THE WILD MAN !!!
THE KING:
The Wild Man is a free spirit,in touch with nature,a free soul. He asks us to slow down and Touch,Taste,Smell and Hear nature. He is our spiritual teacher for manhood. The Wild man can be a reflection of the Mentor in life who teaches us the values of becoming a man. We must find this old man if he has not appeared in our lives.
One of the underlining importances in Wild Man is that of initiation. Initiation is the door into manhood. Initiation is practiced in many cultures. We in western society have lost the ritual of Initiation, and I believe are recoiling from the impact this has made on our collective lives. Our culture and our Boys/Men have been robbed of an important passige of life,The Ritual of initiation into manhood. It is essential that the older generation bring back this ritual before it is too late.
"In some instances the Wild Man survives as a famous folk figure - in fact, some of our best known folk characters trace their origin to this original mystery. In Britain, he became Robin Goodfellow or Puck, celebrated by Shakespeare; Goodfellow’s cousin Robin Hood began life as Wood, a name for the Wild Man. In the Black Forest, the Pied Piper of Hamelin re-enacts poet Robert Browning’s version of the ancient mystery.
From a Fortean Times Article - See Links 1.
IRON JOHN by The Brother Grimm
"***There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest near
his palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent
out a huntsman to shoot him a roe, but he did not come back.
Perhaps some accident has befallen him, said the king, and the
next day he sent out two more huntsmen who were to search for him,
but they too stayed away. Then on the third day, he sent for all
his huntsmen, and said, scour the whole forest through, and do
not give up until you have found all three. But of these also,
none came home again, and of the pack of hounds which they had
taken with them, none were seen again. From that time forth,
no one would any longer venture into the forest, and it lay
there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen of it,
but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it. This lasted
for many years, when an unknown huntsman announced himself
to the king as seeking a situation, and offered to go into the
dangerous forest. The king, however, would not give his consent,
and said, it is not safe in there, I fear it would fare with you
no better than with the others, and you would never come out
again. The huntsman replied, lord, I will venture it at my own
risk, of fear I know nothing.
The huntsman therefore betook himself with his dog to the forest.
It was not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way,
and wanted to pursue it, but hardly had the dog run two steps
when it stood before a deep pool, could go no farther, and a
naked
arm stretched itself out of the water, seized it, and drew it
under. When the huntsman saw that, he went back and fetched
three men to come with buckets and bale out the water. When
they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body
was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face
down to his knees."
"Go forth into the world, there you will learn what poverty is. But
as you have not a bad heart, and as I mean well by you, there is
one thing I will grant you. If you fall into any difficulty,
come to the forest and cry, iron Hans, and then I will come and
help you. My power is great, greater than you think, and I have
gold and silver in abundance.
Then the king's son left the forest"
Iron John- The Brothers Grimm
"The death of the wild man was enacted in seasonal plays performed at the termination of winter and the opening of the new season. They embodied a hunt of the leafy type of wild man, culminating in his being slain. Sometimes his death is followed by his resurrection. Such wild man hunts have been noted in the German and French parts of Switzerland, the southern Tyrol, the Italian Alps, lower Austria, the eastern border of Czechoslovakia, and Thuringia. A few examples follow."
Links II "The Wild Man"
Links to Info about the "Wild Man" on the WWW
Fortean Times:: "The Last Wild Man" by PHYLLIS SIEFKER
Conjurefolk: The Wild Man
Crytpozoology Net- The European Wild Man: