art a bold-spoken knight, and thy freedom of speech weith not heavily against thee with me. This young son of mine, taken after his sire, both in boldness of speech and of deed, for as he saith he stepped one time betwixt me and death, therefore I would pardon thee for his sake, even if thou hast done more than thou hast. Rise all ye, for ye shall suffer no harm through me this day, for it were pity that a merry time should end in a manner as a tomorrow's joyousness. Then all arose, and the king beckoned Robin Hood to come to him. How now, quoth he, is thine ear still too deaf to hear me speak? Mine eye ears would be deafened in death, ere they would cease to hear your majesty's voice, said Robin. As for the blow that your majesty struck me, I would say that though my sins are happily many, me thinks they have been paid up in full thereby. Ah, thinkest thou so? said the king with somewhat of a sternness in his voice. Now I tell thee that but before three things to wit, my mercifulness, my love for a stout woodsman, and the loyalty thou hast avowed for me, thine ears may have been more tightly closed than ever a buffet for me could have shut them. Talk not lightly of thy sins, good Robin, but come look up. Thy danger has passed, for hereby I give thee and all thy ban free pardon, but in sooth I cannot let you roam the forest as ye have done in the past. Therefore I will take thee at thy word, when thou didst say, thou wouldst give thy service to me, and thou shalt go back to London with me. Who will take that bold nave, little John also, and likewise thy cousin will scarlet, and thy minstrel, Allen Adale. As for the rest of thy ban, we will take their names and have them duly recorded as royal rangers. For me thinks it were wiser to have them changed to law-abiding caretakers of our dear and Sherwood than to leave them to run at large as outlaw slayers their home. But now, get a feast ready, I would see how ye live in the woodlands. So Robin bade his men make ready a grand feast, straight away great fires were kindled and burned brightly at which savoury things roasted sweetly. Whilst this was going forward, the king bade Robin call Allen Adale, for he would hear him sing. So word was passed for Allen, and presently he came bringing his harp. Mary said, King Richard, if thy singing match thy looks, it is fair enough, prithee, strike up a ditty and let us have taste of thy skill. Then Allen touched his harp lightly, and all words were hushed while he sang thus. Where hast thou been, my daughter? Oh, where hast thou been this day, daughter, my daughter? Oh, I have been to the riverside where the waters lie all gray and wide, and the gray sky broods are the leaden tide, and the shrill winds size a straining, and the shrill winds size a straining. What saw as thou there, my daughter? What saw as thou there, this day, daughter, my daughter? Oh, I saw a boat come drifting nigh where the quivering rushes hiss and sigh, and the water sows as it gurgles by, and the shrill winds size a straining, and the shrill winds size a straining. What sailed in the boat, my daughter? What sailed in the boat, this day, daughter, my daughter? Oh, there was a one-aw clad in white, and about his face hung a pallid light, and his eyes gleamed sharp like the stars at night, and the shrill winds size a straining, and the shrill winds size a straining. And what said he, my daughter? What said he to thee, this day, daughter, my daughter? Oh, said he not, but did he this? Price on my lips did he press a kiss, and my heart strings shrunk with an awful bliss, and the shrill winds size a straining, and the shrill winds size a straining. Why grow as thou so cold, my daughter? Why grow as thou so cold and white, daughter, my daughter?  All listened in silence, and when Alan Adale had done, King Richard heaved a sigh. By the breath of my body, Alan, quote he, thou has such a wondrous sweet voice that it strangely moves my heart. But what doleful did he is this for the lips of a stout yeoman? I would rather hear thee sing a song of love and battle than a sad thing like that. Moreover, I understand it not. What meanest thou by the words? I know not, your majesty, said Alan, shaking his head, for off times I sing that which I do not clearly understand my own self. Well, well, quote the king, let it pass. Only I tell thee this, Alan, thou shouldest turn thy songs to such matter as I spoke of, to wit, love, or war. For in sooth thou hast a sweeter voice than Blondel, and me thought he was the best minstrel that ever I heard. But now one came forward and said that the feast was ready. So Robin Hood brought King Richard and those with him to wear it lay all spread out on fair white linen cloths, which lay upon the soft green grass. Then King Richard sat him down, and feasted, and drank, and when he was done he swore roundly that he had never sat at such a lusty repast in all his life before. That night he lay in her Sherwood forest, upon a bed of sweet green leaves, and early the next morning he set forth from the woodlands for knotting him town. Robin Hood and all his band going with him. You may guess what a stir there was in the good town when all those famous outlaws came marching into the streets, as for the sheriff. He knew not what to say, nor where to look when he saw Robin Hood in such high favor with the king, while all his heart was filled with gall because of the vexation that lay upon him. The next day the king took leave of knotting him town. So Robin Hood, and Little John, and Will Scarlett, and Alana Dale shook hands with all the rest of the band, kissing the cheeks of each man, and swearing that they would often come to Sherwood and see them. Then each mounted his horse, and rode away in the train of the king. End of Chapter 21 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit www.librivox.org. Today's reading by Alex Foster, www.alexfoster.me.uk. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Epilogue. Thus end the Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. For in spite of his promise, it was many a year he saw Sherwood again. After a year or two at court, Little John came back to knotting himself, where he lived in an orderly way, though within sight of Sherwood, and where he achieved great fame as the champion of all England with the quarter-stuff. Will Scarlett, after a time, came back to his own home, whence he had been driven by his unlucky killing of his father's steward. The rest of the band did their duty as royal rangers right well, but Robin Hood and Alana Dale did not come again to Sherwood so quickly, for thus it was. Robin, through his great fame as an archer, became a favourite with the king, so that he speedily rose in rank to be chief of all yeoman. At last the king, seeing how faithful and how loyal he was, created him earl of Huntingdon, so Robin followed the king to the wars, and found his time so full that he had no chance to come back to Sherwood for even so much as a day. As for Alana Dale and his wife, the Fair Ellen, they followed Robin Hood and shared in all his ups and downs of life. And now, dear friend, you who have journeyed with me in all these merry doings, I will not bid you follow me further, but will drop your hand here with a good den if you wish it, for that which cometh hereafter speaks of the breaking up of things, and shows how joys and pleasures that are dead and gone can never be set upon their feet to walk again. I will not dwell upon the matter over long, but will tell as speedily as I may, of how that stout fellow Robin Hood died as he had lived, not at the court as earl of Huntingdon, but with bow in hand, his heart in the green wood, and he himself a right yeoman. King Richard died upon the battlefield in such a way as properly became a lion-hearted king, as you yourself no doubt know. So after a time the earl of Huntingdon, or Robin Hood as we still call him as of old, finding nothing for his doing abroad, came back to merry England again. With him came Alana Dale and his wife, the Fair Ellen, for these two had been chief of Robin's household ever since he had left for Sherwood Forest. He was in the springtime when they landed once more on the shores of England. The leaves were green and the small birds sang blithely, just as they used to do in Fair Sherwood when Robin Hood roamed the woodland shades with a free heart and a light heel. All the sweetness of the time and the joyousness of everything brought back to Robin's mind his forest life, so that a great longing came upon him to behold the woodlands once more. He went straight way to King John and besought leave of him to visit Nottingham for a short season. The king gave him leave to come and go, but made him not stay longer than three days at Sherwood, so Robin Hood and Alana Dale set forth without delay to Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest. The first night they took up their inn at Nottingham Town, yet they did not go pay their duty to the sheriff, for his worship bore many a bitter grudge against Robin Hood, which grudges had not been lessened by Robin's rise in the world. The next day at an early hour they mounted their horses and set forth for the woodlands. As they passed along the road it seemed to Robin that he knew every stick and stone that his eyes looked upon. Yondo was a path that he had oft times trod of a mellow evening with little John beside him. Here was one, now nigh choked with brambles, along which he and a little band had walked when they went forth to see a certain curdle-friar. Thus they rode slowly onward, talking about these old familiar things, old and yet new, for they found more in them than they had ever thought of before. Thus at last they came to the open glade and the broad, wide-spending Greenwood Tree which was their home for so many years. Neither of the two spoke when they stood beneath that tree. Robin looked all about him at the well-known things, so like what they used to be and yet so different. Thor, where once was the bustle of many busy fellows, was now the quietness of solitude, and as he looked the woodlands, the greenswood, and the sky all blurred together in his sight through salt tears, for such a yearning came upon him as he looked on these things, as well known to him as the fingers of his right hand, but he could not keep back the water from his eyes. That morning he had slung his good old bugle-horn over his shoulder, and now with the yearning came a great longing to sound his bugle once more. He raised it to his lips, he blew a blast. Terilla Lirilla, the sweet clear notes went winding down the forest paths, coming back again from the more distant bosky shades in faint echoes of sound. Terilla Lirilla, Terilla Lirilla, Lirilla, until it faded away and was lost. Now a chance that on that very morning little John was walking through a spur of the forest upon certain matters of business, and as he paced along sunk in meditation, the faint clear notes of a distant bugle-horn came to his ear. As leaps the stag when it feels the arrow at its heart, so leapt little John when that distant sound met his ear. All the blood in his body seemed to rush like a flame into his cheeks as he bent his head and listened. Again came the bugle note, thin and clear, and yet again it sounded. Then little John gave a great wild cry of yearning of joy and yet of grief, and putting down his head he dashed into the thicket. Onward he plunged, crackling and rending, as the wild boar rushes through the underbrush. Little wrecked heave thorns and briars that scratched his flesh and tore his clothing, for all he thought of was to get by the shortest way to the greenwood glade where he knew the sound of the bugle-horn came. Out he burst from the covert at last, a shower of little broken twigs falling about him and, without pausing a moment, rushed forward and flung himself at Robin's feet. Then he clasped his arms round his master's knees, and all his body was shaken with great sobs. Neither could Robin nor Alenadeil speak, but stood looking down at little John, the tears rolling down their cheeks. While they thus stood, seven royal rangers rushed into the open glade and raised a great shout of joy at the sight of Robin, and at their head was Will Stootley. Then after a while came four more, panting with their running, and two of these four were Will Scaithlock and Midge, the miller. For all of these had heard the sound of Robin Hood's horn. All these ran to Robin and kissed his hands and his clothing with great sound of weeping. After a while, Robin looked around him with tear-dimmed eyes and said in a husky voice, Now I swear that never again will I leave these dear woodlands. I have been away from them and from you too long. Now do I lay by the name of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, and take upon me once again that nobler title, Robin Hood, the Yeoman. At this a great shout went up, and all the Yeoman shook one another's hands for joy. The news that Robin Hood had come back again to dwell in show-worders of old spread like wildfire all over the countryside, so that ere a sun-night had passed nearly all of his old Yeoman had gathered about him again. But when the news of all this had reached the ears of King John, he swore both loud and deep, and took a solemn vow that he would not rest until he had Robin Hood in his power dead or alive. Now there was present at court a certain night Sir William Dale, as gallant a soldier as ever donned harness. Sir William Dale was well acquainted with show-word forest, for he was head-keeper over that part of it that lay nigh to Goodmansfield town, so to him the King turned and paid him take an army of men and go straight way to seek Robin Hood. Likewise the King gave Sir William his signet-ring to show to the sheriff that he might raise all his armed men to aid others in their chase of Robin. So Sir William and the sheriff set forth to do the King's bidding and to search for Robin Hood, and for seven days they hunted up and down, yet found him not. Now had Robin Hood been as peaceful as of old, everything might have ended in smoke as other such ventures had always done before, but he had fought for years under King Richard and was changed from what he used to be. It galled his pride to thus flee away before those sent against him as a chased fox flees from the hounds, so thus it came about at last that Robin Hood and his Yeoman met Sir William and the sheriff and their men in the forest, and a bloody fight followed. The first man slain in that fight was the sheriff of Nottingham, for he fell from his horse with an arrow in his brain ere half a score of shafts had been sped. Many a better man than the sheriff kissed the sod that day, but at last Sir William Dale being wounded and most of his men slain he withdrew, beaten and left the forest, but scores of good fellows were left behind him, stretched out all stiff beneath the sweet green boughs. But though Robin Hood had beaten off his enemies in a fair fight, all this lay heavily upon his mind so that he brooded over it until a fever seized upon him. For three days it held him, and though he strove to fight it off he was forced to yield at last. Thus it came that on the morning of the fourth day he called little John to him and told him that he could not shake the fever from him, and that he would go to his cousin, the prioresse of the nunnery near Kirkleys in Yorkshire, who was a skilful leech, and he would have her open a vein in his arm and take a little blood from him for the bettering of his health. Then he bade little John make ready to go also, for he might perchance need aid in his journeying. So little John and he took their leave of the others, and Robin Hood bade Will Stutley to be the captain of the band until they should come back. Thus they came by easy stages and slow journeying until they reached the nunnery of Kirkleys. Now Robin had done much to aid this cousin of his, for it was through King Richard's love of him that she had been made prioresse of the place. But there is naught in the world so easily forgot as gratitude. So when the prioresse of Kirkleys had heard how her cousin, the Earl of Huntingdon, had thrown away his earldom and gone back to Sherwood, she was vexed to the soul, and feared lest her cousinship with him should bring the King's wrath upon her also.  Nevertheless she kept this world to herself and received Robin with seeming kindness. She led him up a winding stone stair to a room which was just beneath the eaves of a high round tower, but she would not let little John come with him. So the poor yeoman turned his feet away from the door of the nunnery and left his master in the hands of the women. But though he did not come in, neither did he go far away, for he laid him down in a little glade nearby where he could watch the place that Robin abided, like some great faithful dog turned away from the door where his master has entered. After the women had gotten Robin Hood to the room beneath the eaves, the prioresse sent all of the others away. Then taking a little cord she tied it tightly about Robin's arm, as though she were about to bleed him. And so she did bleed him, but the vein she opened was not one of those that lie close and blue beneath the skin. Deeper she cut than that, for she opened one of those veins through which the bright red blood runs leaping from the heart. Of this Robin knew not, for though he saw the blood flow it did not come far enough to make him think there was anything ill in it. Having done this vile deed, the prioresse turned and left her cousin, locking the door behind her. All that lifelong day the blood ran from Robin Hood's arm, nor could he check it, though he strove in every way to do so. Again and again he called for help, but no help came, for his cousin had betrayed him, and little John was too far away to hear his voice. So he bled and bled, until he felt his strength slipping away from him. Then he arose, tottering, and bearing himself up by the palms of his hands against the wall, he reached his bugle-horn at last. Thrice he sounded it, but weakly and faintly, for his breath was flattering through sickness and loss of strength. Nevertheless little John heard it, where he lay in the glade, and with a heart all sick with dread, he came running and leaping toward the nunnery. Loudly he knocked at the door, and a loud voice shouted for them to let him in. But the doors of massive oak strongly barred and studded with spikes, so they felt safe and bade little John begone. Then little John's heart was mad with grief and fear for his master's life. Wildly he looked about him, and his sight fell upon a heavy stone mortar such as three men could not lift nowadays. Little John took three steps forward and, bending his back, heaved the stone mortar up from where it stood deeply rooted. Beggaring under its weight he came forward and hurled it crashing against the door. In burst the door, and a wave led the frightened nuns shrieking at his coming.  Here he found the door locked also, but putting his shoulder against it, he burst the locks as though they were made of brittle ice. There he saw his own dear master, leaning against the grey stone wall, his face all white and drawn, and his head swaying to and fro with weakness. Then with a great wild cry of love and grief and pity little John leapt forward and caught Robin Hood in his arms. Up he lifted him as a mother lifts her child, and carrying him to the bed, laid him tenderly thereon. And now the prior S came in hastily, for she was frightened at what she had done and dreaded the vengeance of little John and the others of the band. Then she staunched the blood by cunning bandages, so that it flowed no more. All the while little John stood grimly by, and after she had done, he sternly bade her to be gone, and she obeyed, pale and trembling. Then after she had departed little John spake cheering words, laughing loudly and saying that all this was a child's fright and that no stout yeoman would die at the loss of a few drops of blood. Why, Iquathi, give the ascend night, and thou will be roaming the woodlands as boldly as ever. But Robin shook his head and smiled faintly where he lay. My known dear little John whispered here, heaven bless thy kind rough heart, but dear friend, we will never roam the woodlands together again. Aye, but we will quoth little John loudly. I say again, aye, out upon it, who dares say that any more harm shall come upon thee? Am I not by? Let me see who dares touch. Here he stopped off of a sudden, for his words choked him.  As for these women, here he gloved his teeth. It will be an ill day for them.  Thus he talked till at last the other promised in a choking voice that no ill should fall upon the place no matter what happened. Then a silence fell, and little John sat with Robin Hood's hand in his, gazing out of the open window, ever under none swallowing a great lump that came in his throat. Meantime the sun dropped slowly in the west till all the sky was a blaze with a red glory. Then Robin Hood, in a weak, faltering voice, bade little John him that he might look out once more upon the woodlands. So the yeoman lifted him in his arms as he bade, and Robin Hood's head lay on his friend's shoulder. Long he gazed with a wide lingering look, while the other sat with a boat head. The hot tears rolling one after another from his eyes and dripping upon his bosom, for he felt that the time of parting was near at hand. Then, presently, Robin Hood bade him string his stout bow for him and chose a smooth, fair arrow from his quiver. This little John did, though without disturbing his master, or rising from where he sat. Robin Hood's fingers wrapped lovingly around his good bow, and he smiled faintly when he felt it in his grasp. Then he knocked the arrow on that part of the string that tips of his fingers knew so well. Little John said he little John, my own dear friend, and him I love better than all the others in the world. Mark, I prithee where this arrow lodges, and there let my grave be buried. Lay me with my face toward the east, little John, and see that my resting place be kept green, and that my weary bones be not disturbed. As he finished speaking, he raised himself of a sudden and sat upright. His old strength seemed to come back to him, and drawing the bow string to his ear, he sped the arrow out of the open casement.  But something had sped from that body, even as the winged arrow spenged from the bow.  Upon the steep stairway he met the prioress and some of the chief among the sisters. To them he spoken a deep quivering voice, and said he, an ego within a score of feet of yonder room, I will tear down your rockery over your heads, so that not one stone shall be left upon another. Bear my words well in mind, for I mean them. So saying he turned and left them, and they presently saw him running rapidly across the open, and through the falling of the dusk, until he was swallowed up by the forest. The early gray of the coming morn was just beginning to lighten the black sky toward the eastward when they saw the nunnery. They saw no one, for the sisters were all hidden away from sight, having been frightened by little John's words. Up the stone stair they ran, and a great sound of weeping was presently heard. After a while this ceased, and then came the scuffling and shuffling of men's feet as they carried a heavy weight down the steep and winding stairs. So they went forth from the nunnery, and as they passed forth, as though many men hidden in the shadows had lifted up their voices in sorrow. Thus died Robin Hood, her turquoise nunnery in fair Yorkshire, with mercy in his heart toward those that had been his undoing. For thus he showed mercy for the airing and pity for the weak through all the time of his living. His yeoman was scattered henceforth, but no great ill befell them thereafter, for a more merciful sheriff, and one being separated here and there throughout the countryside, they abided in peace and quietness, so that many lived to hand down these tales to their children and their children's children. A certain one saith, that upon a stone at Kirkleys, is an old inscription. This I gave in the ancient English in which it was written, and thus it runs.  Hobbit, 24 Cal, Dec. 1247. And now, dear friend, we also must part, for our merry journeys have ended, and here at the grave of Robin Hood we turn, each going his own way, end of the epilogue. End of the merry adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle. Read by Alex Foster www.alexfoster.me.uk on the 16th of March, 2006 in Sherwood, Nottinghamshire.


It's a pleasure to welcome those of you representing the Indian Government, AAAS, the U.S. State Department former scholars and who are now current UW graduate students. How many of you are former scholars here tonight? I think just one. Well, now outside, we can welcome them later, past and current faculty mentors and most especially the new cohort of students that are beginning their programs this evening. As we've just seen, we're just discussing this, of course, is the formal launch of the SN Boas program and so it's especially exciting to meet you students who are here who are in operating this program with your participation and we've already reviewed the important contributions of both and it sets high standards for the participation of all of the students going forward. The Boas program, of course, mirrors the prestigious Karana Scholars programs for biologically-related sciences and this has been going now for six years at UW-Madison and other participating institutions. Let me remind you of the goals of this program. They are to provide encouragement to young scholars, to stimulate creativity among students, to transform research into societal benefits and to build a seamless community between India and the United States. The Karana program is growing each year and has been in existence and we are thrilled to be welcoming 37 students to participate in this program tonight. Our university has long considered Indiana partner and my college has played a significant role in that partnership with which we are very proud. The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is the second largest college at our university. We have nearly 4,000 undergraduate students and over 1,000 graduate students. Our 19 academic departments span applied research conducted in departments like dairy science and horticulture and agronomy to basic science research in biochemistry, microbiology and genetics. Our faculty are very productive and our graduate programs are very well known and provide a great springboard for many students entering these disciplines. But it's important to us that productivity doesn't stay within the walls of the university, that it doesn't remain only in the lab and in scholarly publication but that it moves beyond campus to inform solutions to real world problems. Some of the biggest pressures we face today in the world are impossible to pin to an individual location. Such challenges as providing safe and nutritious and abundant food to people around the world in growing populations, developing sustainable energy sources hoping with a change in climate and maintaining healthy ecosystems are concerns that can only be addressed at the global level. Furthermore, the fundamental scientific advances that are underpinning these advances also builds on international collaboration. A few decades ago, universities trained people to be experts in specific areas building our collective knowledge by focusing narrowly to understand pointed research questions. And now we find that we have a different training model and that is individual scholarship is still important but working collaboratively across disciplines becomes ever more important because the solutions to these challenges require broad expertise. They will require scientists and others that can think big, work collaboratively and be creative in first recognizing and approaching these problems. So for me it's inspiring to see all of these students here today because I know that these are the types of challenges that you are looking for in your careers. As an educator, as a researcher, I hope your experiences provide you with tools that can help face those challenges. And I'm so very excited for you to unleash your creativity on finding solutions for our tough challenges and I look forward to the solution that you will identify. So once again, welcome to the United States and welcome to UW-Madison. Thank you for coming. U.S. Science and Technology Forum.  It really started with President Clinton. It was in the year 2000 when he made a trip to India and he wanted to... U.S.-India relations were not so good at the time and he wanted to do something to improve the relations and one of the things which he thought was some sort of science agreement, a science cooperation agreement. Well it turns out at that time India was under sanctions by the U.S. because of the nuclear test in 1998 and so it was impossible to make a government-government agreement. However we had an ambassador in India at that time Richard Silas, who recently retired as president of Colorado College and next year he agreed that he's called me the wonderful man. And he had the idea, let's do it as a public-private partnership. Let's do it. Let's set it up as a private society and actually we are chartered. The Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum was the result of that and it is chartered under the societies of 1862 or 1864. And so the money comes that the endowment was created in rupees which the U.S. government owned that money was put in the bank the interest on that bank we get interest on that endowment and the Indian government matches the interest which we get and that has generated consistently somewhere between one and a half and two million dollars a year. Now you can't fund a whole lot of cooperative research on two million dollars a year or one and a half million dollars but you can move some people around and so one of our early forms of cooperating was to fund workshops and remember the whole purpose of this is to bring American researchers, American scientists together with Indian researchers and Indian scientists. So all of our programs are really centered around the idea of finding a common interest between groups of people and we have found that the workshop formula the workshop format is a very effective way of doing this and three times a year not twice a year I guess we go out with a call if anyone in either country would like to get together with colleagues or maybe just on a topic we can have with matchmaking would like to have a workshop on the given field we are prepared to consider that on a competitive basis we're receiving somewhere between 30 and 40 of these proposals each time we go on through a call and we fund them as we can but it's amazing over the last 12 years we've had something like 300 workshops we've had involved some 12,000 scientists in the two countries and the interesting thing is that you begin to leverage money when you find people who are interested in things in both countries money appears we think that we have leveraged maybe 200 million dollars or perhaps 250 million dollars which has been generated in programs which have been funded by governments or by companies and someone else so this has been a very interesting I've done a lot of science cooperation in the world of a lot of countries but I find this one of the most interesting imaginative and frankly one of the most successful models which has gone on for 12, 13 years interestingly I was the first US chairman and I was able to be in that position when I was in the State Department and what I ended at the State Department after it was a three year appointment as science and technology advisor to the Secretary of State then I turned to my successor or to the higher up people in the building and I said well I'm leaving but I could continue to do this and they said fine Norman you just keep on and so maybe no one I'm not sure if anyone wants maybe no one wants it back but nonetheless I'm still doing it and I've been through now two Indian co-chairmen first is Ramamurti and now is Dr. Ramasamy who is just he thought he was retiring this year but he's just been appointed to an additional year and his principal job which is running the Department of Science and Technology in India a very high position anyway we have a board on each side and we meet annually and we talk about the direction in which the forum should be going I think what's terrific is this new sort of developing focus on students and you've heard about the Bose program and you've heard about the Karana program and the Rise program and all of these programs which move students back and forth now you probably know there's something like 100,000 Indian students in American universities right now and there are about 3,000 American students in Indian universities we particularly, we on the American side are particularly interested in getting more Americans who can participate in some of these programs that we have catalyzed getting more Americans involved in that and then going and working in India so I hope that many of you keep that in mind make friends with some American colleagues invite them to come to India and see what a great and interesting place it is in Canada and then that way we will continue to build and expand these cooperation relationships now the day to day work on the Indian side is done by my colleague who is also housed in AAAS in Washington, the American Association for the Advancement of Science if you look on the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum website you can find his address and you can understand more about the program you can know when to apply for things and so on but one of his goal and we all share in that goal is for us to really become the largest organization or the largest mover of students back and forth in the science field and we probably now are already the largest mover of U.S. students and U.S. graduate students in India for a quality of science so it's wonderful to see you all here it's terrific that you haven't fallen asleep already in the city it was even tough for me to get here from Washington and I was told that there were three of you who were supposed to be on the plane that I was and I asked two Indians on the plane if they were you who they said no anyway, great to see you I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow This is the nodal agency of the government of the Indian Matters related to that includes formulation of policy statement and guidelines that includes providing research grants that also includes helping creating research infrastructure in various academic institutions and research apparatus and that also includes capacity building the idea of human resource A couple of years ago we created another autonomous body called Science and Engineering Research Board actually it was created nine years ago that was about two years ago and this board is now functional for the last little more than a year ago more on the lines of what we have what we have in NSF in U.S. So this board has kind of taken over all the schemes which involved complicated research grants fellowships and right now it's a situation that would be S.T. and S.E.R. be working they're not complete with each other actually they're complimenting each other capacity building and human resources have always been an important priority for the Department of Science and Technology we had schemes like Gyanik Bubsah and Yojana for the University of India then we had JNC and S.R. summer internship for graduated and post graduated students most importantly we used to support a lot of research students, doctoral students who used to work on various S.T. supported projects and in addition to all that we also had media postdoctoral universities or senior students to go abroad and work in other institutions now apart from that for the last 4-5 years we had a pretty aggressive in this area of human resource development we initiated a scheme called Inspire which had 3 broad elements the first one was concerned with young children at school level the second component was concerned with the students at 100th grade and the first grade grade level and the third component was concerned with doctoral students and also postdoctoral fellows by virtue of providing the grant of identity positions in regular institutions now in terms of scale and in terms of inclusiveness this scheme was you know I think I understand that we are going to award kind of 1 million fellowship 2 months down the line so you can imagine the kind of scale and inclusiveness so many people have got the identity from this scheme we have several other fellowships we have J.C. Goh several fellowships but I would like to touch upon few of them which probably would concern this kind of audience there are fellowships for drama which enables Indian scientists who are working abroad to come and work in India while they don't have a regular position in any of the institutions and while this scheme was launched the compensation package was equivalent to you know almost the kind of salary which a professor or senior associate professor would pay there is another very interesting fellowship we have recently launched actually this was launched in Germany this year this is called the Prime Minister's Doctoral Fellowship or Prime Minister's Fellowship for Doctoral Research this is clearly one of the popular fellowships more so the student has to be registered in a regular academic institution for a regular academic degree and the research problem which he identifies with me of interest and of elegance to industry in turn he just formally collaborates with the fellowship and the fellowship which the student gets is almost the amount which normally he gets through the government support government provides his normal support and the industry provides the matching grant and the idea is that the student is trained to work on industry relevant problems normally we find that there is quite a bit of disconnect it means what research is done at what industry requires in reality so through this kind of fellowship we want to create an ecosystem there is the research which is done in academic institution not only it meets the academic requirements for qualifying for a degree but at the same time it has proper industry relevance and industry eventually gets a kind of a person who is trained to work on industry other fellowship which is already in place is being implemented through the inter-U.S. S&P forum which is I mean the kind of a post-proper fellowship for Indian students to come and work in Indian universities where we are training from 3 to 4 hours I think they will develop more on it and we are soon actually the purpose of our visit was also partly to go and talk to NSF we will soon be signing an agreement on their grow initiative so that will also be provided opportunities for U.S. students and other students to go and work in Indian institutions of their choice for the specified year of time the last probably significant initiative which is again I think it will practically very soon is that under this scheme this will again be a kind of a national fellowship under which outstanding scientists anywhere in the world would be able to come and work in Indian institutions of their choice for a period of one year and the Indian government will provide to take care of the entire process associated with this including the rate level and a decent fellowship of the order of say 100,000 dollars per year but these are some of the kind of initiatives which we are contemplating in order to give a major thrust to this area of human resource development through bilateral arrangements there is again a very significant aspect of SN4's fellowship which was not earlier earlier people used to apply they used to establish that IEF they used to write a proposal now you simply apply and we facilitate to connect people to the right institutions to the right groups and then that's how I think SN4's fellowship is being implemented I'm sure it's a very very positive and a very very supportive step so with this kind of information I think I would also extend a very warm welcome to all of you on behalf of Department of Science and Technology Science and Engineering so I'm sure that the next 60 weeks or so which you are going to extend will be very very useful to you hopefully it will be I'm surprised about the the briefing session about the first round of IEF and I would look forward to see you then thank you Thank you Thanks for a warm welcome we got some warm comments here to make the a big announcement so they follow when they come together it forms San Nama and it really changes everything in IEF so that's what I believe when you are coming here you are mainly with the Americans you are talking now first thing is that why we are investing this money why this government departments are getting money for a second capacity development is one thing what I actually do is one important what we are doing we look but also in the cultural value what we are having we should learn culture you should impart what we are having and then when we come together certainly things will be doing a lot and then continue with the U.S. the students here so in the next 10 years now with this program this year we have supported 100 students from the U.S. from if we take the program the S.M.R.S program and the program we call it engineering looking forward to at least get 100 students that is our target from U.S. to India this year I believe I am really glad to tell you that we are going to get 30 students 15 and the guys from now and 15 and the guys from most from now and we can easily go at here for 100 and I would really request the mentors directly the partner in universities to send the students to India and that way we will have this bilateral action more meaningful and more true way now what you are getting here you may be thinking that coming from a very warm hot and hot sea basically but certainly you will get much more when you are interacting here you will see a totally different type of environment a different type of economic environment you will get the way the students interact with the event I think India wish to learn about that and that will really change your life you will really know at least the true spirit of research the true spirit of curiosity and not surprise directly you ask questions and you can be answers that is the thing most valuable thing you will learn from here and once you go back as I agree I was saying we are looking forward to receive you directly and have an interaction with you to know at least how to improve one of the programs in the end India will see the key in particular this year when we launched the SNP actually we don't at first time we have only about one and half month to select the students and then to find them and that way it is really our at least we are waiting to take those students and within this one and half month we have been able to place 46 students various faculty members in the part of the university so it is very close to you all and also I will say the response in university the way we have created the broad value of Purana program that is active in India as a predecessor and also help us to maintain the quality of SNP so same way here I would like to also support the U.S. student again SNP thank you very much and I look forward to working with you knowledge is failing I think so I would like to say that probably you already know that the campus has our campus but it is obvious that it is important that all the colleagues that are performing are part of the CIC this is a consortium with us here on my right side so we are extremely happy that we are not alone in this but we are with them really happy to be in a position to develop this partnership not only with our colleagues in India with institutions in India several times with a seat in particular we are talking people would see that this is an opportunity for you to to develop relationships that are not going to be on the academy but also relationships between India and the U.A. we ask you this actually responsible for many things we do we will find this as a way to find out for instance that we have one of the largest collections of campus and I don't want to bother you with more information of this sort the main point I want to make is we have a long history of the study of people, students, faculty visiting and you will see many possibilities of interaction actually this summer with the students where I can to be part of the language institute that is usually organized every year for the South Asian students


What's good Josh your boy Ross back again with another video. So we got to talk about the Becky Lynch and Charlotte flair segment That was on Smackdown this past week It was surrounded in some controversy, man I did watch the segment on YouTube and Something was off. It was it was like It wasn't certain things weren't planned like the whole title being thrown and dropped by Charlotte flair that wasn't planned like it you can tell There was some real tension between Becky and Charlotte that was not supposed to happen and in the process the titles got Thrown on the ground like their trash and to be honest with you It is a bad look to see that on television because these boats are supposed to have some Prestige to them when you're throwing them on the ground like that. It doesn't seem like you care about it They don't seem that important like that's just like someone that's like you see the the WWE Champion just throw the belt on the ground and I didn't even like the whole exchange aspect because I think it takes away from The legitimacy of these belts or well because the opposite stars are opposite brand champions Let's have them swap the bills. No, there should be a match Involved where the belt switch whoever has is it whoever possesses it whatever show they're at on like I don't know they could have booked that better. I just feel like that's kind of lazy booking for them It's just well, give me that championship. Well, give me that championship. There we go Like no have a match happen where if the person loses What not maybe the championship goes to the other brand or you unify the belts because honestly the division the women's division It's not that big enough to have two separate belts But that's a conversation for another day But apparently Charlotte has some heat and people are supporting Becky Lynch in this situation because apparently after this segment there was a confrontation Becky and Charlotte had a confrontation backstage about it and It seems like Charlotte flair has some heat backstage. So we're gonna check this out. This is from Bleacher report WWE superstars support Becky Lynch after rumor confrontation with Charlotte. We're gonna get right into this The WWE locker room has reportedly sided with Becky Lynch over Charlotte flair After their heated argument at Friday's smackdown PW Insider reported there is no backstage heat on Lynch Who had who was seen as merely defending herself against flair who derailed their in ring title exchange? To close the show fight for select previously reported flair was as Was asked to leave the arena before Lynch finished her dark match There has been increasing tensions with flair backstage who is seen as difficult to work with PW Torch previously reported flair Disrespected Lynch and undermined Sasha Banks when she threw the raw women's championship on the ground during the exchange with Lynch Which was not part of the script. This is what happened there. Becky Lynch was grabbed for the title and she threw the belt So Becky Lynch throws the belt at Charlotte and Charlotte doesn't catch it and it falls So I'm like that that was not Supposed to happen you can tell that wasn't supposed to happen. It makes the belts Don't they don't make them look that prestigious when you just here you go Just throwing it like that's kind of messed up. You know I'm saying so Banks later interrupted the segment to set up a few Precision herself as the top baby face women a baby face woman on smackdown Lynch and flair then got in a heated altercation backstage after the show went off air All the lead wrestling on dry day Oh, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, you know, you know, I'm as L L draw and dry day WWE I don't know how to pronounce his last name L. Dolo Who is engaged to flair tweeted f you wwe late Friday night? It's unclear if the tweet and flair's incident are related as on dry day has a match had a match on a EW rampage the same night against pock another former WWE talent And that's pretty much it for this one. Just you know kind of Strict straight to the point, you know straight to the point, but my honest opinion on it Don't know what Charlotte flair is really going through not sure if she's trying to find a way out the company But yeah That just was a bad look that whole segment. It didn't come off as like cool in a sense, you know how WWE sometimes bring real life feuds to storylines. This wasn't it. This didn't come off like Engaging in a cool sense. This came off like, yo, what's happening here? Like why why are they throwing the titles on the ground? Like what's what's going on? so and Some there are some reports that this stems from way back few years ago when Becky Had pretty much called Charlotte plastic or whatnot. I believe in a promo segment or whatever this is when Becky was getting over and I'm guessing Charlotte flair didn't like that So they've always had some issues and tensions behind the scenes But it's one of those things where this came to the forefront on a segment and ultimately It made both the championships look like toys like all this is a toy. I don't really care for it You know I'm saying so Comment down below. Let me know Who do you guys agree with is that fault in this whole situation? Do you believe Charlotte was a being a little bit petty and throwing the title? Do you believe Becky Lynch? Was being petty in her situation and throwing the title at her or what not? Do you believe they were both being petty and unprofessional at the time and it kind of make the segment Awkward like let me know where you guys land on this mean it just did not look good It just it made people watching it live. I'm sure like yo, what what's happening here Is this supposed to happen like just kind of more coke more so confused in like Entertain just like okay, if it wasn't for Sasha coming out there save him as the segment I'm not sure how it wouldn't win, but it just looked very Very awkward man, so coming down below. Let me know who you guys feel like was that fault was it Becky was this Was it a Charlotte or was it both of them? They both are the blade for that segment being kind of a train wreck, but I appreciate all love and support row two 60k appreciate y'all kicking with me. See y'all in the next one. Peace


I'm anything but an actor when I'm off-screen. I'm happy to call myself an entrepreneur and I am a woman. Hi everyone, I'm Neha Dhupia and you're watching me on Entrepreneur India's digital cover.


All right. Coming up next, we have a talk on the iPhone. It's called the hitchhiker's guide to iPhone lightning and JTAG hacking. So please help me welcome to the stage, stack smashing. Hello. Let's get started. This is going to be fast paced talk. So we got to hurry. First off about me, my name is Thomas Roth. I'm probably better known as stack smashing on Twitter and YouTube. And yeah, I'm a security researcher. I do hardware. I do software. All kinds of stuff. And before we can get started with the actual talk, we have to say thank you to a couple of people. So first off, Carlo Moranio, who is like my partner in crime on this talk, basically, we designed the hardware together, collaborated on this. Then Yiska Karo and Fabian, who just have been a great support, answered a ton of questions, listened to my rumbling about debugging SWD issues and so on. Then Lily, aka Bendy Cactus, who just gave me a lot of hints and tips when I was stuck and just contributed some great information. Then John, aka Nyan Satan, who basically documented a lot of the stuff you're about to see. And a lot of the information that I used in this talk is based on his research. And also, Lambda Concept, who are the vendors of the Bonobo cable, they published a lot of things as open source that have been really, really helpful for this talk. Now, lightning. What's so special about lightning? Lightning is this proprietary connector by Apple that you can find on iPhones. And it's reversible, so it has eight contacts on both sides. However, if we look on the device side, it really only has contacts on the bottom. So it's just eight signals. If you look at the connector with the contacts on the bottom, we count them like this, one to eight. And lightning normally is used for audio, charging, data transfer, all that kind of stuff. So for me, it's not really interesting. However, if you take a look at some of the less common iPhone accessories, you can find that there are actually a couple of interesting things going on. So for example, you can get something called a DCSD or Alex cable, which basically you plug it into the iPhone and it gives you a serial console on to the iPhone. And so if you plug it in, you put your iPhone, you get the boot lock and so on, especially on a J-Broken iPhone. So that's pretty interesting. And there's also something really cool called the Kansy cable. The Kansy cable gives you J-Tec on the iPhone. So it allows you to debug the actual iPhone. Now, the Kansy cable is an Apple internal device. You can sometimes get them on the gray and black market. So it's not really an option if you want to do, like, let's say, legit security research, because you can't start off with a stolen device. But luckily for us, Lambda Concept built a commercial version of this called the Bonobo cable. It's apparently really great. I unfortunately never had one. The issue is it's been out of stock for the past few years. And so I have friends who work at universities and do iPhone security research and they cannot do J-Tec research simply because they can't get the hardware. Now, I'm a hardware hacker and after visiting those friends and a couple of drinks in, the mission was clear. We have to build our own. To do that, we have to first understand lightning itself. If we look at the lightning connector, we have the pins. We have obviously a ground signal. We have power for charging and so on. And then we have two differential pairs. So we have L0 positive and negative and L1 positive and negative. And these two differential pairs can be configured to different protocols. So for example, if you have a USB cable, they will be configured to USB. If you have a DCSD cable, they will do UART and so on and so forth. And we also have two ID pins. Now normally we only use one of these. They are basically used by the cable to tell the iPhone what it should do. And the reason we have two is that the lightning cable is actually not symmetric when you turn it around, but the ID pin on the actual plug is on a different pin depending on the orientation you plug it in. And so when you plug in the lightning connector, the iPhone can actually tell which way you plugged it in. Now, lightning cables are always active. Like even if you have a lightning to USB cable, it actually in the plug itself contains a small microcontroller that talks to the iPhone and tells it, hey, I'm a lightning cable and it even sends over its serial number to authenticate itself. So it's pretty fancy. I'm not sure if it's necessary, but it's there. And the way this authentication is done is via a protocol called SDQ or ID bus. Just two words for the same bus. And inside the iPhone, there's basically directly connected to the lightning connector, a small chip called TreeStar or Hydra on your devices. And this TriStar chip is on the bottom connected directly to lightning and then internally connected to the internal serial buses to USB to JTAG. And on engineering iPhones, it's even connected to the baseband you are. And so it's pretty interesting. And when you plug in a lightning cable, the iPhone will basically ask the cable, hey, what do you want? And then the USB cable will say, hey, please speak USB or, you know, please speak, I don't know, serial, JTAG, whatever. And if the cable says please speak USB, then the iPhone will basically change, for example, the differential pair to be USB or to be UART and so on and so forth. Now, SDQ is pretty well known. Like it's not really a secret. It's been known for years. It's based on the OneWire standard. Even I released like an analyzer for it in 2018. And overall, it's pretty well documented. So I'm not going to go too deep into the physical details. But all you have to know is that it's a simple OneWire protocol. So basically, you only have one wire that connects both accessories. You don't have like TX and RX. It's really just OneWire. And the data looks somewhat like this. If we zoom in on a single byte here, basically, we encode once as a short low pulse and a long high pulse. And we encode zeros as a long low pulse and a short high pulse. And data is transmitted least significant bit first. And so this would encode to hex zero F. Now, if we want to talk to, let's say, the lightning cable, the iPhone would then, for example, send hex zero F. Then it would send a break. Then there's a short delay for the inputs to switch over for the direction. And then the lightning cable would answer on exactly the same data line. And now a lot of people implement this on FPGAs and so on. But if you know me, I like to go very cheap on my stuff. And so there's only one option for me, the Raspberry Pi Pico. It's just $4, not $20 or $100. And it's super, super well suited for this because it runs at 3.3 volts, which is exactly the voltage we need. And it has something called programmable IO, which is this feature that lets you very easily implement protocols directly in hardware. It's basically a small state machine CPU core that has its own instruction set. And you can just implement sdq in hardware on this thing. And the best part is you can actually buy it because it's not actually affected by the chip shortage. So yeah, it's pretty good. The issue is that we need a lightning connector. And as said, you can't just cut off a USB to lightning cable because there's a chip in the plug itself. And so you can't simply, you know, abuse that. But there are these nice breakouts who, by the way, Jill's over there sent to me this one. Unfortunately, if you count the number of signals, it's just five signals, but lightning actually has eight signals. And so those are nice for some basic experimentation. And we basically did our first steps, let's say, with with a similar one. In this case, we were sniffing a DCSD cable. But then bendy cut us actually recommended to me that the lightning extension quotes you can get on Amazon contain all eight signals. And even better, if you cut one apart, all the cables are nicely colored. And the color scheme is identical to the default jumper wire color scheme. And so you can really easily build one of these. And then, you know, plug it into a breadboard or directly onto the Pico. Here's the signal description. This is also on the GitHub, as you will see. So if you want to experiment, this is the the layout we found on most cables.  And then you have a device to explore lightning. You will notice that I marked the lightning connector because as said, it's not symmetric. You actually have to decide for one side. And then you hook it up to the Pico. And you want to implement sdq. And it turns out that implementing sdq is super simple. You don't have to read this code. I just want to show how relatively short it is. It's just like 40 instructions and you are done. And then, you know, 20 lines of code to start talking sdq. To test all this and see whether we really can talk to the iPhone. Our goal was to build a simple DCSD cable. As I've mentioned, DCSD is this iPhone to serial cable. And the basic idea is that we have our iPhone and we have our Pico. And the iPhone, when we plug in the lightning cable, will ask, hey, who's there? And it does so with a four byte request. Seven four is the command. At the end, we have a CRC8. Doesn't really matter too much. And then we simply respond with this eight byte response, which just tells the iPhone, hey, please configure lightning to speak your art. And the tree start ship in the iPhone will do exactly that. It will take one of the differential pairs. And it will switch it to your art. And then all we have to do really on the Pico is receive your art signals. And turns out this is super simple. It takes like less than 50 lines of code to do this. And then you have a DCSD cable. And we check this out. We plug in the iPhone. It boots up. And we have a $5 DCSD cable without, you know, without having done too much. This is pretty cool. But DCSD cables can be very easily bought on AliExpress and so on. And it's not really what we're interested in. We are here for JTAG. Now JTAG on the iPhone is actually not JTAG. It's SWD, which is serial wire debug. It's basically like JTAG but only uses two signals. And the big issue is that production iPhones obviously have JTAG turned off because they don't want you to debug the iPhone. But if you have a checkmateable iPhone, you can actually use a jailbreak to basically first compromise the iPhone, the bootrom. And then we can do something called demotion where we set an internal register to a different value. And then suddenly JTAG is re-enabled. And this is all done by IPON, DFU. And this has been known for years, by the way. Like, this is nothing new. Just want to clarify. But now we actually want to start talking JTAG to the iPhone, right? And so we need a plan. The plan is super simple. First, we set lightning to JTAG via SDQ. We just set it to UART. So we already know how to do this, basically. All we do is we respond to the who's there request with this time a different byte. And by the way, all these bytes for the responses are documented by NyanSatan. And so you can find a lot of details about this online. And we also have our own documentation on some more details. And then the iPhone, the tree start ship will reconfigure all the key pins on the iPhone. And then we actually have directly the SWD clock and IO signal exposed on the lightning connector. And so all we have to do now is we just connect the debug probe with open OCD, right? What could possibly go wrong? And even better, Lambda concept, who are the vendors of the Bonobo cable, they actually published an open OCD fork that supports, has like special support for the iPhone and so on. And even better, they supply us with all the configuration files we need to actually talk to the chip. Because if you want a debugger chip, there are all these definitions on which peripheral and so on and so forth. And they provide us all of this. And so I decided to hook this up in the messiest way possible because basically what I did is I just connected my iPhone, brought the lightning stuff out to a breadboard, connected a logic analyzer so that I can actually see what's going on, connected the Pico that will actually tell the iPhone to go into SWD mode. And then I used a ready to use debug probe just to see, just to get it working basically. And so I hooked this all up. And so we are ready to go. And so it doesn't work. It turns out that switching over to SWD is really easy. And if we actually connect with the debugger, we can even see that it finds the debug port, like the hex number on the bottom is basically, if you Google it, that's an iPhone. And so we do have some kind of debugging connection to the iPhone. But if we want to actually debug something, this is a screenshot from OpenMode CD, it doesn't work. Like the state of all CPUs is unknown and I have zero clue how to turn them on. And how do you debug this? Because my issue was I have no clue about SWD. Like I've used JTAG a million times. I've used SWD probably even more. But how do you debug if you just, like, we didn't even have a working Kenzie or Bonobo cable. Like we didn't have a known working system that we could sniff. This is all basically partially reverse engineered, partially combined from public information and so on. And so yeah, what do you do? You get a nice book for the evening called the SWD specification. You read it twice. I hope you understand at least a quarter of it. And then you start to logic analyze it. And you see what bits are actually going over the wire and so on. Simple, right? So I hooked up my logic analyzer, I debug the signal. Didn't make sense to me. Turns out the logic analyzer is broken. The SWD plug-in for the logic analyzer just simply was not great. And so first you get to fix the logic analyzer. Much fun. Then you see that OpenOCD doesn't handle some SWD things correctly. And so basically when you send an SWD command to a chip, it can respond with acknowledgement or knock or wait. And it turns out OpenOCD with by default doesn't support the weight response. And in the logic analyzer, I could see I get a weight response, but my debug probe just ignores it and keeps going. So obviously you implement SWD by hand. And so you again open the specification and you write as a partially custom SWD stack. And at this point it still didn't work. We handled the weight bits, we handled everything was looking perfect and it still didn't work. And now then you're at a point in time where you can potentially sink 200 hours without success because you simply have no clue what's going on. And so I just started randomly trying everything I could find, randomly setting bits, clearing bits and so on. I basically built kind of a fuzzer for some parts of the SWD protocol that tries to just flip bits until maybe we get successful. And it turns out a single bit that resets a certain peripheral was wrong. That was a tough day because you spent so much time just wasted, completely wasted on a single bit. But then you have a great moment, which is you hook up open OCD, you hook up your iPhone, you hit return and it connects no errors. Everything is fine. It tells you, yes, I'm listening for a GDB connection. I'm listening for an open OCD connection. And so you hook up open OCD and you check what do our CPU cores do. And this time we can see CPU zero halted CPU one power off, no more unknown states except for the SCP, which has a different reason. It's all working. And to prove that we can hook up GDB, connect to it and we can actually inspect the registers. We actually built a five dollar cancer cable. So yes, that was a great moment. And now at this point in time it was all a bit complicated because, you know, I had a big pile of code. The branch was literally called clusterfuck. And so now it was time to clean up and, you know, put everything together, make everything work nicely together. And in the end we had this awesome firmware for the Raspberry Pi Pico that can be used as an SDQ bridge, self-contains in the Pico, a full SWD probe for which we added support to open OCD for. And it's fully open source. Now obviously the cables that are used for debugging iPhones, they all have very awesome names based on monkeys. So you have the Kansi cable, the Bonobo, you have the Chimp cable and the Con cable. Luckily for us they didn't select the coolest monkey, which is the Tamarin monkey. And so our firmware is called the Tamarin cable. And you can find it as open source now online. It's fully works. It's pretty simple to use. You plug it in. It will give you two, actually three USB devices, two serial ports. The first serial port just lets you, you know, do a select between JTAG, DCSD mode. You can even reset the device, which is pretty cool. So it turns out that there are a couple of basically secret SDQ commands that Bandicatos found. And basically just randomly I think posted them on Twitter and I was like, hey, how did you find those? And so it turns out by fuzzing lightning you can actually find some undocumented commands. And this allows you to reset the device and go into DFU mode. If you've never, you know, j broken an iPhone before, you have to like hold power and volume down and at precisely eight seconds you have to release the buttons and then Checkmate is not really a super stable exploit. So then you get to do it again and again and again and again. With this it's like a single tap. You just click reset and enter DFU and it goes into DFU and you can just try a hundred times. So honestly this is the third best feature of this thing. Now to make this all a bit nicer we also developed custom hardware we call the tamering cable which basically also exposes it has a USB hub on there so you can do, you know, both JTAG and also USB data at the same time. And just as we were ready to order, you know, a thousand pieces of this, turns out there's this thing going on called the chip shortage. You might have heard of it. And so all USB hubs we could think of were just out of stock and so we had to build the chip shortage edition which instead of a hub simply adds two USB ports and just makes it a bit cleaner like you can make it nice short cable, plug it in and so on. But this has zero advantages except it's less messy over the cable itself. So this is not a sales pitch but this is coming up if you're interested we will probably do a production run, follow me on Twitter and you will get notified when it comes out. And with that releases there's a lot of different things that we've had to build for this. So first off the Tamarin cable firmware is now open source. We forked OpenOCD added support for our Tamarin SWD probe. We forked the SWD analyzer of the logic analyzer and there's also the SDQ analyzer plug-in. And I think some of the repos are still private but the Tamarin cable is open. As soon as I'm on a Wi-Fi that doesn't scare me I will change the guitar visibility. And with that thank you very much. That's all I have for you today.