I read about the story of the Briton King Herla today. Question: has it been adapted into or commented on in verse by a significant poet? Perhaps a figure from the 19th-century Romantic period? My preliminary research suggests that it has been referenced in prose, but I didn't turn up anything about a verse rendition.
Many myths have been adapted into epic verse, many of them time and time again. The Britonnic hodgepodge out of which the legends related to Arthur arose and were collected have given rise to famous ones, e.g. Tennyson's "Idylls of the King". Yet I couldn't find much on Herla, despite what seems like a good basis for similar themes. In particular, whereas the story has a dénouement that was incorporated into the persistent and widespread "Wild Hunt" often treated in verse, the other aspects seem not to have been picked up: the mutual wedding invitation with its Aladdin-like display of riches and magical servants, the disappearance into fairy-land (and fairy-time), and in particular the end of the Britons' hold on England at the hands of the Saxons that give it such poignancy.
I saw that Nabokov wrote about the story in prose, but I was curious whether poets have overlooked the story or if I'm missing something. A major poet, of course — I'm sure someone somewhere has written about it, but I mean something that has become a classic but is eluding me.
