Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Windsor Forest

Herne’s Oak

By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

(From The Merry Wives of Windsor)

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 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.