Saturday, October 17, 2009

Luverly of the Week: Herne the Hunter by George Cruikshank


Herne the Hunter is a legendary figure of English folklore, who is said to haunt the Windsor Forest. The first written mention of Herne was in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor:

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.

To find out more about Herne, check out these webbies:

Beware the Ghostly Haunt

Herne the Hunter

The Legend of Herne the Hunter

And here is Herne's appearance on the brilliant BBC show, Robin of Sherwood

5 comments:

Bek said...

Sorry, I know it's got nothing to do with the actual subject matter of the post, but we were only talking the other day about first crushes...and I had to admit mine was on Michael Praed in Robin of Sherwood!

How embarrassing :D

nefaeria said...

Lol, no worries Bek, you are not the only one! ;)

Hertha said...

Do you believe Herne to be a phantom or something more, like a representation of a god?

perma_culture said...

I miss that show!

nefaeria said...

Hertha: It is hard to say for sure. My guess is that his story is reminiscent of an older lore perhaps about a God. There are parallels between him and Odin, Arawn, Gwynn ap Nudd and other figures of The Wild Hunt.

Permie: Me too! I have been trying to get it on DVD for ages. Alas, finances are tight, and my library doesn’t have it.