SOURCE: "Some Observations on King Herla and the Herlething" in Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley, edited by Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg, Rutgers University Press, 1970, pp. 105-10.

[In the following essay, Newstead demonstrates how Map combined traditional folk legends to satirize the English court of Henry II, of which he was a member.]

Among the many marvels recounted by Walter Map in the miscellany known as De Nugis Curialium, the story of King Herla has attracted the attention of diverse scholars largely because of the assumed connection of his name with the traditions of Harlequin and the Wild Hunt.¹ The interest in this element of the story, however, has overshadowed other features in Walter Map's treatment that are equally significant and worthy of study.

First of all, as James Hinton pointed out many years ago,² Walter Map relates the story as an exemplum to illustrate the restlessness of the court. It is preceded by a lengthy discourse in which the court of his own day is compared to hell:

The rolling of flames, however, the thickness of the shadows, the rankness of the rivers, the loud gnashing of the teeth of demons, the shrill and woeful groans from troubled spirits, the foul crawling of vermin, vipers, and snakes and every manner of creeping thing, and the godless roarings, the stench, the strident wailings, the awfulness—methinketh, should I try to set all these forth one by one by means of allegory, I lack not comparisons among the courtiers but this matter demandeth a longer time than I see is at my service.

He concludes that "the court is a place of punishment. I say not, however, that it is hell (which doth not follow), but it is as nearly like it as a horse's shoe is like a mare's."³ Later, after referring to himself as the "Tantalus of this hell," he introduces the story of King Herla with this statement: "That there was but one court similar to this of ours we learn from old stories. These tell us that Herla, the king of the very ancient Britons … "⁴ The story of Herla's adventures should be read in this context.

King Herla was led into a compact with a pygmy king riding on a goat, who proposed that he attend Herla's wedding on condition that Herla attend his a year later. At Herla's wedding feast, the pygmy king arrived with a multitude of splendidly garbed retainers who served a feast of unparalleled magnificence. Reminding Herla of his promise, the pygmy king and his retinue vanished at cockcrow. A year later, he suddenly appeared and demanded that Herla attend his wedding according to the pact. Herla, with his retainers, followed the pygmy king into a dark cavern in a cliff that led into a hall that seemed to be illuminated not by sun or moon but by many lamps. After the sumptuous wedding, Herla and his company departed laden with gifts of "horses, dogs, hawks, and all things befitting venery and falconry."⁵ The pygmy king escorted his guests to the darkness and gave Herla a small bloodhound warning them not to dismount until the dog should leap from the arms of its bearer. When Herla emerged into the sunlight, he asked an old shepherd for news of his queen. The shepherd replied that he could scarcely understand Herla's British speech since he was a Saxon and that he knew of no queen of that name save the wife of Herla, an ancient British king, who was supposed to have disappeared with a pygmy into the cliff some two hundred years earlier. Herla's sojourn seemed to him to have lasted only three days. Some of his retainers, ignoring the pygmy's warning, dismounted and at once crumbled to dust. Herla then forbade anyone to touch earth before the descent of the dog, but since it never descended, Herla and his army wandered without rest. But finally in the first year of King Henry's coronation, the troop was seen less frequently. Then it was seen by many Welsh sinking into the Wye at Hereford. "But from that hour that wild march ceased, just as if these rovers had handed over their wanderings to us for their own peace."⁶

At a later point in the text, he mentions apparently the same troop of wanderers, here called Herlethingi:

Gatherings of those troops of night-wandercrs whom men call Herlethingi were very famous in England up to the time of Henry II, our present king, an army of infinite wandering, of the maddest meanderings, of insensate silence, in which appeared alive many who were known to be dead. This band of Herlething was last seen on the borders of Wales and Hereford in the first year of King Henry 11, at high noon, in the same guise in which we wander abroad, with chariots and beasts of burden, with pack-saddles and bread-baskets, with birds and dogs, with men and women running side by side. Those who first saw them aroused with shouts and trumpets the whole neighborhood against them. After the manner of that most watchful nation (the Welsh), many bands fully equipped with arms came at once, and because they were unable to extort a word from the strange troop in reply to their words, they prepared to exact a reply with their darts. But the visitors, rising into the air, suddenly disappeared.

From that day this troop hath been nowhere seen, since seemingly it hath bequeathed to us foolish folk its errant ways, through which we wear out garments, lay waste provinces, break our bodies and those of our beasts, and are never free to find a cure for our sick souls.⁷

Despite the inconsistencies in the two accounts of the wandering army, the whole story, including the adventure with the pygmy king, is colored by Walter's invective against the restless court of his own day, made explicit in his conclusion that the court had inherited the compulsive wandering of Herla's company after its recorded disappearance in the first year of Henry II's reign. The comparison of the court to hell in the introductory passage is also developed in the description of the Herlething, who included many known to be dead. Similar implications occur in the description of the pygmy king: "just such a man as Pan is pictured, with glowing face, enormous head, and a red beard so long that it touched his breast (which was brightly adorned with a dappled fawn skin), a hairy belly, and thighs which degenerated into goat-feet."⁸ Although the king was generous and benevolent in his actions, the details of his appearance and the comparison with Pan would have suggested the demoniac to Walter's contemporaries.

Walter Map's purpose has shaped the story and directed its emphasis. Although the Herlething are generally identified with the Wild Hunt, Walter's version lacks some typical features. The Herlething are represented as a troop of the dead, who are classified as "night-wanderers," though they were last seen at high noon haunting the Welsh marches in uncanny silence and refusing to reply to those who encountered them before they vanished into the air. They are not said to be engaged in hunting. The Wild Hunt, however, is a noisy crew, whose nocturnal appearances⁹ are typically associated with the clamorous accompaniments of the chase, especially the baying of hounds. Walter's version resembles the experience in Normandy of the English priest Gualchelm in 1092 reported by Ordericus Vitalis, in which he saw and spoke with a vast company of damned souls, many of whom he recognized. After hearing their cries and lamentations and witnessing their sufferings as they passed by, he concluded that they must have been the "familia Herlechini," of whose fame he had heard often, presumably in England.¹⁰ In both stories the names of the mysterious company are similar and in both the apparitions are represented as the spirits of the dead, with no reference to hunting. The same tradition is reflected in a letter by Peter of Blois dated in 1175 in which he includes an unflattering comparison of English courtiers to the "milites Herlewini," a curious anticipation of Walter Map's idea.¹¹

The story of King Herla is connected with the separate account of the Herlething not only by the same purpose, but also by the localization and date. King Herla's company was last seen sinking into the Wye at Hereford; similarly the Herlething made their last appearance on the border of Wales and Hereford, but instead of sinking into the river they vanished into the air. The event is dated in both variants in the first year of Henry Il's reign. King Herla's mad wanderings are noted, but there is no explicit reference to hunting. Yet a significant trace of such a tradition is preserved in the parting gifts that Herla's pygmy friend bestowed upon him: "horses, dogs, hawks, and all things befitting venery and falconry." This detail suggests that in an earlier form of the story Herla was indeed the leader of the Wild Hunt. Since Walter Map was intent upon the invidious comparison with the contemporary court, it is not surprising that he showed no interest in Herla's use of his hunting equipment.

The story of Herla's adventure with the pygmy king is actually independent of the traditions about the Wild Hunt. As E. S. Hartland pointed out long ago,¹² the supernatural lapse of time in fairyland is the principal motif of that tale. Like other visitors to an Otherworld realm, Herla is lavishly entertained for three days, as he supposes, but learns after his departure that he has been absent for two centuries. Those of his followers who disregard the pygmy's warning against dismounting instantly crumble to dust.

The motif of the supernatural lapse of time is ubiquitous, as Hartland's collection of examples shows, but Walter's story has its closest affinities with Celtic tales of similar type.¹³ In some of these tales the visitor suffers no ill effects from his sojourn, but in others, as in Walter Map's story, death or disaster results if a warning from the supernatural host is unheeded.¹⁴ The normal conclusion of this tale is the revelation of the lapse of time and the disintegration of the disobedient followers. Obviously Herla and the rest of his retainers must also be dead after two centuries, but they avoid the terrible fate of their fellows by their ceaseless wandering.

The tradition of the Wild Hunt seems, then, to be originally distinct from the experience with the pygmy king. We cannot now know how they came to be combined, but we may hazard a guess. Many stories about the Wild Hunt include an explanation of its cause. The Wild Hunt is sometimes a punishment for failure to keep a fast day, for hunting on Easter Day, for disturbing church services, for suicide, unshriven death, parricide, and other sins.¹⁵ In a similar way, the adventure with the pygmy king and his parting gift of hunting equipment may have been attached to King Herla to account for his leadership of the Wild Hunt.

The name Herla remains a puzzle, and the elaborate but inconclusive arguments to explain its origin are too complicated for brief recapitulation. A few facts, however, can be established. First, Herla is not the name of any British or Welsh king, nor is he otherwise known to history or legend. But the name of the Wild Hunt seems to be more familiar: Walter Map's Herlethingi, the "familia Herlechini" of Ordericus Vitalis, and the "milites Herlewini" of Peter of Blois suggest that the Wild Hunt was known in England under such a polysyllabic name in the twelfth century. The name seems to be English. Hinton's suggestion¹⁶ that Herlething is a mistake for Herleking, "King Herla," has been accepted and developed by several scholars.¹⁷ The form Herlewine has also been interpreted as "Herle-wine," meaning "house-hold of Herla."¹⁸

But the reverse process is also conceivable. If the originally independent story of the pygmy king was attached to the tradition of the Wild Hunt in order to explain the wanderings of the company, the name of its leader, Herla, may possibly have been derived from one of the names of the Wild Hunt current in the twelfth century. The polysyllabic form of the name may also be connected, as Kemp Malone¹⁹ has proposed, with the name Herelingas recorded some four hundred years earlier in the Old English Widsith. The Herelingas are generally identified with the Harlung brothers, whose death by hanging is related in Germanic legend.²⁰ Malone points out that death by hanging would have meant in the old Germanic religion consecration to Woden, who also appears as leader of the Wild Hunt. But unfortunately, tempting though the suggestion may be, the reference to the Herelingas in Widsith gives no hint of such a legend, and there is no evidence that this story of the death of the Harlungs circulated in England.²¹ The form of the name, however, and similar place names in England²² imply the existence of some tradition in the days when Widsith was composed, but it is too shadowy to be identified with any confidence. The connection with the Herelingas, though possibly significant, remains tenuous since the resemblance of the names is not supported by other evidence.

Walter Map's story is thus a composite of traditions about the Wild Hunt and a tale about a mortal's visit to the Otherworld realm of a pygmy king and its dire consequences. Walter himself did not make the original combination, but he evidently knew two variants of the Wild Hunt tradition, one without the story of the pygmy king. His own contribution seems to have been the embellishment of the story with details suggestive of hell and damnation and the witty conclusion, in both variants, that the doomed wanderers bequeathed their restlessness to the English court of his own day. Yet the didactic purpose and the learned allusions do not obscure the vivid immediacy of the supernatural encounters. Like his friend and learned colleague, Giraldus Cambrensis, and other scholarly clerics of the twelfth century, Walter Map was deeply interested in manifestations of the marvelous. Some tales he gathered from books, others from oral tradition. Just as Giraldus recounted tales he had heard in Brecon and Pembroke, the regions most familiar to him,²³ so Walter Map may originally have heard the stories of King Herla and the Herlething in the neighborhood of Hereford, his early home, where he localizes them.

Notes

¹De Nugis Curialium ed. M. R. James (Oxford, 1914), pp. 13-15; translated by F. Tupper and M. B. Ogle (London: Chatto and Windus, 1924), pp. 15-18. It is difficult to distinguish between the Wild Hunt and the Wild Host. Sometimes the spectral company is depicted as hunters, sometimes not, but they are always accompanied by clamorous noises. Since the motif is classified in Stith Thompson's Motif-Index of Folk Literature, revised ed. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1956), E.501.3.1-10, as the Wild Hunt, it will be convenient to use this title. On the Harlequin legends and related matters, see 0. Driesen, Der Ursprung des Harlekin (Berlin, 1904); H. M. Flasdieck, "Die Reduplizierenden Verben des Germanischen," Anglia, LXI (1937), 241-365; H. Plischke, Die Sage vom Wilden Heere im deutschen Volke (Leipzig, 1914).

² "Walter Map's De Nugis Curialium: Its Plan and Composition," PMLA, XXXII (1917), 75.

³De Nugis, p. 9.

⁴De Nugis, p. 15.

⁵De Nugis, p. 17.

⁶De Nugis, p. 18.

⁷De Nugis, p. 186. The Latin text reads: Cetus eciam et phalanges noctiuage quas Herlethingi dicebant.… The translation of Tupper and Ogle (p. 233) includes the interpretative phrase "followers of Herla," for Herlethingi, which is misleading. See discussion below.

⁸De Nugis, p. 16.

⁹ But Gervase of Tilbury reports that the Wild Hunt led by King Arthur appeared sometimes at noon. Cf. R. S. Loomis, Wales and the Arthurian Legend (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1956), p. 45, note 45.

¹⁰ Ordericus Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, Book VIII, Chapter xvii, ed. A. Le Prevost, III (Paris, 1838-1855), 367-377. For demonstration of the English provenance, see Kemp Malone, Studies in Heroic Legend and in Current Speech (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1959), p. 192. This study was first published in 1935.

¹¹ Driesen, Der Ursprung des Harlekin, pp. 30-31; Malone, Studies, p. 194.

¹²The Science of Fairy Tales (London, 1890), Chapters VII-IX, pp. 178-180.

¹³ Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, pp. 161-169; Loo-mis, Arthurian Tradition and Chretien de Troyes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1949), pp. 166 f.; "The Spoils of Annwn," PMLA, LVI (1941), 917 f.; V. J. Harward, Jr., The Dwarfs in Arthurian Romance and Celtic Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1958), pp. 10-13.

¹⁴ In the Welsh Mabinogi of Branwen Daughter of Llyr, composed at the end of the eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth (P. MacCana, Branwen Daughter of Llyr [Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1958], p. 181), a similar tradition is recorded. Bran's followers are instructed not to open a particular door after they settle in Gwales, a place where they remain free from care and the memory of sorrow for four-score years. But someone disobeys the prohibition, and becoming again aware of their afflictions, they can no longer rest, and they resume their wanderings (pp. 84-86). No one suggests any direct connection with the story of Herla, especially since the incident in Branwen has been greatly modified and adapted, but it shows that such a tradition existed in Wales at an early date.

¹⁵ Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, E.501.3.1-10; Loomis, Folklore, LXIX (1958), 12.

¹⁶De Nugis, p. 322.

¹⁷ Malone, Studies, p. 194; Flasdieck, "Die Reduplizierenden," pp. 276-339; M. Delbouille, Etymologica: Walther von Wartburg zum siebzigsten Geburstag (Tübingen, 1958), pp. 167-185, and references in note 11, p. 180.

¹⁸ Malone, Studies, p. 195; wine has this sense in Old English.

¹⁹Studies, p. 195.

²⁰ R. W. Chambers, Widsith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), pp. 28-36.

²¹ C. Brady, The Legends of Ermanaric (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1943), pp. 156 f., 205-221.

²² Chambers, Widsith, p. 33; Malone, Studies, p. 195.

²³ Thomas Jones, The National Library of Wales Journal, VI (1950), 132-139.