To celebrate the release of our Self Made Hero book of M. R. James adaptations – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Vol 1 – we’re going to be counting down to Christmas in true Jamesian style, with a new ghostly image and nugget of info every day.
Day 21: “THE HORNED GOD”
Wild Girl was the first series, and indeed the first thing, Leah and I ever wrote together. The series was published by Wildstorm/DC in 2004. Our main artist was Andrew Pepoy but each issue had a magical/mythical mid-section which J. H. Williams drew.
In issue #1, when Rosa Torez is just beginning to learn the truth about her ability to commune with the world of animals, she has a dream at the Winter Solstice. In the dream Rosa is in Windsor Great Park where she meets Herne the Hunter, and is blessed with a kiss. The sequence is based on a dream Leah had a few years previous on the Winter Solstice, while staying at her dad’s house. This was the first in a string of projects, or parts of projects, which Leah has literally dreamt up; our Doctor Who story The Whispering Gallery, and our Electricomics short Sway being a couple of others.
Herne the Hunter is an antler-headed ghost, first mentioned in literature in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Herne’s horns and his status as “Lord of the Forest” have lead many to associate him with the Gaulish antlered deity Cernunnos, with Pan, and consequentially the Horned God of neo-paganism. Herne, and the Horned God are associated with the wild and the winter, and with the Wild Hunt; a European folk myth involving a ghostly group of huntsmen in wild pursuit of their quarry.
Moore & Reppion will be introducing a rare screening of two classic films from the BBC’s Ghost Story For Christmas series – The Signalman & Whistle And I’ll Come To You – at FACT Liverpool TONIGHT! at 7pm.
The screening is part of Picturehouse’s nationwide A Warning to the Curious: Ghost Stories at Christmas season.