Herne the Hunter oil

Price range: $3.25 through $80.25

An anointing oil dedicated to Herne the Hunter, the antlered ghost of Windsor Forest and leader of the Wild Hunt. Used to invoke him for courage, protection and wild, hunting energy.

A ghost with great ragged horns walks round an oak in Windsor Forest at midnight in winter, blasting trees and shaking a chain. That is how Shakespeare introduced Herne the Hunter.

Origin & Traditional Use

Herne first appears in The Merry Wives of Windsor, written around 1597, as a former keeper of Windsor Forest who haunts it after death. Later writers made him the leader of a spectral hunt, and in the twentieth century he was linked to Cernunnos and adopted into Wicca as a form of the Horned God. Herne the Hunter oil is a modern blend made for invoking him.

Uses by Tradition

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

Invocation: anoint the brow and breastbone before calling on Herne in the forest or at the altar.
Courage: dress a red or brown candle when you need to go after something with a hunter’s focus.
Wild Hunt nights: anoint a candle on stormy winter nights, from Samhain to Yule, when the Hunt is said to ride.

Ceremonial & Occult Magick

God-form work: anoint the brow when assuming the god-form of the Horned Hunter in rites of the wheel of the year.
Protection: anoint the doorframe and the four corners of the house, asking Herne to keep watch like a forest keeper.

A Simple Working

On a winter night, set an antler or an oak branch on your altar.
Anoint a brown or green candle with Herne the Hunter oil.
Light it and call Herne by name three times.
State the one thing you are hunting for in your life.
Anoint your breastbone and sit in the dark until you feel ready.
Leave an offering of red wine or bread outdoors at the foot of a tree.

Pairs Well With

Oak leaves: the tree of Herne’s Oak.
A brown candle: for earth, forest and animal work.
Antler: a natural focus for his altar.
Horned God oil: for rites honouring the wider Horned God.

Lore & History

Harrison Ainsworth’s novel Windsor Castle of 1843 built Herne into a full legend. Margaret Murray, in The God of the Witches of 1931, argued that he was a survival of an ancient horned god, an idea now rejected by historians but influential in Wicca. A tree known as Herne’s Oak stood in Windsor Great Park until it fell in the nineteenth century.