Herne
In my books i found more about "Herne" if there was
ever a real person by that name. He was supposedly a gamekeeper
of Windsor Park, in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
The reference comes from Samuel Ireland in 1792.
It was claimed that he hung himself on an oak in the park as he knew that
he was about to be caught for some transgression.
This is the oak known as "Herne's oak" or alternatively
"Falstaff's Oak" after the mention in Shakespeare's
"Merry Wives of Windsor" where the story first appears.
I recall going to Stratford to see this play, as a schoolboy, and being
Overwhelmed as all of the cast seemed to be running around in their
underwear in that version.
Anyway the oak itself was felled, either as a result of being half-dead,
or being felled by a storm, in 1796, and any current oak
bearing such a title was one planted to replace them in 1906.
Jack Grimm was the one who suggested that Herne was
involved with the Wild Hunt, a dead soul cursed forever to wander the earth
searching or hunting.
Like the Wandering Jew,
( which of course is the root of the Flying Dutchman stories),
or the American "Ghost Riders in the Sky".
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