Merry Wives of Windsor: Horny Falstaff. New Shakespeare Company,1984.

Like Cernunus Falstaff here appears with his main attributes as horns, those of a stag, and as a mature man with long hair and a beard. He is an icon for male animals, such as the stag in rut, which links him to fertility and identify a god of lust and fertility. He is the lord of the forest and master of the hunt.The fertility symbolism is very marked in Falstaff's language which is full of allusions to supposed aphrodisiacs:

FALSTAFF:
My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain potatoes; let it
thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'; hail kissing-comfits and
snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will
shelter me here.
MRS. FORD:
Mistress Page is come with me, sweet heart.
FALSTAFF:
Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I will keep my sides
to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns
I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne
the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes
restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! (V.v.16-29)

Herne is mentioned ten times in Merry Wives with considerable exposition of the tradition, so his significance in interpreting the play cannot be ignored. He is is said to have been a huntsman in the employ of King Richard II (reigned 1377–1399) in and around Windsor Forest. He saved the King's life when he was attacked by a cornered white hart, but was mortally wounded himself in the process. A local wizard brought him back to health using his magical powers, which entailed tying the dead animal's antlers on Herne's head.The king's other huntsmen framed him as a thief. As a result he lost the favour of the king. He was found the next day, hanging dead from a lone oak tree. That same oak tree was in the Home Park at Windsor Castle but felled in 1796.

In his 1929 (and 2006) book "The History of the Devil - The Horned God of the West" R. Lowe Thompson suggests that "Herne" as well as other Wild Huntsmen in European folklore all derive from the same ancient source, citing that "Herne" may be a cognate of the name of Gaulish deity Cernunnos in the same way that the English "horn" is a cognate of the Latin "cornu." The subsequent ritual torments of Falstaff seem to be a kind of exorcism of this dangerous male spirit. The play may have a deeper resonance than is usually allowed.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: New Shakespeare Company, June 1984. David Conville: director; Sarah Jane McClelland: designer; Ronald Fraser: Sir John Falstaff; Kate O'Mara: Mistress Alice Ford: Julia Swift; Mistress Anne Page; Donald Cooper: photographer; courtesy of AHDS Performing Arts, Designing Shakespeare Collection. Some data courtesy of the Yorck Project, under Creative Commons Attribution-Share- Alike License (Wikipedia).