WINDSOR FOREST GHOST REAPPEARS AFTER FIVE YEARS

Evening Star, Issue 26137, 26 June 1947, Page 5

WINDSOR FOREST GHOST REAPPEARS AFTER FIVE YEARS

(N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) *■ LONDON, June 24. Herne the Hunter, the legendary ghost of Windsor Forest, about whom Harrison Ainsworth wrote one of his best-known thrillers for boys,'has again reappeared, according to reports in the Windsor district. Herne, who is one of the most persistent ghosts in England, was last reported to have lifeen seen about five years ago. Now another report comes from a resident of the Sunninghall area, who claims that while walking in woods which once formed part of, the great area of forest around Windsor Castle, he saw “ the shadowy form of a horse and rider strangely dressed,” which galloped away under the trees. Seconds later, he heard the. sounds ,of a hunting horn growing fainter .in the distance. In the past 50 years there hate been several similar claims, all which have mentioned the sounding of a hunting horn and the baying of a hunting pack at nights. j 1 Tradition says that Herne was a keeper in the forest in. Elizabethan times, and that, having disgraced himself, he committed suicide-by hanging himself from a tree near Erogmore Lodge. This tree was blown down -in 1863, and Queen Victoria planted a' sapling, to mark the site.; Herne, is mentioned in Shakespeare’s ‘ Merry Wives of Windsor,’ and the legend of his ghostly ramblings has persisted ever since.