Talk:Herne the Hunter

Equestrian?
I have know a couple of people who claim to have seen him and neither mentioned a horse. Bluewave 14:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Connection to other hunter myths?

Does anyone know of a connection to Orion, the Greek hunter-hero? The names are quite similar, with some simple vowel juxtapositions. Marhault 08:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Grimm's Law Et Cetera
In the article:

"In his 1929 book The History of the Devil - The Horned God of the West Herne R. Lowe suggests that "Herne" could be the Old English version or pronunciation of the Celtic deity Cernunnos - considering that -os is usually dropped over time, plus, following the Grimms Law rules, the C becomes H (possibly from Indo-European *ḱer-, 'horn'). "

This should be removed as Grimm's Law applies specifically to the "first great consonant shift" in the 1st millennium BCE, and does not apply to loanwords from Celtic or Latin hence Kernow being Cornwall not "Hornwall", and Cumbria not being "Humbria"...as well as the existence of many Latin loans such as "corner" (from a French word derived from the V.L. "cornu")... this is the same reason why we have certain loanwords with a "p" in them even though the Proto-Indo-European "p" has become an "f" in Germanic languages; compare "father" with the Latin "pater". Also if you read R. Lowe Thompson's book, he does not claim that Herne descends from Cernunnos just that the words "cerne" and "herne" are related. The confusion comes from this: "As the Latin cornu changes into horn so might Cerne might hange into Herne." in which he is referring to cognates (in a badly written way in my opinion) which he clarifies with the next lines "In any case the reader may also be prepared to recognize Cernunnos and the older magician, who emerge as the Wild Huntsman. My assumption is that these two forms have been derived from the same Palæolithic ancestor and can, indeed, be regarded as two aspects of one central figure, will help us to understand the identification of Herlechin and Herne, whom I will take as the most familiar example of the huntsman." So there he is implying that Cernunnos and Herne are from an ancient ancestor not that "Herne" is a borrowing from "Cernunnos" and he never mentions Grimm's Law nor does he state that "-oss is usually dropped over time". This information can be found on page 133 and is only a short section in the book.

So as you see that part either needs to be rewritten or removed completely. Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 13:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Or more probably it's a total fabrication
Jacqueline Simpson in 'The Folklore of Discworld' p. 37 (T Pratchett and J Simpson) argues pursausively that the whole 'legend' of Herne is just a modern (i.e. last two hundred years)fabrication based on nothing more than Shakespeare's passing reference and some wishful thinking. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.10.104.80 (talk) 11:15, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
How is Herne pronounced, exactly? Hern? Hern-ay? Herny? I'm not aware... If you kind fellows could possibly help me out? 71.2.119.31 (talk) 02:28, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

"Hern" (rhymes with "stern" and "learn" in Standard English). Like most English words that feature an "e" at the end the "e" isn't pronounced. Maybe someone should add a pronunciation guide? Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 16:38, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Herne/Orion possibly?
I believe it is possible there may have been a widespread pan-European god figure who was a hunter, who wore horns and was associated with the oak tree. Variations of the name might include Orion the greek hunter who has a constellation. Orion is a summer constellation only, which may explain the hunting connection. Lgh (talk) 21:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup and Expansion
This article is incomplete and requires cleaning up (and rewriting). There is no information on the Etymology of the character which needs to be added to the article. Sections in this article have pieces of information that are unsourced and either need to be deleted or given proper citations, these sections also need to be rewritten so that it meets Wikipiedia's guidelines of a properly formatted article. The Post-Shakespearean adaptations section needs to be rewritten as it is improperly formatted and toned in the style of bullet points which are not keeping with Wikipiedia's style, much of the information in this section is unsourced and either needs to be deleted or given proper citations for its information. All of these changes and additions need to occur in order for this article to meet Wikipiedia's guidelines and standards of a well developed and properly sourced article.--Paleface Jack (talk) 15:21, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Other References
In other references it is claimed that "Two Magic: The Gathering cards; Master of the Hunt and Master of the Wild Hunt are direct references to Herne". It is unsubstantiated that these cards are specifically referencing Herne and not the broader concept of the Master of the Wild Hunt in general. I suggest this line be completely removed from this page, but the names of the two cards be added to the appropriate section of Wild Hunt which currently mentions "two different cards" but does not specifically list which ones. Or, if there is evidence that the cards reference Herne specifically, this be presented. 216.31.161.7 (talk) 18:24, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Britannica
At the end of the article, the Britannica link doesn't work and I couldn't fix it, although Britannica does have a Herne The Hunter article. Art LaPella (talk) 16:17, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Sort of fixed it. But I think there is something wrong with the Britannica template. Ekki01 (talk) 16:56, 27 June 2020 (UTC)