Nerds of Yore: Part 3

Not-Little John of Sherwood

One of the most illustrious nerds of yore was Not-Little John of Sherwood, who was one of Robin Hood’s Merry Men. He was called ‘Not-Little John’ because they refused to call him ‘SlaughterMaster John, Destroyer of Worlds.’

After a tumultuous period, where he was referred to variously as ‘Smelly’ John, ‘Rancid’ John, ‘Round’ John, and ‘Lady Margret’ John, ‘Not-Little’ John eventually became the accepted nickname, though he would have vastly preferred ‘Colossal’ John.

At any rate, Not-Little was Robin’s official statistician. He was given this job as he proved completely incompetent in a fight, lacked any sense of subtlety, and had the woodman-ship skills of an incontinent sea lion. They also attempted to use him as a spy, a courier, a bar-maid, and a theoretical physicist, but he roundly failed at all these as well.

However, Not-Little John was, in fact, an amazing statistician. He would happily spend hours compiling reams and reams of mostly useless data and entering it into a strange, grid format he developed.

He kept records on arrows fired (with hits and misses), ale quaffed, soldiers fought, soldiers slain, soldiers wounded, soldiers annoyed, maidens kissed, targets hit, gold stolen, swords crossed, beef consumed, and quips made (scored on a scale of 1-10).

Not-Little would present these figures to Robin regularly and would happily point out trends and give advice, which centered around trying to get Maid Marion’s hot handmaiden to go out with him. It is unknown if Robin made any use of his advice and figures.

After Robin defeated the Sherriff and took back his lands, Not-Little was given a purse of gold and a letter of recommendation and sent on his way.

Not-Little eventually settled in northern England and opened a store that sold picture books. However, Not-Little’s greatest contribution to nerdom came when he published his collected statistics along with a set of rules and inadvertently created the first character-based war-game and coincidentally, Fantasy Baseball.

Look for more nerds of yore in coming weeks!

Cheers,
-Jason