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The Spectral Stag
[ Roud - ; R.E. Egerton-Warburton]
The Spectre Stag is a poem in Rowland Eyles Egerton-Warburton’s 1834 book Hunting Songs. He noted:
The subject of this ballad is taken from a collection of German traditions in French, there entitled La Chapelle de la Forét.
The tale of a forest phantom, we are told by Sir W. Scott, in the Preface to his translation of the Wild Jäger, is universally believed in Germany. This phantom has often been the subject of poetry, but the final catastrophe to the Baron’s hunting career, thus described in the legend, I do not recollect to have seen mentioned elsewhere :-
“Voyant le chasseur noir s’avancer droit à lui, il sonna du cor pour appeler ses gens: mais il le fit avec une telle force que les veines se crevèrent; il tomba mort de son cheval. Ses descendans firent bátir en cet endroit une chapelle où ils fondèrent un bénéfice.”
[Seeing the black hunter advancing straight towards him, he sounded the horn to call his men, but he did so with such force that his veins burst and he fell dead from his horse. His descendants built a chapel on that spot and established a benefice there.]
Der wilde Jäger referred to by Egerton-Warburton is a poem written by Gottfried August Bürger (1747–1794) and translated by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) in 1796 as The Wild Huntsman.
Holly Clarke sang The Spectral Stag on her 2026 album Wild, Feral, Fierce. She noted:
A legend of the Rhine, when a Baron overstays his welcome hunting in a forest, nature calls upon a Spectral Stag and Hunter to punish the Baron for his trespass on nature. Found in the book Hunting Songs by R.E. Egerton-Warburton, a 19th century collection. The tune for Rounding of the Horn has been adapted in the place of an absent tune.
Lyrics
The Spectre Stag in R.E. Egerton-Warburton: Hunting Songs
A legend of the Rhine
A Baron lived in Germany,
Of old and noble race,
Whose mind was wholly bent upon
The pleasures of the chase.
Thro’ summer’s sultry dog-days,
Thro’ winter’s frost severe,
This Baron’s hunting season
Was twelve months in the year.
From dawn till dark he hunted,
And the truth I grieve to speak,
The number of his hunting days
Was seven in the week.
No lands within his seignorie
Was serf allowed to till;
No cornfield in the valley,
No vineyard on the hill.
What marvel hungry poachers,
When the Baron was abed,
Were bent on stealing venison,
For very lack of bread?
But woe that wretch betided,
Who in the quest was found;
On the stag he would have slaughter’d
Was his naked body bound.
Borne, like Mazeppa, headlong,
From the panting quarry’s back
He saw the thirsty blood-hounds
Let loose upon his track.
The pack, their prey o’ertaken,
On the mangled victims feast;
And, mixed in one red slaughter,
Flows the blood of man and beast.
The Baron thus his pastime
Pursued until he died;
My tale shall tell how this befell
On the eve of Easter-tide.
The moon rose o’er the forest,
And the distant village chime
Call’d sinners to confession,
And bespoke a hallow’d time.
When suddenly a strange halloo
Was heard around to ring,
The Hunter seized his bow and plac’d
An arrow on the string.
The cry, the cheer, the tumult
Of the chase—and then, display’d
By the pale light of the moonbeam,
Far adown the forest-glade,
Was seen, with brow full antler’d,
A Monster Stag—his back
Bestridden by a Huntsman,
Apparell’d all in black.
Their eyes unto their master
The crouching pack uprais’d,
Their master on his trembling steed
At the sight was sore amaz’d.
“Ye curs,” he cried, “why stir ye not?
A curse upon the breed!
And you, ye loitering varlets,
Where are ye in such need?”
To summon then his followers,
He grasp’d his hunting horn,
Through the forest’s deep recesses
The echoing blast was borne.
But borne in vain—his retinue
No note in answer gave;
And the silence that succeeded
Was the silence of the grave.
His eye in terror glancing
From glade to distant crag,
Nought saw he save the spectre
Goading on that grisly stag.
The nearer it approach’d him,
The larger still it grew;
Again he seized his hunting horn,
And his gasping breath he drew.
Eye, cheek, and throat distended,
Each fibre strain’d to blow,
His life-breath past in that bugle blast,
And he fell from the saddle bow.
Where the Baron’s chase was ended,
There they laid his bones to rot;
And his heirs, in after ages,
Built a Chapel on the spot.
And still that note is heard to float
Through the woods at Easter-tide;
From hill to hill re-echoing still
The strain by which he died.
Holly Clarke sings The Spectral Stag
A Baron lived in Germany,
Of old and noble name,
His mind was wholly bent upon
The pleasures of the chase.
Thro’ summer’s sultry days [deposed?],
Thro’ winter’s frost severe,
This Baron’s hunting season
Was twelve months in the year.
To summon then his followers
He grasp’d his hunting horn,
Through forest’s deep recesses
The echo blast was borne.
But borne in vain—his retinue
No answer would he give;
And the silence that succeeded
Was the silence of the grave.
The moon rose o’er the forest,
And the distant village chime
Call’d sinners to confession,
And bespoke of a hallow’d time.
When suddenly a strange [halloo?]
Was heard around to ring,
The Hunter seized his bow and
Placed an arrow on the string.
By the pale light of the moonbeams,
Far down the forest-glade,
Was seen, with brow full antler’d,
A giant stag so great.
And on his back he stayed on,
A huntsman dressed in black,
With eyes in terror glancing
From the glade unto the stag.
The nearer it approach’d him,
The larger still it grew;
Again he seized his hunting horn,
And his gasping breath he drew.
His cheeks and throat distended,
Each fibre strain’d to blow,
He blew his horn of hunting
And he fell from the saddle bow,
He blew his horn of hunting
And he fell from the saddle bow.
And still that note is heard to float
Through the woods at Easter-tide;
From hill to hill re-echoing
By the strain by which he died.
But woe that wretch betided,
Who in the quest was found;
On the stag he would have slaughter’d
Was his naked body bound,
On the stag he would have slaughter’d
Was his naked body bound.