Robyn Goodfellowe

*This article is about **the protagonist** of the film.*

* Wolfwalker
* Scullery Maid with bonnet down
* Scullery Maid with cloak
* Scullery Maid
* Hunter
* Wolf

“*Then I prayed the whole bible.*”
―- Response to Bill saying "Work is prayer"
**Robyn Goodfellowe** is the main protagonist of Wolfwalkers, a young apprentice hunter and Bill's daughter. Her meeting and growing friendship with Mebh drives the story.

## History:

### Early life:

Robyn was born in England to her father, Bill Goodfellowe, and his wife. At some point in Robyn's childhood, her mother passed away and Bill promised that he would keep Robyn safe.

While in England, Bill would take Robyn with him on his hunting adventures influencing his daughter to become a hunter as well. Bill is summoned to Kilkenny, Ireland to hunt down wolves that are plaguing the area. Their new home is more restrictive than England that prevents Robyn from spending as much time with her father than she used to.

## Personality:

Robyn is a bright and adventurous young girl who enjoyed going out into the woods with her father back in England. She wanted to have adventures involving mystical creatures like dragons and selkies. When her father is summoned to Kilkenny to hunt the wolves in the forest around the city, she finds herself confined to their house and chafes at the Lord Protector's rigid and stifling rules.

Robyn is a passionate individual but in her current situation this is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, she is motivated to do the right thing but it also causes her to be outspoken in ways that draws the unwanted attention of the Lord Protector to herself and her father.

Another downside of her passionate nature along with her youthful inexperience is that she fails to understand the big picture often times focusing only on the matter at hand. This creates unfortunate situations where she embarrasses her father in front of the Lord Protector or when she has a few precious moments to try to explain herself she can only get out phrases like "No" or "You can't" which, while accurate, do nothing to help her father understand. Robyn can be stubborn at times.

## Physical Appearance:

Robyn is a slender tween girl with fair skin, light blue eyes and long blonde hair that is styled in two braided pigtails with red hair ties. She is mentioned as being taller but not stronger than Mebh.
It seems that one trait of being a Wolfwalker is going barefoot while in human form and having dirty feet. We see this earlier with Mebh and Móll and even Bill has dirty bare feet by the epilogue. It's unclear if Robyn has also abandoned foot wear since she is last seen sleeping under the covers in the wagon, but there's no reason to suspect she hasn't also gone barefoot.

At the end of the movie she no longer styles her hair into braids, but lets it loose.

As a wolf, she keeps her light blue eyes but has silvery-gray fur and is more slender than other wolves.

Robyn in wolf formRobyn in human form

## Role in the Film *(Spoilers ahead)*

We first encounter Robyn as her father returns to their room to discover she has been busy with target practice on her cross-bow despite saying she's been busy with her chores all morning. Bill can clearly see there's been no cleaning of the room but he doesn't chastise her for it. Instead, he is impressed with a shot that Robyn made to a wolf poster from fifteen feet away.

We learn that Bill and Robyn are recent transplants to Ireland with Bill being assigned the task of hunting down the wolves in the forest surrounding Kilkenny. He can see that Robyn is bored at staying in the room all day since, because back in England, she used to accompany him on his adventures in the woods. However, Bill points out that the Lord Protector forbids children to be outside the city walls and she needs to deal with the new situation.

Bill leaves to go to the forest instructing Robyn to "stay indoors" but Robyn resolves to track him to the city gates for practice. She tracks him through the crowded and chaotic city streets until he comes up behind her to ask what she is doing. Again, he doesn't chastise her and even takes a moment to dance with her to the music of the city buskers before he is called away by the city soldiers. Robyn runs afoul of a group of the city's children playing "cage the wolf", one of whom claims his father was a great hunter until the Lord Protector had him put in chains. They mock her fancy English accent and when they try to take her crossbow she shoves the group leader aside which causes the group to start to gang up on her but the timely arrival of Bill causes them to scatter.

Robyn follows her father to the front gates where he finally puts his foot down and firmly tells her she can't follow and needs to stay inside. He tempers his firm outburst by offering to let her help make arrows that evening and she can tell him stories of giants and dragons. Robyn sullenly agrees and Bill heads off towards the woods but Robyn stubbornly refuses to stay behind and sneaks out of the city to follow him.

Robyn tracks her father a little ways into the woods when suddenly she hears a villager calling for help due to a wolf attack. Robyn runs straight into the chaos of wolves attacking sheep and threatening the sheepherder. Trying to help, she makes a mess of things, accidentally shooting Merlyn and being threatened by a wolf pack herself. Only Bill's prompt return saves Robyn from harm. Bill is now rightly angry with Robyn for she not only disobeyed him but could have been badly hurt. Robyn had seen a strange girl creep out of the forest and pick up her injured bird, Merlyn. She wants to go into the forest to look for him, but Bill absolutely forbids it.

Bill and Robyn encounter Seán Óg, a woodcutter, who tells the two about Wolfwalkers and how they are upset that the ancient deal of leaving the woods alone has been broken. Sean then goes on to mock The Lord Protector's rule just as he rides up behind him and has Sean sentenced to the stocks for his disrespect. The Lord Protector then reprimands Bill for not making any progress on ridding the forest of wolves. Upon noticing Robyn behind her father, the Lord Protector reprimands her for being outside the city walls, and orders her to be sent to the scullery. Before leaving to deal with a rebellion in the south of Ireland, he gives Bill a two-day deadline to finish off the wolves by the time he returns. Bill heads back into the forest, but Robyn creates a distraction and once again sneaks away.

Robyn goes into the forest to look for Merlyn and while exploring the forest she finds Merlyn safe and unharmed. She then encounters a brown wolf and draws her crossbow but Merlyn keeps spoiling the shot until he manages to knock the arrow to the ground. Without a loaded weapon, Robyn backs away and steps into one of Bill's traps finding herself suspended above the ground upside down. The brown wolf looks at Robyn with a sense of playfulness and keeps leaping toward the vine holding Robyn snapping at it with her jaws. A disoriented Robyn feels that she's being attacked and swats at the wolf with hands and feet repeatedly hitting the wolf in the head. On one pass, Robyn hits the wolf just as the wolf manages to bite through the vine biting Robyn in the process. Robyn fails to the ground and as she sits up she weirdly sees a glowing young girl with a panicked look on her face. Robyn blinks and brown wolf returns.

After gently licking Robyn's wounded arm instead of attacking her, the wolf retreats and Merlyn tags along causing a confused Robyn to follow them both. While in pursuit she comes to a dead end before a huge clump of intertwined vines but notices one of Merlyn's feathers in the brush. As she reaches toward it the vines magically part before her forming a tunnel and allowing her entrance. She emerges into a glen full of streamlets and pools of water and notices the brown wolf and Merlyn further up the valley near a great waterfall and follows them up. Behind the waterfall, she discovers a tunnel that leads to a large room, the brown wolf howls and soon the room is filled with wolves. Robyn has discovered the wolf's den.

In this room a stocky woman with ginger hair sits on a chair of stone with a child in her lap. Both appear to be sleeping but then the brown wolf leaps into the air turning into a golden spirit and lands in the young child who opens her eyes and calls out to Robyn to stop hiding as she knows she's there. She identifies herself as a Wolfwalker and proceeds to heal the bite on Robyn's arm. Then she chases Robyn out of the den back into the small valley playfully taunting Robyn as being too slow. As she chases Robyn she proudly identifies herself as Mebh... Mebh Óg MacTíre. Robyn dashes to the side to elude the wolfpack and manages to step into another trap much to Mebh's delight at seeing the great townie hunter girl fail so splendidly.

Mebh then hears an intruder and we see Bill briefly as Mebh and Robyn spy on him from behind the magical vines and watch him setting a trap. Robyn realizes she needs to get back to the city and Mebh accompanies her to an oak tree with the curved trunk where they sit and talk awhile, sharing stories about their family, seeking a new home, and the smelly city. Robyn combs Mebh's hair which lays the foundation for their friendship as Mebh reveals how lonely she is and the two have a few minutes of simple play. Robyn offers to help Mebh and says she'll meet her at the big tree the next day.

Robyn sneaks back into the city and returns to their room spending time actually cleaning as she rehearses how to explain the Wolfwalker situation to her father and how it can be the answer to the wolf problem in general. But Bill returns home, tired and weary that every trap he set has been broken or sprung and he is again empty-handed. Robyn tries her rehearsed speech on him but it quickly goes off the rails as her father does not follow her "script" and gets upset when he learns she returned to the forest and did not go to the scullery as ordered.

This particularly bothers Bill as he is aware of how badly things can go when the Lord Protector is not obeyed. As such he shuts down any further Wolfwalker talk and makes Robyn promise that she'll follow his instructions. The next day, Bill hand-delivers Robyn to the scullery and heads out to the woods. Because she's stuck in the scullery, she misses connecting up with Mebh. However, as she is cleaning outside of the Lord Protector's chambers a spill leads her inside where she hears a voice softly calling to her from a large cage in the chamber but she is interrupted before she can explore further. Robyn returns to her room to find her father already there preparing dinner and again tries to talk to him about the Wolfwalker solution but he shuts her down telling her enough of her stories... Wolfwalkers are not real. Robyn leaves the dinner table in a huff and goes to her bed.

That night as Robyn sleeps she releases her wolf form in the loft where her body is sleeping. Her panicked cries come out as wolf barks that wake her father who comes to investigate and finds a wolf standing over Robyn's sleeping form. Bill grabs a crossbow and starts shooting at her forcing Wolf Robyn to flee out the window. Oddly, Bill doesn't try waking Robyn to make sure she's alright so her body is left to sleep in bed.

She runs into the forest back to wolf's den where Mebh is both surprised and delighted to see Robyn in wolf form as she now has a friend to share with. As such, Mebh takes Robyn out into the forest and guides her on how to be a wolf which includes a montage set to "Running with the Wolves".

After her night's adventures with Mebh, Wolf Robyn return to her upstairs window but pauses going in as she smells something that leads her towards the castle. However, on her way there she encounters her father who has been out patrolling the city and again shoots at her with his crossbow. She eludes him but the scuffle wakes the entire town even as Robyn manages to sneak into the castle via a basement window.

Returning to the Lord Protector’s chamber, Robyn finds Móll locked in a big cage who questions how Robyn came to be a Wolfwalker and if the wolf that bit her is still nearby. Robyn realizes this is Mebh's mother and tells Móll that her daughter is alright but Móll is distressed to learn she is still in the area. While Robyn tries to figure out how to unlock the cage, Móll begs for Robyn to flee, return to her body and tell Mebh to get away to safety. Their conversation is interrupted by the Lord Protector who enters the chambers and discovers Robyn. She is forced to flee when the Lord Protector starts shooting at her even as Móll again yells again that Mebh needs to lead the pack to safety.

After Robyn escapes the castle, she returns home just as Bill is coming in the front door. She re-enters her body just in time but her attempt to explain what happened is interrupted by a knock at the door. The Lord Protector wants to speak to Bill.

The presence of a wolf inside the city has the citizens in an uproar and The Lord Protector is tired of Bill's continued failure and demotes him from hunter to simple foot-soldier. Unfortunately, Robyn challenges the Lord Protector's speech to the townsfolk to try and explain that releasing the Wolfwalker will solve their problems. The Lord Protector is aghast at her talk of pagan nonsense and immediately orders her to the stocks. Only Bill's pleading changes the Lord Protector's mind but he tells Bill he has one more chance to follow orders or he will be sent off to war. Bill implores Robyn to follow orders or else they will be separated.

That night Robyn forces herself to stay awake so she doesn't transform into a wolf. In the morning Bill takes Robyn to the scullery as he joins the foot soldiers in constructing a stage for the Lord Protector. Mebh again waits in the forest for Robyn to show up but when she doesn't and sends Merlyn with the message that Mebh should go, she defiantly sneaks into the city to hold Robyn to her promise to help her and confronts her in the scullery. Mebh is confused and can't understand why Robyn is refusing to help after she promised. Robyn is aching inside but just keeps insisting for Mebh to take the wolfpack and go because the Lord Protector will burn them out of the forest that night. Mebh is angry and feels abandoned by Robyn and rushes out of the room.

That day the Lord Protector has a public showing involving a giant wolf and Mebh fears that it's her mammy and tries to rush the stage. Robyn catches her and tries to reason with her to no avail, fearing for her safety, Robyn calls out to the street kids that Mebh is a "wolf" and they delight in capturing her in their cage, leaving Mebh feeling completely betrayed.

Meanwhile, Móll is presented to the townspeople muzzled, caged and chained. The Lord Protector wants to show that the wolf has been "tamed" and there is nothing to fear. When a torch is used to silence her growling protests, an enraged Mebh breaks free of her cage and storms the stage upsetting the Lord Protector who orders Bill to capture the child. However, her small size and agility makes it hard for him catch her much to the Lord Protector's mocking disgust.

Bill is finally able to get hold of Mebh and force her to the ground but as he tries to collar her, Robyn distracts him with her protests and the guards lose their grip on the chains holding Móll secure so she is able to bite Bill to defend her daughter. This allows Mebh to break free and dash to the city gates and threaten the people that she will be back with the wolves to eat them.

A thoroughly disgusted Lord Protector chastises Bill's ineptitude and demands that he prove himself a worthy soldier tonight or else he'll be in chains tomorrow. Since the giant wolf has no further value to him, the Lord Protector orders Bill to destroy it.Initially, Robyn protests the killing but Bill furiously orders her away. However, she steels herself and stands against him, protecting the Wolf with her body. When Robyn challenges why they must obey, Bill confesses that he is afraid... afraid of losing her... afraid of her being locked in a cage without him. Unfortunately she doesn't take this opportunity to try and actually explain to her father why she's so adamant about freeing the Wolfwalker.

A town watchman calls out that wolves are coming and Robyn takes advantage of a momentary distraction to release Móll and rides out of the city on her back with Bill following as quickly as possible. She and Móll reunite with Mebh on the edge of the forest. Móll can sense the tension between Mebh and Robyn and encourages them to make up which leads to a reconciliation. This happy moment is interrupted as Bill catches up to Robyn in the fields and sees her surrounded by wolves with the giant wolf standing over her. In a panic, he pulls out his crossbow and shoots the giant wolf. The wolf pack erupts in mayhem, surrounding Bill and snarling as he tries to get Robyn to flee the dangerous situation. However, she can only react in shock and dismay at what her father has done.

Bill watches in disbelief as the giant wolf dissolves into a glowing ghost-like form and drifts away with Robyn struggling to get free from Bill's embrace so she can follow. She finally confesses that she is also a Wolfwaker and she has to go. Unfortunately, despite having a rare moment alone with her father, she doesn't use it to explain anything about what being a Wolfwalker means, why she needs to go help Mebh, or that she'll need to come back to her body. Instead she cradles into his chest and falls asleep thereby releasing her wolf form, which can't speak and just looks at her father sadly and then runs off to catch up with Mebh. Essentially leaving Bill to feel that she's left him forever.

Bill is emotionally broken, even when the Lord Protector approaches and demands to know what's going on, Bill has no fear of the man and can only croak *"Robyn, she... she's gone"*. The Lord Protector heartlessly shows no concern for the situation and simply calls for Bill to be chained so they can deal with him later. During the trek through the forest, Bill just follows along compliantly and only snaps out of it when when he sees Robyn's wolf form and reacts to prevent the Lord Protector from shooting her.

When the Lord Protector then prepares his cannon to fire on the entrance to the wolf lair, Robyn jumps on the cannon and drives the cannon muzzle into the ground causing a great explosion when it fires. She is caught in the blast and knocked unconscious and the Lord Protector advances on her with his sword to deliver a killing blow as Bill strains against his chains and chokes against his collar. His fierce desire to protect Robyn along with the collar choking him into unconsciousness allows his wolf form to be freed and he immediately charges the Lord Protector knocking him to the ground saving Robyn.

A fierce battle of sword vs fang ensues and the Lord Protector gets in a strike to the Wolf's face leaving a slash mark that slowly emerges on Bill's human face. The battle continues and Wolf Bill succeeds in shattering the Lord Protector's sword and pinning him to the ground just as he retrieves his musket pistol. The Lord Protector sees that the Wolf and Bill have the same wound on their face and realizes they are connected somehow, he aims his musket at Bill's human form only to be saved at the last second by Robyn who returned to her human body and shoots the musket out of the Lord Protector's hand with an arrow.

Wolf Bill and the Lord Protector fight to the edge of the rock bridge with Bill clearly having the upper hand. The Lord Protector decides to die a martyr's death rather than be desecrated by the fangs of some devil wolf and unbuckles his armor to fall to his death.

After a brief reunion, Robyn and Bill rush into the den to help Mebh because she lacks the strength to heal such a severe wound by herself and it takes the combined efforts of Robyn, Mebh, Bill and the entire pack to finally heal Móll's injury. Despite being shot by Bill, she asks him to stay and join their pack.

By the epilogue, all four Wolfwalkers are seen in the restored gypsy wagon traveling with the wolf pack to find a new home. Bill seems to have embraced the Wolfwalker lifestyle as he wears more relaxed clothing, abandoned his wolf-fur cloak, and goes barefoot like Mebh and Móll. Bill is shown putting a flower in Móll's hair and sharing a smile with her suggesting that some feelings of affection may have grown between the two. He then turns to Robyn who is lying in the back to tell her *"All is well, my love."*

The last scene is Mebh and Robyn falling asleep in the wagon and releasing their wolf forms to run with the pack to the top of a hill overlooking the wilds of Ireland as they seek their new home.

## Abilities:

In the film Robyn displays abilities that come from being bitten by Mebh who passes on the Wolfwalker blessing/curse to her. Because she was not raised in the pagan tribe of Móll or Mebh, Robyn did not know how to perform healing magic until Mebh shows her how and even then she does not have much practice in that skill.

#### As a Wolfwalker

* **Transformation**: Upon becoming a Wolfwalker after Mebh bites her, Robyn finds that her spirit leaves her bodysleeping and takes on the physical form of a wolf. If she is injured in her wolf form, her human body will suffer the same injury. She can apparently choose for her wolf form to return to her body (thus waking her up), but can't stop her soul from leaving whenever she falls asleep. She is able to see the human form of other wolfwalkers while they are in wolf form. If she bites someone when she's in wolf form, they will become a Wolfwalker too.
* **Wolf's Senses** : As a wolf, Robyn perceives scent both by smell and sight as well as hear noises and feel vibrations in the ground beneath her paws.
* **Enhanced Physiology** : As a wolf, Robyn is easily stronger than her human counterpart and can run faster and higher. She also has sharp claws and fangs.
* **Enhanced Reflexes** : As a wolf, Robyn has enhanced reflexes, being able to dodge crossbow arrows and musket shots.

## Relationships

### Mebh Óg MacTíre

Mebh is Robyn's best friend though the two did not have a good start, (Robyn thought Mebh was going to eat Merlyn, and she accidentally bites Robyn trying to free her from trap.) However, the two get closer as Robyn turns into a wolf and they howl together with the rest of the Wolves. Robyn at one point betrays Mebh by having her put in a cage to try and save her from the Lord Protector. Fortunately the two work it out and reconcile. By the ending, some assume that they become stepsisters, but Ross Stewart  insists that their relationship was meant to be left open to interpretation.

### Móll MacTíre

Robyn first encounters Móll when she senses her presence outside the Lord Protector's chambers and calls to her. They have a stronger meeting when she returns in wolf form and Móll learns that Robyn knows Mebh and she tells Robyn to tell Mebh to leave the area and get the pack to safety. They met again while she is in the cage on display in the town square where Robyn prevents her father from killing her and helps her escape the city. She's present when Mebh finally reunites with her mother who senses the falling out the two had back in the city and encourages her daughter to make amends. Finally, at the climax of the story, Robyn helps Mebh heal her mother's near fatal wound resulting in the four Wolfwalkers Móll, Mebh, Robyn and Bill becoming a pack and heading into the wilds of Ireland to find a new home.

### Merlyn

Merlyn is Robyn’s friend and pet falcon who helps her hunt. At the beginning of the movie, Merlyn seemed to understand what Robyn wanted from him and Robyn appeared to understand Merlyn (or at least pretended to). After Robyn becomes a Wolfwalker, Merlyn seems to understand her better as when Robyn sets him free with a message to Mebh to gather the wolves and leave the forest.

### Wolves

When the den is under attack, Mebh instructs the wolves to "follow her" and they obey the instructions she gives to defend the den. She does not have total authority over the pack because when Mebh calls the wolves back while the battle is still going on, the wolves respond immediately to the call and leave Robyn behind.

### Lord Protector

He has no patience for children and would prefer to send them to the scullery for a day of exhausting work rather than allow them to stay at home unsupervised. The Lord Protector sees Robyn as nothing more than a necessary inconvenience. He needs Bill to capture the wolves, Bill has a daughter, so here she is. Even though she is introduced to him, the Lord Protector never calls her by her name and only addresses her as "girl". He quickly grows tired of Robyn's protests about how he is dealing with the wolf situation and nearly sends a her to the stocks for using the word "Wolfwalkers" with only her father's pleading to change his mind. Even then he threatens to separate her from her father if she doesn't fall in line.

## Books

* *The Art of Wolfwalkers*
* *WolfWalkers: The Graphic Novel*

## Trivia

* In The Art of WolfWalkers, it is revealed that Robyn was originally planned to be a boy. This was later changed to better explore the theme of gender roles in the film.
* "Robin Goodfellow" is the other name of Puck from Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
* When Mebh is chasing Robyn after their first meeting in the wolf's den, she playfully pulls out Robyn's equipment (like arrows) and tosses it aside. At one point she pulls out and tosses away the "Eye of Crom", an easter egg from Cartoon Saloon's earlier film **The Secret of the Kells**.
* Although Robyn, Mebh, and Móll are shown having their wolf spirit return to their body, Robyn is the only wolfwalker we see having her wolf spirit leave and form a physical wolf.
* Robyn gets her stubbornness from her father Bill.

## Gallery

The **Wolfwalkers Wiki** has a collection of images related to ***Robyn Goodfellowe/Gallery***.

## Quotes

”But I already am in a cage!”

”I’m not a townie, anymore.”

”Its great?! I’m a Wolfwalker!”

”The woods are getting smaller everyday..”

## References

1. ↑ In an early version of the movie script as seen in the artbook she is described as 13, but in the French trailer she is said to be 12.
2. ↑ Ross Stewart, "Not stepsiblings. (...) It's ambiguous and open to any interpretation," Twitter, Nov 28, 2020