INTRO:
Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world.
These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.
I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.
DESCRIPTION:
Kind of a different one this week, as we’re looking at the Germanic myth of the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt is a group of ghostly hunters accompanied by hounds - and led by a spooky leader - which changes based on what mythology we’re looking at, but we’ll get back to that later.
They’re described as either the dead, fairies or elves, and they’re linked in mythology to the changes of seasons, from autumn to winter. They’re also linked to big ol’ winter storms, as this could come over like a big wave, or a big group of spooky soldiers roaming across the land.
The Hunt was recorded first in early modern European history, but was especially concentrated in the Germanic lands - which included Scandinavia, Germany and even sometimes in the UK. In Scandinavia, The Wild Hunt was called Oskoreia, which means “Terrifying Ride’ or Odensjakt, “Odin’s Hunt.” In old German, it was called Wuotanes Her, which means “Odin’s Army,” and in modern German Wütende Heer - which is “Furious/Inspired Army,” or Wilde Jagd, meaning “Wild Hunt.” The more you know! Luckily I do speak some German, but I do not speak any Scandinavian languages, although I’m working on it as I work with a whole bunch of Danes - hi danish colleagues!
The Wild Hunt would ride through the forest in the darkest part of the year, with the howling wind behind them. Anyone who was outside during this time would see this ghostly band, or in contrast, they’ll spot them. The person would then be carried away and dropped miles away from where the person was picked up - or they were not returned at all, and they would join the hunt permanently as a ghost - so they did kill people.
On the other hand, some people voluntarily wanted to join the hunt - mostly witches or magic practitioners would go to sleep and their souls would leave their bodies and join the hunt to embrace the ghostly rampage.
Sometimes though, they were a bit more basic and they just went into towns, and caused havoc by stealing food and drink and generally making a mess. The little ghostly rascals!
ORIGIN:
Now the oldest mention of the Wild Hunt is from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, which is one of the oldest sources of Anglo-Saxon history, in 1127 AD. Here’s an extract:
“Many people both saw and heard a whole pack of huntsmen in full cry. They straddled black horses and black bucks while their hounds were pitch black with staring hideous eyes. This was seen in the very deer park of Peterborough town, and in all the woods stretching from that same spot as far as Stamford. All through the night monks heard them sounding and winding their horns. Reliable witnesses who kept watch in the night declared that there might well have been twenty or even thirty of them in this wild tantivy as near as they could tell.”
There are a couple of other tellings like in 1673, Johannes Scheffer, wrote about the Wild Hunt from stories told by people from the Laplands and Sami people in his book, Lapponia.
Then later in her 1895 book Myths of the Northern Lands, Hélène Adeline Guerber wrote about the Hunt, whilst it was led by Odin and his horse, Sleipnir. We’ll get to Odin and Sleipnir’s parts in this later.
However, the most popular version of this myth was written by the legendary mythologist, Jacob Grimm. As in the Brothers Grimm, legendary folklorists and storytellers. In 1835, he wrote a book called Deutsche Mythologie, as they were German - which followed the Grimm’s tales or ‘Children's and Household Tales’ which was where all of their fairy stories came from in 1812. Deutsche Mythologie was actually widely criticised for being too pre-religion and calling for a unified Germany - but that’s too big a subject to cover here so we’ll carry on.
In his version of the story, he generally used a lot of pre-Christian comparisons, by also saying that Odin was the leader of the Hunt, which was very much looking back towards the ‘old ways’ at the time, so he was massively criticised for advertising the dynamic nature of folklore. I’ll give you my two cents on this later I think.
He also thought the leader of the hunt might have been a woman, he thought it might have been one of the lesser known Norse goddesses such as Berchta or Holda. But he did also suspect that it might have even been Frigga, queen of the Norse gods, and Odin’s wife - what a tag team!
Grimm’s version of the story was that the hunt was always led by a god and goddess visiting the land during a holy holiday, and they brought lovely blessings, and accepted offerings from local townsfolk. They could be heard approaching by the people in the winds, but they later started raising havoc and they were given their fearsome reputation.
So let’s talk about the leader of the Wild Hunt, I’ve raised it a couple of times now. At the root of the myth, it’s realistically the God King Odin, from Norse mythology as the OG leader of the Wild Hunt. He would lead pretending to be Njǫrd, who was god of the wind, but would kid of give it away as he would ride on his legendary eight-legged horse Sleipnir - who was the son of Loki and a stallion called Svaðilfari, which means ‘unlucky traveller’ in Old Norse - fun fact. Another fun fact is that Loki was disguised as a mare during this encounter, and even though he is male presenting in mythos, he was pregnant with Sleipnir, I guess that showed him not to go around pretending to be a female horse.
Anyway, whilst Odin was a part of the Hunt, he was known as the Wild Huntsman. The journey and route of the Hunt was known as Odin's Hunt, the Wild Ride, the Raging Host or Asgardreia, if you entered the path, it would foretell pestilence, death or war for you and your town in the future. Odin, who would be followed by the dead, would ride through the skies with thunder, lightning and wind blowing alongside them and people would often point out that they thought the King of the Gods had passed by if there was a storm. He also gained the nickname of the gatherer of the dead due to his placement in the Hunt, and their collection of dead people they’d grab on the way, but he also ruled over the dead warriors in Valhalla - viking heaven.
However, enough about Odin, generally the mythology of the hunt changed to work with the times and the location of where the story was being told.
In the Middle Ages in the rest of Europe, the lead huntsmen included Charlemagne, King of the Francs, Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and even Arthur, King of the Britons, famous for his knights of the round table, his sword being chucked at him from a lake and his court at Camelot. But let’s not go to Camelot, ‘tis a silly place.
Actually a really fun one is that a later folktale says that the leader was Hans von Hackelnberg, who was a semi-famous historical character in Germany, was said to have killed a boar and then dropped the boar tusk on his foot and died of poisoning. This story is talked about in The Sound of His Horn, a book by Sarban. He declared as he died that he didn’t want to enter the heavens, but to hunt instead. He was then placed as the new leader of the Wild Hunt, to forever hunt through the night skies - however, some say this was a punishment rather than a blessing, but who knows.
However, a nice full circle here - the name Hackelnberg, is related to the old Saxon word "Hakolberand", which means Odin - so it might be a whole little disguise anyway
Although let's cross the pond now over to the UK. In Wales, the leader of the Hunt was Gwynn ap Nudd or the "Lord of the Dead". His hunt was a pack of white hounds with blood-red ears. These terrifying dogs were seen all over the UK, and were called Gabriel Hounds. They were apparently a foretelling of oncoming doom.
In south England, it was Herne the Hunter who led the hunt, he’s a mythical figure from English folklore who guards the woods around Windsor - which is where the Queen lives sometimes. He has antlers growing out of his head and charges around with a hunting horn on a horse, frightening cattle and rattling chains apparently. I’ve not heard of this guy before, but apparently he’s in the Merry Wives of Windsor so?
There’s a really cool sighting of them described by the English writer Walter Map in the 12th Century;
"They travelled as we do, with carts and sumpter horses, pack-saddles and panniers, hawks and hounds, and a concourse of men and women. Those who saw them first raised the whole country against them with horns and shouts, and because they were unable to wring a word from them by addressing them, made ready to extort an answer with their weapons. They, however, rose up into the air and vanished on a sudden.”
Heading up to Scotland, Orkney had its own version of the Wild Hunt, but these were all led by fairies, who were out galloping through the air on white horses or river reeds! However, as well as fairies, trows were often seen as part of the hunt. This relates us nicely back to the dead, as these creatures were actually ghosts, and were only ever seen on pagan holidays such as Yule, Samhain and New Year.
In new paganism however, the leader of the Wild Hunt is the goddess Hecate, who is traditionally the Greek god of witchcraft and magic. But she also had a significant link to Hades and the underworld in Greek mythology - as she is technically a chthonic goddess, and can open the gates of the underworld for the dead - AND she’s the goddess who looks after ghosts - so she fits quite nicely into our little band here.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Within art, the best representation of the Wild Hunt is the 1872 painting of Odin leading them, painted by Peter Nicholai Arbo - this is obviously the Scandinavian version of the myth, but it’s just stunning to look at. The painting itself is called the Wild Hunt of Odin, or Åsgårdsreien - look it up, it’s just fabulous.
Bit of a wild one, but there’s also such a thing called the Wild Hunt Challenge in a couple of Pagan groups, although accounts of it stopped in the 90’s. They used it "as a means of confronting the dark of nature as a process of initiation." It takes place on Halloween night, and they walk around a woodland area doing tasks in the day, then they have to do them timed at night. It’s apparently "to gain mastery over an area of Gwyn ap Nudd's hunting ground". If you do it, you’ve gained the trust of the wood's spirits, and they would be allowed to cut some wood from its trees to make a staff - cool right?
In movies and TV - it’s a bit lacking! They’re in a horror movie from 2009 called The Wild Hunt, however, it does not look like the greatest movie in the world. TV they’re in Little Witch Academia and Teen Wolf from what I can find - it’s really sparse I’m afraid!
Games wise, the biggest one is the Witcher series. In this franchise, they’re depicted as skeletal, ghostly figures that are the main antagonist in the third game, as they’re trying to hunt down one of the main protagonists Ciri, so they can use her blood to save everyone from a frost that’ll kill everyone in the Continent - which is what the world is called in that mythology.
They also feature in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, Elder Scrolls, Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering.
They’re in a few comics and books - including the Marvel series, the Wild Hunt here is made up of Thor’s enemies - linking back to that nice Odin association, led by Malekith the Accursed - who was the dark elf in the second (and worst) Thor movie. They’re also in the Hellboy graphic novels and of The Case Files of Lord El-Melloi II, which is a manga.
My book recommendations for the week are The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare and The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher - all of which are quite famous and have been made into movies, so hey - go forth and watch!
DO I THINK THEY EXISTED?
Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? Hmm, I hate to say this but probably not. Whilst the idea of a ghostly group of horsemen that predict bad events is a really fun one, it’s not particularly feasible and as I said, it’s a Grimm tale with a couple of other European links - so it’s debatable if it’s even folklore, rather than just plain fiction.
Also, the leaders of the Hunt are interchanged SO MUCH within different mythologies that how can we really attribute the Hunt to something real? Although I do like the idea of King Arthur turning up outside your house one day to pick you up, it’s just quite a ridiculous concept.
However, on a more serious note - although this is definitely not a serious podcast - the modern paganism link is lovely and I think the concept of the Hunt linking humanity and nature in perfect harmony with each other, and being the perfect introduction to the Wild is fantastic - and I get why people use them for this.
And I completely agree with what Jacob Grimm was trying to get across in Deutsche Mythologie, folklore is very dynamic, and the amount of times religion steals things from folklore isn’t even funny - look at Christianity and Paganism for example. And to add to that, a lot of mythologies overlap each other from different cultures. Is there really that big a difference between Odin, Jupiter, Zeus and Amun? Not really! And a lot of these cultures interacted with each other and probably stole things, then made them their own - that is the true nature of folklore.
OUTRO:
Well they’re a really cool bunch, I’m really glad we’ve covered them - it was one I didn’t really know much about bar the Witcher games, so I learnt a tonne whilst researching this one, which I did on the train coming back from Manchester last week.
Next week, we’re going to head back over to Greece because why not, and I love it and look at the lovely Sirens with my fabulous friend Bethany, who is a long-term lover of Sirens and it’s also our first guest segment! Be enticed by the Siren’s beautiful, but deadly song next Thursday!
For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you.
The twitter is @mythmonsterspod or the instagram is @mythmonsterspodcast. Or you can email me, old fashioned-style on mythmonsterspodcast@gmail.com. I also have the Tiktok like a cool modern lady, and it’s mythmonsterspodcast - I do a quick myth on Mondays, monster of the week reveals on Tuesdays, monster of the week facts on Wednesday and a cool monster guessing game on Thursday! So come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.
But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.