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Herne by Yvonne Rathbone |
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Tales & Fun |
In the earliest reference to Herne, a passage in Shakespeare's "Merry Wives Of Windsor," we see the main elements of his myth.
He is a hunter who used to be a keeper of Windsor Forest. He walks around an oak tree wearing "great ragg'd horns." He makes the milk of cattle turn to blood. He shakes a chain and is hideous. By wearing horns Herne is linked to all horned gods. Horns worn on the head symbolize the power and intelligence of the animal they come from.(1) These powers are conveyed to the wearer shamanistically. The one wearing the antlers becomes the animal and obtains all powers and intelligences therein. It is often done so that the hunter can become the hunted and so be successful in killing that which he hunts. The horns of Herne are most often assumed to be deer antlers. Unlike many horned animals, deer lose and regrow their horns every year. This annual cycle - like all annual cycles - is connected to the Sun in its courses through the year. It is linked to seasons, those of fecundity alternating with those of death. Stags are also seen in many mythologies as psychopomps, guides into the underworld.(2) Herne the Hunter contains the powers of the Stag whose horns he wears. Herne is the lord of death and rebirth. He is also the guide for the dead bringing them to a "happy hunting ground where ordinary folk go and forgather."(3) Herne is also linked to the Oak. The oak has an almost universal connection to strength and the Sun. To the Greeks and the Celts it was a world tree,(4) and so, as we'll see later, a vehicle for gaining inner wisdom. While mentionings of Herne are few, there is reason to believe he might be related to the Celtic god, Kernunnos. Their names are linguistically similar and one may derive from the other. Also, deer symbolism is fairly uniform among northern European cultures and so many traits of one deer antlered god could be ascribed to another. Kernunnos is a "god of plenty" and "lord of the beasts". He is perhaps more closely connected to fertility than Herne. But he is also often shown with a snake which would connect Kernunnos with cycles of regeneration. In more fleshed out stories of Herne, the allusion to sacrifice in the changing of milk to blood is made more apparent. Stories such as W. Harrison Ainsworth's 1843 novel, "Windsor Castle", describe the story of a man, the keeper of Windsor Forest, who sacrifices himself for the king while hunting a stag. Herne is made to die by betrayal and rises again after death angry and seeking vengeance. Or he is seen as a spectre hanging from the Oak, at the foot of which he died originally. This last image is particularly important for it is so similar symbolically to Woden hanging from Yggdrasil for nine days and receiving knowledge of the runes. In this story, and others like it including Jesus' crucifixion, death is a gateway to transformation. Herne is both the guide and the transformed. In my personal experience of Herne, all of these aspects are present. He governs the cycle of death and rebirth in the role of the experiencer or death and as sacrifice. He is at once Lord of Death and the Dying One. He is the bringer of death and the Hunter. He is the god of fertility, knowing of his inevitable death, he acts to continue the cycle through the birth of offspring. An important part of Herne that keeps coming up for me, is the link between his sexual aspects and his hunter aspects. These are aspects I kept encountering in meditations even though I had first thought of Herne as being more a god of Death than a god of Fertility. At first it seemed obvious that he would have both traits. On an intuitive level I connected quite strongly the procreative sex act and death. But then later it seemed that sex and death were in opposition, like Beltane and Samhain. The ecstasy of one was the antithesis of the other. I believe I was mixing up sex as a procreative act and sex as a vehicle for ecstasy. I don't see Herne as being so much a god of ecstatic sex (although I don't think he minds it <gr>), but as a god of procreative sex, the sex which creates new life. It is this aspect of sex that is in close connection with death. The key to both is change. The cycle of life and death is one of change. Change leads to past and future, memory and expectation, the freedom to act and the responsibility for outcome. Seen as different parts of the cycle of life, sex and death naturally beget each other. The connection between Herne and procreation/death is seen in his changing of milk to blood. Milk is connected with the moon and is a vehicle for knowledge and life. It is given to the child as nourishment in growth. Blood is connected with the Sun5, fire and heat. It is a vehicle for life and it's loss means death. In many cultures it is linked to the principle of procreation and so rules the cycle of life from death to rebirth. Herne is counterpart to Cerridwen. Not in their original mythologies, but in their use in Outer Court they complement each other. Cerridwen in the ground, the womb out of which death is transformed into birth as that which is created always destroys that which came before. Herne is the created and the destroyed. He is the one who acts and is therefore also the creator and destroyer. He governs over all that is subject to the cycle of life and death Herne's rhythms are those of the Earth and it's seasons through the year. His is the will of the hunter and the hunted. We connect with him through a conscious experience of the dance of hunt. He is psychopomp and guide to transformation, showing us the way to the mysteries through the personal transformation of our own being. ------- ------- Books Websites |
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