“ Herne has his French counterpart in the Grand Veneur of Fontainebleau. Mention is made of Herne in The Merry Wives of Windsor and in Harrison Ainsworth’s Windsor Castle. Nothing definite is known of the Herne legend. It is suggested that it originated in the life-story of some keeper of the forest; but more probably it is only a variant of the “Wild Huntsman” myth common to folk-lore, which (E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, 4th ed. pp. 361-362) is almost certainly the modern form of a prehistoric storm-myth. ”