A character I first mentioned in the aries section, the co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite-Brotherhood, Dante Gabrielli Rosetti kept a small farm retreat, away from the London scene, at Hunters Forstal, in what is today called Ivy Cottage. He was a typically multi-talented gemini (born May 12th 1828), being an outstanding master poet, painter, illustrator and translator. He is the archetypal nut-cracked character - the Mad-Hatter from Alice in Wonderland is reputedly based on Rossetti. This insprired genius was - shall we say - a little eccentric? He developed a penchant for wombats (an antipodean animal) and kept a pair of them, which he allowed to roam freely on the huge formal dinner table as he gave dinner parties, or served afternoon tea. They even slept in the large, formal centrepiece on the table, while guests ate- one of whom was Lewis Caroll, author of Alice in Wonderland. He believed himself to be a reincarnation of Dante Alligheri, the painter, philosopher and poet of the enlightenment who wrote the Divine Comedy. As I mentioned there, in my opinion Rosetti chose to end his days on Thanet, convinced that it was an entrance and exit way to the netherword and its 9 levels (9 Nails, Thanet) as did, I assert, the ancients. And as I doggedly point-out and stress, this belief was based firmly on astrological factors and principles of the kind demonstrated throughout this blog. One place-name on the River Stour (star) does little to dim this certainty of mine- it is en-route to the Isles Of Resurrection (Thanet) and is called Grove Ferry. Grove is the source of the word for the grave.

LXXIII The Choice, III

Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die

Outstretch'd in the sun's warmth upon the shore,

Thou say'st: "Man's measur'd path is all gone o'er:

Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh,

Man clomb until he touch'd the truth; and I,

Even I, am he whom it was destin'd for."

How should this be? Art thou then so much more

Than they who sow'd, that thou shouldst reap thereby?

Nay, come up hither. From this wave-wash'd mound

Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me;

Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.

Miles and miles distant though the last line be,

And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,--

Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.

Dante Gabriel Rosetti

In fact it seems to me that the landscape of Herne and Hunters Forstal influenced both Masters. The famous scene with the hookah smoking snail sat atop a magic mushroom, suggests that autumnal wanderings across the mushroom laden fields around his home led to psychedelic tea-parties at Rossetti’s surreal tea-table- ever set for tea and attended by two wombats. I have an idea that tea with Rosetti at Hunters Forstal inspired the madcap dialogue and characters who fill the pages of Carolls works. Frog Island and Coney Hatch- the rabbit hole ('coney' is O.E. for rabbit), are both in this gemini zone, as are Owls Hatch Road, Heart in Hand, Broad Oak, Hearts Delight and Knave’s Ash, to name but a few.

The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, 

All on a summer day:

The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,

And took them quite away!

The villages of Herne and Hunters Forstal (forestal, of the forest) must surely put us in mind of Herne The Hunter, placed side by side these two place-names read: Herne (the) Hunters Forest. Herne the Hunter is a type of king of the Animals, on the model of Ogma and the Roman Mithras, also recognisable as Woden but not looking for slain warriors.... for this nightmare on a horse - sometimes on a pig, doesn’t mind what kind of creature, man or maiden he catches. According to H.A. Guerber the phenomenon was widely known across Europe under various names, Wodens Hunt, The Wild Hunt etc., but in Merrye Englande we called it the 'herlathing,' which contains the root syllable 'her,' as in Herne.

C.W Whistler tells us: A man 'dared to cross the path in the dark, and was overtaken by the Wild Hunt as it passed overhead. And when he looked up, there was the devil himself following the hounds and riding on a great pig. What was worse, the devil pulled up and spoke to him. 'Good fellow,' he called, 'how ambles my sow?' The man was most terrible feared, but he knew that he must make some answer, so he replied, 'Eh, by the Lord, her ambles well enough!' And that saved him, for the devil could not abide the name of the Lord, so that he and his dogs vanished in a flash of fire!' Local Traditions of the Quantocks (Folklore XIX, 1908. p42) C.W. Whistler.

And according to H.A Guerber: The object of this phantom hunt varied greatly, and was either [that of] a visionary boar or wild horse, white-breasted maidens who were caught and borne away bound only once in seven years, or the wood nymphs, called Moss Maidens.

And I found this in Wikipedia: The earliest written account of Herne comes from Shakespear's Merry Wives Of Windsor in 1597:

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest, Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle, And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain In a most hideous and dreadful manner.You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know the superstitious idle-headed eld Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age, This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.— William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor