We here at The Wild Hunt are big fans of Herne the Hunter, so we were all very pleased to hear that a revival of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is currently playing at the historic Globe Theater. According to The Times, it’s a great 21st century adaptation of a 17th century comedy.

Falstaff dons the horns of Herne.

Sounds like a fun production to me! “Merry Wives” is the earliest written account of the legend of Herne the Hunter, a figure of English folklore that has become incredibly popular among modern Pagans, and is often equated with the horned Celtic god Cernunnos.

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.
— William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Things had been rough showbiz-wise for Herne lately, what with him being excised from the movie version of Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising”, so its nice to see a revival of his “first appearance” (albeit a mock first appearance). Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go revisit my “Robin of Sherwood” DVDs (especially since I’m not in the UK and able to watch this new production of Shakespeare’s play).

The Walden Media film adaptation of Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising”, ultimately renamed “The Seeker”, has seemingly flopped with critics and is doing badly at the box-office. While I would like to claim that the reason is due to their decision to remove all pre-Christian references from the work, the most likely culprit is the fact that they didn’t respect the original story.

“‘The Seeker’ is based on the young adult novels written in the 1960s and ’70s by Susan Cooper. Lyrical, magical and steeped in Celtic mythology, Cooper’s beloved series seems like ripe material for audiences hungry for magic and epochal battles between good and evil. But screenwriter John Hodge strips Cooper’s story of its details and charm, reducing it to a kind of characterless, elemental video game – an apocalyptic scavenger hunt punctuated by sonorous pronouncements instead of dialogue: “You and all your kind will be destroyed,” intones The Rider (Christopher Eccleston), the leader of The Dark.”

While author Susan Cooper admits that you “do violence to a book to make it into a screenplay”*, it is usually the films that adhere closely to the spirit of their source material that succeed. This is doubly-true for any film that relies on a “cult” fan-base or fond memories of the original work. It is why Harry Potter films continue to do well, while the horrid remake of “The Wicker Man” did so poorly. In any event, fans of “The Dark is Rising” will most likely not have to worry about a sequel considering the film had “one of the poorest starts for a fantasy on record”, one hopes that the message has been firmly telegraphed: stay true to the story.

* Check out my exclusive interview with Herne the Hunter on why he ultimately decided to drop out of filming “The Seeker”.

One of the best (and most “pagan”) re-tellings of the Robin Hood legend has to be the 1980s English production “Robin of Sherwood”. The television show, created by screenwriter Richard Carpenter, placed a heavy focus on occult and supernatural elements and sported a much beloved soundtrack by the Irish musical group Clannad. Until now you had to order the set as an import from England, but Acorn Media Group is releasing the first two seasons of the show as a set in America.

The cast of “Robin of Sherwood”.

Unlike previous television and movie re-tellings, this Robin Hood is a bit grittier and is a devotee of an underground pagan survival that worships Herne the Hunter. An element that made it distinctive among the various Robin Hood myths (and quite popular amongst the modern Pagans who were able to see it). It certainly had a big effect on my early Pagan days back in the early nineties when I first saw a couple episodes at a science fiction convention.

Don Houston, who reviews the new DVD set for DVD Talk, discusses the attention to detail within the series that allowed the series to overcome its tiny budget.

“Paring down all the tacked on silliness that has been associated with the character over the years (most horribly handled in the Kevin Costner flick from the 1990’s that managed to “borrow” portions of the ideas from the series but only sparingly to it’s discredit), Carpenter had the show shot in the actual forests of England, even going so far as to move the locations to areas where the trees were similar to those native to the time frame of the events. Weaving in bits of myth and history far more carefully than previously done, he and the rest of the creative team managed to instill a realness to the show that surpassed the low budgets with a sense of charm all its own.”

A few years back, my wife and I sprung for an import of the entire series (including the third and last season starring Jason Connery). I don’t want to disclose how much I spent, but I will tell you that the $45.00 pre-order price at Amazon is a lot cheaper than what I paid. This is an ideal time to discover (or re-discover) this classic show.