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The Ancient Legend of Herne the Hunter
The popular legend of Herne the Hunter, a ghostly huntsman who haunts Windsor Great Park with his pack of spectral hounds, is a classic example of how pagan beliefs survived and were preserved in folklore as late as the 16th century.Herne is mentioned in the Shakespeare play ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor, first performed on St George’s Day ( April 23rd 1597) at Windsor Castle. In Act IV, Scene IV the play states, ‘There is an old tale that Herne the Hunter’ sometime a keeper in Windsor Forest, doth all the wintertime, at still midnight, walk around about an oak, with great, ragged horns. And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle, and makes milch kine (milk cows) yield blood, and shakes a chain in a most hideous and dreadful manner.’
This evocative description of Herne the Hunter is based on the story of Richard Herner or Horne, a gamekeeper or royal huntsman in the employ of Richard II, Henry VII or Henry VIII. A manuscript in the British Museum apparently refers to a ‘Richardye Horne, yeoman’ who confessed before the king of hunting deer in the royal forest of Windsor.
In the most popular account of the story, drawn from several sources and romantically embellished in the 19th century, Herne was out hunting with the king and wounded a stag. Enraged with pain, the beast charged at the king.
Herne threw himself in front of the stag and killed it but was mortally injured in the process. A wizard then appeared who told the king that the only way to save the huntsman’s life was to cut off the stag’s antlers and fix them on his head. This the king did and Herne mysteriously came alive.
Following this event Herne either lost his hunting skills and was dismissed from royal position or was caught poaching and the king, not wishing to show favour, ordered him to leave his service. Either way, a distraught Herne committed suicide by hanging himself from a ‘blasted oak’ that stood in the evocatively named Fairy’s Dell in Windsor Forest.
Ever since then it is said that Herne’s ghost has haunted the vicinity of the tree. The original oak was cut down in 1797 on orders of the mad King George III. In 1906 Edward VII researched the legend and, as a result, had an oak tree replanted on the site of the original and this can be seen today.
When Herne the Hunter materialised as a ghostly vision he was a bizarre and terrifying sight. He was said to be robed in a phosphorescent deerskin and wore a strange helmet made from a stag’s skull complete with branching antlers. On his left wrist was an iron bracelet and this, too, soon with an unearthly light. An owl flew above Herne, riding a coal-black horse with blazing red eyes, led his pack of demon dogs on their wild ride through the park.
Bad Omens
Sightings of Herne were usually regarded as bad omens and most were reported during the Winter months and especially around All Hallow’s Eve (october 31st). He was reported at times of national crisis or before events of a tragic nature associated with the royal family.
It is said that he was seen in 1939, just before the start of World War II, and prior to the death of King George VI. The last reported sighting of Herne and his Wild Hunt was in 1962 and sounds like what would be termed an urban myth nowadays. It is said that a group of teenagers were larking around in Windsor Great Park at night and stumbled upon an old hunting horn. One of them blew the instrument and was answered by a similar call. The Herne and his phantom hounds came riding through the trees and the terrified teenagers fled in fear of their lives.
Ancient Myth
It is evident from the symbolism in the story of Herne that it is the fact the retelling of an ancient myth. In the popular legend of Herne he sacrifices his own life to save the king from the wounded stag. By this act he becomes a ‘substitute divine victim’ for it is the king who should have died in his place.
Herne is killed by a stag, the sacred beast form of the old Horned God and totem animal of the goddess Diana-Artemis. A ‘wizard’ then appears from nowhere and on his instructions, instantly obeyed by the king, Herne is resurrected from the dead by being crowned with the antlers of the slain stag.
Later Herne hangs himself from the oak that has been struck by lighting. The oak is the sacred tree of the Indo-European storm/thunder god and lightening is his magical weapon.
Some folklorists have claimed that Hermes is a folk memory of the ancient worship of the Celtic god Cernunnos, the Horned One, in the Windsor Forest area. From the symbolism of his legend it seems more likely that Herne represents the Norse god Oden w who was known to the Anglo-Saxons as Woden, Lord of the wild Hunt.
World Tree
Odin hung for nine days on the world tree Yggsdrasil to gain the mysteries of the runes. Sacrificial victims were also hung from trees in Scandinavia in his honour. When in human guise Woden offered appeared to his human followers as a wizard.
The Saxon kings of England claimed to have been descended from Woden and his scared blood flowed through their veins, This would explain the link between the appearance of Herne and the royal family who descent from the Anglo-Saxons royal dynasty of the House of Wessex through their English and German ancestors.
What is amazing is that such ancient beliefs about the Old God should have survived foe nearly a thousand years and then be recounted in the works of England’s greatest literary genius for all to see.
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