Herne the Hunter

The Windsor Oak

Earliest record: 1602The earliest written witness identified by Simon Young(2017) is Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. Its first quarto was printed in 1602 and spells the hunter's name Horne. Its text makes him a dead hunter who appears as a great stag in tales told to frighten children. The fuller version appeared in the 1623 First Folio and is the basis of the Folger edition used here. This is a date for surviving print evidence, not for the origin of the oral legend or for the canonical spelling Herne.

The 1602 quarto calls him Horne, a dead hunter whose stag-shaped ghost women used to frighten children.

William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, first quarto(1602), old-spelling transcription, quarto lines 1263–1265; Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine, Folger textual introduction, on the 1602 quarto and 1623 Folio.

The antlered ghost associated with an oak in Windsor Forest and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor.

More context

Herne is a spirit tied to an oak in Windsor Forest. Mistress Page's old tale gives him a keeper's past, ragged horns and a rattling chain. At winter midnight he damages the tree and makes cows yield blood. Falstaff dresses as Herne, and the wives arrange a false fairy encounter to frighten him. The printed versions differ. The 1602 quarto calls the hunter Horne and says women frighten children with his stag-shaped ghost. The fuller 1623 version supplies the winter haunting. Simon Young's 2017 study argues that Shakespeare drew on a local bogey tradition. The play records a ghost tale; it does not establish a prehistoric cult.

Light

Shakespeare turns the feared ghost into a disguise through which the wives outwit Falstaff.

Shadow

Shakespeare's tale gives Herne a rattling chain and the power to make cows yield blood.

Sources5 sources

Primary source

William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, first quarto,1602: old-spelling transcription, 1602, Quarto lines 1263–1269 (through-line labels 2150–2150.6) in the Internet Shakespeare Editions transcriptionThe 1602 quarto spells the hunter Horne and says women frighten children with tales of his walking in the form of a great stag. It also proposes dressing Falstaff as Horne.
Oft haue you heard since Horne the hunter dyed,
William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Folger Shakespeare Library edition, 2015, Act 4, scene 4, lines 29–43; Folger website last-updated date 31 July 2015; text based on the 1623 FolioMistress Page calls Herne a former Windsor Forest keeper and a spirit. She describes winter-midnight haunting of an oak, ragged horns, damage to the tree, cattle yielding blood and a rattling chain.
There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter,
William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Folger Shakespeare Library edition, 2015, Act 5, scene 5, especially Falstaff's Herne impersonation and recognition that the fairies are human; Folger website last-updated date 31 July 2015Falstaff wears horns and imitates Herne. The scene stages a false fairy encounter; the wives and their allies expose the trick.
And these are not fairies.

Scholarship

Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine, An Introduction to This Text: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Opening paragraph on 1602 quarto and 1623 Folio; paragraphs explaining the edition's Folio basis and borrowing from Quarto stage directionsThe play first appeared in a shorter 1602 quarto; the longer version appeared in the 1623 First Folio. The current Folger edition is based on the Folio, with some Quarto readings and stage directions.
Simon Young, Herne, the Windsor Bogey, 2017, Gramarye 12(Winter 2017), article text pp.57–65, illustration p.56; especially pp.58–59 on earliest testimony and local-bogey argument, pp.62–63 on later reworkingYoung identifies Shakespeare as the earliest written account, distinguishes the 1602 Horne wording, and argues that Shakespeare borrowed a local Windsor bogey tradition. The local-origin argument is his inference, not evidence for a dated pre-Christian cult.