Hermit - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• In medieval romances, the knight errant frequently encounters hermits on his quest; such a figure, generally a wise old man, would advise him. Knights searching for the Holy Grail, in particular, learn of the errors of which they must repent, and have the significance of their encounters, dreams and visions explained to them. Evil wizards would sometimes pose as hermits, to explain their presence in the wilds, and to lure heroes into a false sense of security. In Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, both occurred: the knight on a quest met a good hermit, and the sorcerer Archimago took on such a pose. These hermits are sometimes also vegetarians for ascetic reasons, as suggested in a passage from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur: 'Then departed Gawain and Ector as heavy (sad) as they might for their misadventure (mishap), and so rode till that they came to the rough mountain, and there they tied their horses and went on foot to the hermitage. And when they were (had) come up, they saw a poor house, and beside the chapel a little courtelage (courtyard), where Nacien the hermit gathered worts (vegetables), as he which had tasted none other meat (food) of a great while.' The practice of vegetarianism may have also existed amongst actual medieval hermits outside of literature.
• Hermits can appear in fairy tales in the character of the donor, as in Făt-Frumos with the Golden Hair.
• Hermits appear in a few of the stories of Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron. One of the most famous stories, the tenth story of the third day, involves the seduction of a young girl by a hermit in the desert near Gafsa; it was judged to be so obscene that it was not translated into English until the 20th century.
• The main character of Tolstoy's short story "Father Sergius" is a Russian nobleman who turns to a solitary religious life and becomes a hermit after he learns that his fiancee was a discarded mistress of the czar.
• John Renbourn named an album The Hermit as well as the title song. The cover shows a man similar to the images printed on the Tarot decks.
• Friedrich Nietzsche, in his influential work Thus Spoke Zarathustra, created the character of the hermit Zarathustra (named after the Zoroastrian prophet Zarathushtra), who emerges from seclusion to extol his philosophy to the rest of humanity.
• At one time, noblemen would have hermits living on their land, for instance in a folly. The hermit would be provided with food and water, and given a skull, a book and an hour-glass. Some of these "ornamental" hermits didn't talk to the servants, but simply repeated a phrase in Latin. Most grew beards and didn't cut their nails. Notable places with ornamental hermits included Painstone and Hawkstone Park.
• In Star Wars, Ben Kenobi was first introduced to the audience as an old hermit, often seen by most of the in-universe characters at their surroundings as a very dangerous, crazy wizard. Later in the story it was to be revealed that he went into exile for political reasons, although it also served him for spiritual training since he was a warrior monk in his youth, and that his first name was actually Obi-Wan. Yoda, another Jedi, was also originally portrayed as a wizard or hermit.
• In the Friday the 13th series, the character Jason Voorhees was believed to have died after he drowned as a child. However, this later changed when it was revealed that he survived and lived life as a hermit – only to enter a murderous rage when he witnesses the death of his mother seemingly years later (which was during the events of the original film).
• In the anime Dragon Ball, a martial-arts master named Muten Roshi is often referred to as a Turtle Hermit, despite the fact that over the course of the series characters are often visiting or even living in his island home.
• Monty Python had a sketch about two hermits agreeing at the beginning "There's no point frigging your life in idleness and trivial chit-chats" but the conversation quickly degenerate into a gossip about their hermit neighbors and their caves as if it was an ordinary suburban gossip. It ends with the punchline: "It's still better, being a hermit, at least you meet people" – "Oh yes, I wouldn't go back to public relations."