Mischief Acts Read online

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Folk

  For Richard, Finn and Max, boys in the wood

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  PART I: ENCHANTMENT

  Chant: Moss Song

  11392: HERNE THE HUNTER

  Chant: Who Leads the Wild Hunt – a clapping rhyme

  21451: OVERHEARD IN A GREENWOOD

  Chant: Lullaby for Fungi

  31500: VENERY

  Chant: A Wassail

  41606: LORD OF MISRULE

  Chant: The Rhyme of the Dashing Highwaymen

  51691: GALLOWS GREEN

  PART II: DISENCHANTMENT

  Chant: How Sweet I Roam’d

  61760: THE ERL-KING’S DAUGHTER

  Chant: Green Grow’th the Holly

  71797: DENDROLOGIA

  Chant: A Riddle

  81821: HERNSER: HERON

  Chant: Arbor Revocanda – a mnemonic verse

  91877: NULLIUS IN VERBA

  Chant: The Ballad of Screaming Alice

  101936: OBEDIENT MAGIC

  Chant: True Lover’s Knot – a canticle of moths

  111968: NYMPHS

  Chant: A Storm Song in the Round

  121987: HURLECANE

  Chant: Bushes and Briars

  132011: ‘ONE MORN I MISS’D HIM ON THE CUSTOM’D HILL’

  PART III: RE-ENCHANTMENT

  Chant: Streets of the Great North Wood – a skipping rhyme

  142042: HOOLIGANS

  Chant: Chantaloup, or Name Your Wolf

  152064: RESTORATION

  Chant: Paean

  162073: HORN DANCE

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  Stray-singer, long have you lacked these songs. Learn them again, understand them, and do some good.

  INTRODUCTION

  Our memories, and therefore our sense of self, are rooted in time and space. The narratives we spin from these memories determine our identities, the folklore of our selves. We are mutable: we become, respond and transform. The same is true of myth.

  The episodes related below reveal the trials and triumphs of one myth through time and ever-shifting space. We follow Herne the Hunter, whose time began (in one version of his myth, at least) around the fourteenth century, and whose space was the Great North Wood, a forest that covered a swathe of what became South London. As we will see, it was not just his physical environs that changed: a wood neglected, broken up by Enclosure Acts, eventually shrunk down to scraps of park and railway verges. Herne the Hunter’s cultural context has been just as volatile.

  Before magical thinking was pitted against scientific rationalism, there was plenty of room for a rascally psychopomp like Herne. Enchantment was not, back then, a dubious state of mind relegated to dreamers and readers of fairy tales. But the Enlightenment awaited, and the scientific and industrial revolutions awoke us to new comforts, both cerebral and practical. Everything could be known by calculation, it turned out; and anything that could not was devoid of meaning. Some, following Max Weber, have called our progress from magical thinking to materialism and scientific advancement the ‘disenchantment of the world’. As Keats had it, such philosophy will ‘unweave a rainbow’. Myth faced a rough ride.

  Organised religion, not much more compatible with science, was no help to a myth such as Herne the Hunter either. For Herne embodies a kind of mischief that fails to count as ‘good’ in a traditional sense. Mischief used to have a nastier meaning: malevolent harm, even wickedness. Obviously, this was ungodly, and soon forbidden. But the meaning has mellowed through time, so that while the mischief-maker now may well be reckless, roguish, irresponsible to the point of causing harm, they may also be merry, passionate, full of glee. Still more full-blooded than ‘antics’, mischief might be seen as a particularly risky way of letting off steam – in fact, the riskiness feels essential. To bend or break the rules, to transgress social expectations, can be enjoyable, but it can also allow us to test ourselves, to find the edge and balance there, thrilling to be alive. There remains ambivalence about this kind of mischief. Consider once more the woods, Herne’s dominion and the space beyond civilisation, a danger zone where we can shake off the rules, carouse and fight and fuck. We leave the imprints of illicit fires, graffiti, tyre marks and detritus. These are not always welcome, but they are signs of life. Mischief has always been made in the wood.

  Herne has contended with many changes: his shrinking Great North Wood, a swiftly mutating culture, time that seems to fly ever faster through new and better ways to live. His identity, his existence, might have been in jeopardy, had he not a multitude of counterparts, whose guises he might revive and borrow. Poke around in western and eastern Europe, Scandinavia and beyond, and you will find them. Herne’s tangled thread snags on such woodland tricksters as Puck, Robin Goodfellow, even Robin Hood. It binds him to every tale of the Wild Hunt and its throng of leaders, from Odin to Holda, Gwyn ap Nudd and even Frau Gaude. His thread is spun from the fibres of so many horned gods – Cernunnos, Pan and Dionysus – and loops right through the Horned God archetype of Jungian psychology. He is tied to the chthonic wild man, the Green Man, Oberon and more nefarious forest spirits such as the Erl-king. He is stitched into the chequered cloth of Harlequin; he patterns King Herla’s finery.

  Sometimes the names themselves give away the overlapping identities: Herne, Hellekin, Harlequin, Erl-king. Sometimes it is the horns these counterparts wear; their hunting habits; their tendencies to usher away the dead or to usher in trouble. While each of their individual narratives has been embroidered by places and zeitgeists, their connecting thread always leads us into, and through, the forest. If Herne can alter almost everything about himself, as he remakes himself through time, one aspect remains: he is never indoors. He is charging around, stealing, tricking, seducing, magicking, and it’s in the wood that he’s up to no good.

  In the twenty-first century, as we settled into the age of technology, the disenchantment of the world was already old news. Calls rang out for re-enchantment. They were concurrent with calls for rewilding – a return to respect, if not reverence, for nature. This was no coincidence. We might expect a myth such as Herne the Hunter, so inextricably bound to the forest, to take advantage of this turn. Wildness is more than nature run riot. Like enchantment, it is a state of mind, and one that allows, even begets, mischief.

  Professor Lizbet Gore

  Trevone College, 2021

  PART I

  ENCHANTMENT

  MOSS SONG

  Many-seasoned, green spur,

  Shaded-wood grows.

  Golden head, rufous beard,

  Whip fork shows.

  Summer moss

  Between your toes.

  Starry earth, woodsy silk,

  Luminous grows.

  Bright green cave, green pocket,

  Pointed spear goes.

  Blue dew moss

  Between your toes.

  Tongue-leaved copper, rugged collar,

  Dapple-mouthed crows.

  Foxtail-feather, rusty swan-neck,

  Crookneck nodding grows.

  Green yoke moss

  Between your toes.

  Starry hoar, glittering wood,

  Black tufted shows.

  Archangelic, slender silver,

  Heart-leaved spear knows.

  Carrion moss

  Between your toes.

  H. B.

  1

  HERNE THE HUNTER

  1392

  Charm: If a hanged man swinging from a tree I see, this is the song to bring him down and have him speak to me.

  As in a dream, he woke.

  He told us this. It was as if he dreamed.

  A kind of fever, it seemed, a terror –

&nb
sp; Or a chill delight, to watch, as we did, the great white stag, silver in that magic hour –

  The hour before night –

  To watch it leap, almost fly, a great horned angel,

  A demon, becoming, the dreadful churn of hooves as it charged –

  Charged our king.

  Why was our king not on horseback?

  He had slipped down to rest, to cool his heated thighs.

  He had seen our man, before the rest of us, and wished to greet him.

  Dickie, the kind king, friend to all, had seen our man, his favourite hunter,

  Prized most of all, Herne the head hunter,

  Whose absence that day had put us in gleeful mood.

  For Dickie might have eyes for us, with Herne left at home.

  He might see us, nimble, swift,

  Ruthless, full of grace, in the hunt,

  Without the shadow of Herne casting us all into the dark.

  He was not such a fine hunter.

  But fine in Dickie’s eyes.

  And Dickie King. A king is sacred.

  Perhaps the stag knew this, horned angel, then demon,

  A silver charge across that leafy space, brown and gold in sideways dropping sun that made us squint,

  Made us see but not see,

  Dickie raise a great, powerful arm,

  In greeting to Herne, who was suddenly upon us, having snuck out to the wood.

  In greeting to the stag, which was suddenly upon him, having leapt from the wood.

  We saw, but did not see,

  Herne’s leap.

  Like a dark stag,

  A shadow stag,

  Betwixt –

  Betwixt king and crown of antlers.

  A crown not meant for our kind king.

  Meant for Herne.

  An act of brave self-sacrifice.

  An act. He would be most beloved, not just as hunter, but as saviour.

  Cunning martyr.

  As if we all dreamt it, standing with our eyes wide open,

  Herne took the blow.

  A sickening tear of cloth and flesh,

  Leather hanging loose, and innard,

  The stag rearing, turning, a miracle of strength, rebuked,

  And soon only a trail of silver,

  Like smoke, gone through the trees.

  Did Herne cry out, when he fell?

  We heard and did not hear.

  For it was Dickie’s shout, that rang out:

  Beloved Herne!

  All our stomachs turned at the one torn, and spilling, now, on the ground at the king’s feet.

  As he bent close, breath steaming,

  It mingled with the steam of Herne, that rose up,

  Almost as if his soul –

  Some of the men sped after the stag, headlong,

  Heads bent as they went under branches.

  And while Herne gasped,

  And Dickie gaped,

  Breathing one another’s steam,

  We heard the shouts, in the wood,

  And we heard the hoot, the shriek.

  He’s ours, they called.

  We’d missed it. The chance of victory.

  The chance to take Herne’s place, that was.

  For we saw how he was fading,

  His fingers all mired in the purple-brown that spilled,

  And the king’s open mouth.

  That was when Bearman came.

  Bearman, whose magic sours the wood.

  Bearman, whose sour countenance pleases no man.

  No reason why a sorcerer should be near a hunt,

  But here he came, from among the trees, his eyes as wild as his mount’s.

  The scene before him as if on a stage,

  A stricken king, his finest hunter laid out,

  Almost gone,

  Honour and horror all in the air.

  Bearman rode near and bent to Dickie’s ear.

  A strange look came upon the king’s face.

  He could not grow more pale, then, for he was white as the stag already,

  And he nodded, and gazed at Bearman with awe.

  With fear.

  This is our king. If it was fear, it was not for long.

  Lift him, he ordered us, and pointed.

  From my cloak, we made a kind of sling.

  It had been a fine cloak, sacrificed. We lifted Herne in,

  Without even a groan, for he knew not what we did, nor any of the world around him now.

  One at head, one at foot, we carried him, following Bearman.

  The light was sluggish by then. Dusk was nearly upon us,

  So the gleam of the stag where it lay stood out against the greying leaves.

  That splendid cloak, we then must tear and use to bind Herne’s middle,

  To stop the spillage.

  A foul job, but we were as if in a dream, in the darkening wood,

  Which was quiet, as if it honoured the king’s grief.

  Yet he did not hang his head.

  His look was wild, as if the hunt were on and he sighted his prey, seeing that he might win it.

  He was watching Bearman,

  Who stood at the stag’s head,

  Small beside that beast.

  Angel.

  Demon.

  Bearman raised an axe,

  Swung it down without a sound,

  Except the crack, the crunch,

  As he hacked the antlers off.

  Did the king not want that fine head for his hall?

  Revenge for his favourite hunter, dead.

  He only nodded, with that fevered look, then, stand back, he said,

  As Bearman dragged the antlers, one by one.

  He laid them beside Herne.

  Not beside, but at his head.

  It was hard not to see, in the mind’s eye –

  What might be. It was hard to believe we did not dream.

  Dickie, our stricken king, muttered at Herne’s feet.

  A prayer?

  The wood darkened yet.

  It was hard to see what Bearman did, his hands working fast. Lifting Herne at the neck, binding,

  Drawing the antlers in close and tight,

  Winding, some tattered stuff,

  Not rope, not cloth,

  So that Herne’s head grew, his brow dark and deep,

  The king muttering.

  Bearman paused to swig from a flask which he then held high.

  Offering it to the king, we thought,

  But no. Bearman poured from the flask some black water.

  It splashed on the antlers, the only things that showed white now in the gloom.

  Then he poured again,

  Into Herne’s mouth,

  Into his own,

  And with his swallow made a choking noise,

  We thought.

  But no.

  It was Herne who choked.

  The king stumbled back.

  He rested one heavy palm on my shoulder. I felt the hard grip, and his noble weight as he leaned.

  Herne grimaced.

  Herne opened his eyes.

  Where was Bearman, then?

  For it was the king who went to Herne, reached to clasp.

  It’s me, Dickie, he said.

  My Herne, you live.

  When Herne walked, he swayed a little. Groggy,

  But it was the weight he carried,

  Those horns.

  Like a walking tree, he seemed, swaying in a light wind,

  Nearly twice the height of our king, now.

  A spiked man.

  A man-stag.

  You’ll get used to it, Dickie said. He put an arm about Herne’s shoulders,

  Who had my cloak still bound about his middle,

  Who had the king’s eye,

  His love,

  Who glanced back at us,

  And smiled.

  Or seemed to. There was little light to see as the king led us, careful of low branches, out of the wood.

  It is as if I dream, Herne
said. He raised a hand, to touch –

  To touch his new crown. But Dickie, kind king, took that hand in his own,

  And on his own weary feet, all the way without a mount,

  He led Herne home.

  *

  Get used to it? We did,

  And we did not. But a king is sacred, so we kept our smirks to ourselves.

  We spoke to Herne, when it was called for, as if he was just as before.

  And in a way, he was. Still the king’s favourite hunter,

  The best hunter, in Dickie’s eyes,

  But more precious, now.

  And more dangerous.

  He knocked lit candles from their sconces.

  Ripped a gauzy hanging from its pole.

  The ladies ogled. One, a flimsy maiden, swooned upon a stone floor.

  I saw the bruise, blue, nasty. But Herne laughed.

  Oh, he was in fine spirits, those first few days.

  The ladies giggled, became flighty, noisy.

  We heard the patter of their hurrying feet, whispers, squeals.

  We heard worse.

  The moans of that flimsy maiden when Herne took her to his room.

  The scrape of antler on stone above his bed.

  The marks are still there.

  Did the king hear?

  Most likely.

  Most likely he was pleased. He hid his own queen in the royal bed for hours on end,

  And ravenous, feasted on venison.

  Every day, venison,

  And jug upon jug of wine.

  It was, those first few days, a very festival.

  Herne hailed.

  Herne toasted.

  Ladies wide-eyed,

  Or narrow-eyed, at the flimsy maiden bouncing in Herne’s lap.

  But meat stays good to eat only a few days.

  The rest of the stag was salted and packed for the winter,

  And the king declared himself hungry again.

  Not for meat, or his queen, but for the hunt.

  We did wonder, how Herne would fare.

  Not swaying any more, but still, weighed down,

  And almost twice the height he was before.

  When the day came, the clouds hung low.

  Would he catch those spikes in them, become tangled as in cobweb?

  A childish jest, among many.

  Yes, but we wondered, for he was, now,

  Unwieldy.

  We all set out, with the ladies waving, blowing kisses,

  All eyes on Herne,

  And most of all, the king’s.