The Old Oaks of Windsor, how bravely they stand.

This song was published in the Illustrated London News in 1846. If anybody fancies singing or playing this, I’d love to hear it.

#folksong #folkmusic #tradfolk @tradfolk @folkmusic #illustratedlondonnews #windsorforest #windsor #oaks #trees #treelore @folklore

I am 8 years old and I am camping at Bears Rails with the Cubs. The leaders like to tell us how grizzly old Herne the Hunter stalks the woods at night, locking antlers with the stags.

We are sleeping in an improvised shelter of wood and tarpaulin and I need a wee. What are those sounds in the woods? Is that shadow just the twisty branches of an oak, or are those antlers?

(Drawing by George Cruikshank)

#folklore #windsorforest #camping #hernethehunter @folklore #woodland #storytelling

Windsor Forest was huge, but it was named for one small settlement at its eastern end. In Old Windsor (the original Windsor before William the Conqueror built his castle down the road) there was once an important Anglo-Saxon palace. It’s all gone now, apart from whatever hides beneath the ground, but it was once important enough for the whole Forest to be named for it.
#windsorforest #folklore #history #oldwindsor #windsor #berkshire #berkshirehistory #anglosaxon #williamtheconqueror

Hidden away in Cranbourne Chase is Offa’s Oak. It’s a strange, gangly old thing.
People who know things about trees say it’s at least 1300 years old, which would make it a sapling during the reign of the Mercian King Offa. But they say it might be as much as 1500 years old. Either estimate makes it the oldest oak in Britain.
#ancienttrees #oak #windsorforest #cranbournechase #offasoak #kingoffa #history #folklore #nature #berkshire #berkshirehistory #trees #woodland

There’s an old inn along the Forest Road. It’s called the Stag and Hounds.
They say it’s more than six hundred years old, and that Henry VIII and Elizabeth I used it as a hunting lodge.
If you believe what they say, the Stag and Hounds marks the exact centre of the old forest.
#windsorforest #binfield #bracknell #berkshire #folklore #history @folklore #pubs #tudors #storytelling #folktale #folkstory