The agreeable interest attached to this famous tree is well known. It is supposed (though there has been much controversy as to its authenticity) to be the identical tree immortalized by the mention of Shakespeare as the scene of Herne the Hunter’s unamiable exploits:
“There is an old tale goes, that Herne the Hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns;
And then 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.”
The interest we have alluded to of a melancholy description is of a more recent date, and is derived from the tantalizing fact that Herne’s Oak is no longer visible to the public, the portion of the park in which it stands having been recently enclosed as an addition to the private grounds of the Duchess of Kent’s residence at Frogmore.
We tried hard once to tempt an inflexible gate-keeper to let us in,—just to have a look at it. It was of no use. We assured him we should do no harm, and (as the most delicate means of suggesting a recompense) offered to pay the expenses of any trustworthy person he might choose to send to look after us. He was adamant,—no strangers were allowed in. We appealed to his feelings,—like Rolla and the sentinel,—asked him (in terms we considered adapted to his mental cultivation) how he would like to be a poet wrecked in sight of inspiration. His expressed opinion was that we were making fun of him.
He was not, however, a bad fellow; his sternness was a matter of duty, not constitution. He was touched by our disappointment, and sought to console us by the assurance that we had lost nothing; “that there was nothing to be seen in the tree; that it was about the ugliest he ever see in the whole park; and as for Herne the Hunter, it was nothing but a pack of old woman’s rubbage.”
However, neither our niggardly exclusion from the sight of the old tree, nor the materialist consolations of our friend the gate-keeper, can efface the impression on our mind of the grim forest-fiend haunting the old park like a family spectre.
There is no satisfactory legend of Herne the Hunter. Vague tradition states that he was a keeper in the forest in Elizabeth’s reign, who, having committed some crime which occasioned his dismissal, hung himself on the tree. This is a view of the case we cannot think of taking. The idea of a discharged flunkey committing suicide on a mere sentimental consideration of wages and perquisites is a sorry foundation for the magnificent “demon business” indicated by Shakespeare. Our notion is of something far more weird and fiendish,—a story of fearful crimes and unhallowed compacts; something in the nightmare German ballad style....
It is a long lane that has no turning; we mean the Long Walk is. Passing through a handsome pair of lodge-gates, we emerge fairly into the Great Park.
Now we are in the Forest.
When we inform our reader that our first impulse is to run as fast as our legs can carry us, he will doubtless require an explanation.