The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif occurring across various northern, western and eastern European societies, appearing in the religions of the Germanics, Celts, and Slavs (motif E501 per Thompson). Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by a ghostly or supernatural group of hunters engaged in pursuit. The leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Odin in Germanic legends, but may variously be a historical or legendary figure like Theodoric the Great, the Danish king , the dragon slayer Sigurd, the psychopomp of Welsh mythology , biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel, or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul. The hunters are generally the souls of the dead or ghostly dogs, sometimes fairies, valkyries, or elves.
Seeing the Wild Hunt was thought to forebode some catastrophe such as war or plague, or at best the death of the one who witnessed it.See, for example, Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 1901, s.v. "Wild Hunt": "[Gabriel's Hounds] ... portend death or calamity to the house over which they hang"; "the cry of the Seven Whistlers ... a death omen". People encountering the Hunt might also be abducted to the underworld or the fairy kingdom. In some instances, it was also believed that people's spirits could be pulled away during their sleep to join the cavalcade.
The concept was developed by Jacob Grimm in his (1835) on the basis of comparative mythology. Grimm believed that a group of stories represented a folkloristic survival of Germanic paganism, but this is disputed by other, modern scholars who claim that comparable folk myths are found throughout Northern Europe, Western Europe, and Central Europe. Lotte Motz noted, however, that the motif abounds "above all in areas of Germanic speech."Motz, Lotte (1984). "The Winter Goddess: Percht, Holda and Related Figures". Folklore. p. 163. Grimm popularised the term ('Wild Hunt') for the phenomenon.
Comparative evidence and terminology Germanic tradition Based on the comparative study of the German folklore, the phenomenon is often referred to as (German for 'Wild Hunt/chase') or ('Raging Host/army'). The term 'Hunt' was more common in northern Germany and 'Host' was more used in Southern Germany; with however no clear dividing line since parts of southern Germany know the 'Hunt', and parts of the north know the 'Host'. It was also known in Germany as the ('Wild Army'), its leader was given various identities, including Wodan (or "Woden"), Knecht Ruprecht (compare Krampus), Berchtold (or Berchta), and Holda (or "Holle"). The Wild Hunt is also known from post-medieval folklore.
In England, it was known as (Old English for 'Herla's assembly'), Woden's Hunt, Herod's Hunt, Cain's Hunt, the Devil's Dandy Dogs (in Cornwall), Gabriel's Hounds (in northern England), and Ghost Riders (in North America).
In Scandinavia, the Wild Hunt is known as (commonly interpreted as 'The Asgard Ride'), and as ('Odin's Hunters'). The names ('Asgard Ride' as attested in parts of Trøndelag), and (Swedish for 'the hunt of Odin' and 'wild hunt') are also attested. At the very front of Oskoreia rides Guro Rysserova ('Gudrun Horsetail'), often called Guro Åsgard, who is "big and horrid, her horse black and called Skokse".
There is disagreement about the etymology of the word . The first element has several proposed sources: Åsgård ('Asgard'), oska ('thunder'), or Old Norse ǫskurligr ('dreadful'). The hypothetical Ásgoðreið ('Æsir God Ride') was also once proposed. Only the second element, ('ride') from Old Norse , is uncontroversial. The word was popularly perceived to be connected to Asgard, as seen in the folk ballad of Sigurd Svein, who is taken to Asgard by Oskoreia and Guro Rysserova.V. Espeland, L. Kreken, M. Dahle Lauten, B. Nordbø, E. Prøysen, A. N. Ressem, O. Solberg, E. Nessheim Wiger (2016)
In the Netherlands and Flanders (in northern Belgium), the Wild Hunt is known as the Buckriders () and was used by gangs of highwaymen for their advantage in the 18th century.
Europe In Welsh folklore, was depicted as a wild huntsman riding a demon horse who hunts souls at night along with a pack of white-bodied and red-eared "dogs of hell". In Arthurian legends, he is the king of the underworld who makes sure that the imprisoned devils do not destroy human souls. A comparable Welsh folk myth is known as (Welsh: "hounds of Annwn").
In France, the "Host" was known in Latin sources as and in Old French as (the "household or retinue of Hellequin"). The Old French name was probably borrowed from Middle English (Old English ) by the Romance-speaking Norman invaders of Britain., vol. 16, 200–202. Other similar figures appear in the French folklore, such as , a hunter who chased with dogs in the forest of Fontainebleau, and a Poitou tradition where a hunter who has faulted by hunting on Sunday is condemned to redeem himself by hunting during the night, along with its French Canadian version the .
Among West Slavs, it is known as or (Czech for "wild hunt", "baiting"), (Kashubian for "wild hunt"), or (Polish). It is also known among the Sorbs and among the South Slavic Slovenes (Slovene for "the wild hunting party" or "wild hunt"). However, scholars of Slavic folklore have noted it is a motif of foreign, specifically German(ic), origin.Kajkowski, Kamil (2020). "Myth in Action? Figurative Images on Ceramics as a Source for Studying the Pre-Christian Beliefs of Western Slavs". Studia Mythologica Slavica. p. 13.Valentsova, Marina M. (2023). "Slavic demonology. A brief survey", in New Researches on the religion and mythology of the Pagan Slavs 2, Patrice Lajoye & Stamatis Zochios, eds. Lisieux: Lingva; p. 271. In Belarusian, it is called ("wild hunt"). As Belarus used to be part of Poland, the motif's presence likely came from there as an intermediary.
In Italy, it is called ("Dead Hunt"), ("infernal hunt") or ("Wild Hunt").
In Spain this myth is documented at least since the 13th century, under the name ("Old army"),"Because we always try to imitate those of the Wild Hunt, who never rest, day or night. And our lord is like Satan, and we are like his servants, who only rest when looting the souls of men" (circa 1270, Alfonso X, ) today . In Galician it is known as (from "the old army"), and ("troop, company"); in Asturias; ("troop of ghosts") in León; and ("war company") or ("deadly retinue") in Extremadura.
Historiography
The concept of the Wild Hunt was first documented by the German folklorist Jacob Grimm who first published it in his 1835 book Deutsche Mythologie. It was in this work that Grimm popularized the term Wilde Jagd ("Wild Hunt") for the phenomenon. Grimm's methodological approach was rooted in the idea, common in nineteenth-century Europe, that modern folklore represented a fossilized survival of the beliefs of the distant past. In developing his idea of the Wild Hunt, Grimm mixed recent folkloric sources with textual evidence dating to the medieval and early modern periods. This approach came to be criticized within the field of folkloristics during the 20th century as more emphasis was placed on the "dynamic and evolving nature of folklore".
Grimm posited the Wild Hunt phenomenon as having pre-Christian origins, arguing that the male figure who appeared in it as leader of the Hunt was a survival of folk beliefs about the god Wodan, who had "lost his sociable character, his near familiar features, and assumed the aspect of a dark and dreadful power... a specter and a devil." Grimm believed that this male figure was sometimes replaced by a female counterpart, whom he referred to as Holda and Berchta. In Grimm's words, "not only Wuotan and other gods, but heathen goddesses too, may head the furious host: the wild hunter passes into the wood-wife, Wôden into Frau Gaude.", adding his opinion that this female figure was Woden's wife.
Discussing martial elements of the Wild Hunt, Grimm commented that "it marches as an army, it portends the outbreak of war." He added that a number of figures that had been recorded as leading the hunt, such as "Wuotan, Huckelbernd, Berholt, bestriding their white war-horse, armed and spurred, appear still as supreme directors of the war for which they, so to speak, give license to mankind."
Grimm believed that in pre-Christian Europe, the hunt, led by a god and a goddess, either visited "the land at some holy tide, bringing welfare and blessing, accepting gifts and offerings of the people" or alternately floated "unseen through the air, perceptible in cloudy shapes, in the roar and howl of the winds, carrying on war, hunting or the game of ninepins, the chief employments of ancient heroes: an array which, less tied down to a definite time, explains more the natural phenomenon." He believed that with Christianisation, the Hunt legend was inevitably converted from being that of a "solemn march of gods" to being "a pack of horrid spectres, dashed with dark and devilish ingredients".
A decade earlier than Grimm, Felicia Hemans reflected the Hunt legend in her 1823 poem The Wild Huntsman, specifically linked to the castles of Rodenstein and Schnellerts and to the Odenwald.
In his influential book Kultische Geheimbünde der Germanen (1934), Otto Höfler argued that the German motifs of the "Wild Hunt" should be interpreted as the spectral troops led by the god Wuotan which had a ritualistic counterpart in the living bands of ecstatic warriors (Old Norse berserkir), allegedly in a cultic union with the dead warriors of the past.
Hans Peter Duerr (1985) noted that for modern readers, it "is generally difficult to decide, on the basis of the sources, whether what is involved in the reports about the appearance of the Wild Hunt is merely a demonic interpretation of natural phenomenon, or whether we are dealing with a description of ritual processions of humans changed into demons." Historian Ronald Hutton noted that there was "a powerful and well-established international scholarly tradition" which argued that the medieval Wild Hunt legends were an influence on the development of the early modern ideas of the Witches' Sabbath. Hutton nevertheless believed that this approach could be "fundamentally challenged".
Lotte Motz noted in 1984 that the Hunt motif is found "above all in areas of Germanic speech." While found in areas once settled by Celts, these legends are told less frequently and they are not encountered in the Mediterranean regions, "at least not easily".
Attestations Germany An abundance of different tales of the Wild Hunt has been recorded in Germany. The leader, often called der Schimmelreiter, is generally identified with the god Wotan, but sometimes with a feminine figure: the wife of Wotan, Holda ('the friendly one'; also Holle or Holt), Fru Waur, or Fru Gode in Northern Germany; or Perchta (the bright one; also Berchta, Berhta or Berta) in Southern Germany. The leader also is sometimes an undead noble, most often called Count Hackelberg or Count Ebernburg, who is cursed to hunt eternally because of misbehaviour during his lifetime, and in some versions died from injuries of a slain boar's tusk.
Dogs and wolves were generally involved. In some areas, werewolves were depicted as stealing beer and sometimes food in houses. Horses were portrayed as two-, three-, six-, and eight-legged, often with fiery eyes. In the 'Host' variants, principally found in southern Germany, a man went out in front, warning people to get out of the streets before the coming of the Host's armed men, who were sometimes depicted as doing battle with one another. A feature peculiar to the 'Hunt' version, generally encountered in northern Germany, was the pursuit and capture of one or more female demons, or a hart in some versions, while some others did not have prey at all.