In 1127, Henry of Poitou became abbot of Peterborough; an event marked by an ominous omen – a manifestation of the Wild Hunt.
The incident was described in sinister detail in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles:
“Many men both saw and heard a great number of huntsmen hunting. The huntsmen were black, huge, and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats, and their hounds were jet black, with eyes like saucers.”
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles [Laud], 1127
The account goes on to note that the hunt plagued the woods around the town of Peterborough throughout the whole of Lent. Many people, it was claimed, saw these dark apparitions or heard their horns sounding in the night. It was an ill omen indeed. Sure enough, the chronicler goes on to explain, the new abbot transpired to be a most corrupt and despicable character. But, as to the nature of these dark huntsmen, the writer provides no further insight.
This description is the earliest written account of the Wild Hunt in English history. Accounts of similar phenomena also appear across European folklore. Celtic, Germanic and Slavic cultures all have many early tales of spectral hosts and supernatural huntsmen haunting the night.
But what exactly was this Wild Hunt? And what can we say of the origins of this ancient folk myth?
King Herla
Later in the C12th we find a second, significant, English story concerning the Wild Hunt. It was written by Walter Map, a courtier of Henry II. It appears in his only surviving work, Trifles of Courtiers, which is a mix of anecdotes, trivia, courtly gossip and actual history.
The tale that concerns us is the story of King Herla. Herla, Map tells us, was a British king living before the time of the Saxons. He was visited by a mysterious otherworldly dwarven king whose appearance was very much like a classical faun or satyr. The faun-king invited Herla to attend a wedding at his otherworldly court, proclaiming his friendship and an ancient kinship with the British.
Herla and his entourage travelled to the faun-king’s court, which transpires to be a magnificent underworld domain. Here he and his party were entertained and lavished with gifts before finally departing.
However, on Herla’s return to our world, the king and his companions find that centuries have passed, and the Saxons now rule Britain. Furthermore, they find themselves condemned to wander the land as a spectral host, unable to dismount.
Herla and his spectral companions continue to haunt the realm until they finally disappear during the reign of Henry II.
Hellequin’s Rabble
Another early story originates in France and was recorded by a certain Orderic Vitalis, writing between 1133 and 1135. Orderic claims his story came from a priest by the name of Walchelin from near Angers.
In early January 1091, whilst travelling on parish business, Walchelin encounters a large otherworldly host. The company is led by a giant man, armed with a great mace. At the front of the host was a great mixed crowd of people and beasts of burden. Then came servants carrying biers on which sat sinister looking dwarves with great heads. This was followed by two black demons, tormenting a man tied to a trunk with red hot spurs. Then a group of women, riding on saddles that were fitted with cruel, burning, nails. And then followed many wretched priests in black caps, begging Walchelin to pray for them.
Finally, at the rear of this host, rode a group of black knights on huge horses, spitting fire.
In amongst this host, Walchelin spots several people whom he knows to be dead. And some of these, he knows for a fact, had led sinful lives. And so, he realises that he is witnessing the passing of Hellequin’s rabble. A cavalcade of tormented souls, headed for purgatorial punishment or perhaps, even, for hell itself.
Welsh Mythology
Early tales of a wild otherworldly hunt can also be found in early Welsh mythology. One tale recorded within the Mabinogion (a collection of early Welsh stories compiled during the C12th/C13th) is of particular interest.
In the story of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, the prince encounters a sinister pack of hounds, hunting a stag in the woods. These beasts are described as white with scarlet ears. Pwyll scares off the hounds and in doing so incurs the displeasure of their master, Arawn, king of the otherworldly realm of Annwfn. To appease the fairy king, Pwyll must exchange places with him and defeat his enemy in Annwfn. Only then can he return to his own world.
Another famous otherworldly Welsh medieval huntsman is Gwyn ap Nudd, famed as one of the greatest of hunters. In early Welsh tales he also appears as a psychopomp (escorting the souls of the dead from the fields of battle). Later tradition positions him as a king of the fairy folk.
Who or what these otherworldly huntsmen are, is unclear. Certainly, they are supernatural and would appear to be associated with pagan times. They are also potentially associated with the dead.
Ghosts, Demons and Fairy Folk
What, then, might we say about these early stories? Some speak of spectral hosts, although it is not always clear whether the phantom characters are ghosts. In the case of Hellequin’s rabble, the host clearly contains ghosts but it also contains demons. Some of the descriptions of the hunt (such as that found in the Laud chronicle) clearly sound demonic and are meant to be interpreted as an evil omen. The Welsh tales and Herla’s story both feature otherworldly entities, ancient pagan spirits or fairy-like beings. A faun-like creature, of course, conjures up the image of a nature sprite from the classical world. So, are we dealing with ghosts, demons or fairies?
Furthermore, not all these tales necessarily feature a hunt. The Welsh tales do, as does the Laud chronicle. Hellequin’s rabble, by contrast, is more of a procession or cavalcade. And Herla and his companions are more of a wandering spectral host than a hunt.
Could it be that these quite mixed descriptions reflect some kind of older folk tradition? Could they have their roots in older pagan tales now lost to us? And how might we explain the widespread distribution of these stories, variants of which can be found in Celtic, French, Germanic, Scandinavian and even Slavic folklore?
Jacob Grimm and German Mythology
In 1835 the famous folklorist, Jacob Grimm, wrote German Mythology in which he set out to make sense of a collection of old German folk tales. It was in this book that he observed the existence of a great number of seemingly inter-related folk stories and myths. They feature nocturnal rides, processions or hunts and were often led by a hunt master and perhaps a female consort. This hunt master, Grimm believed, had originally been a pagan god.
It was Grimm who first labelled these phenomena ‘The Wild Hunt’. He believed these stories represented surviving iterations of ancient tales with a pagan antecedent. For Grimm, one of the prime suspects for the original hunt master was the Germanic god Wotan or Norse Odin.
Grimm approached the corpus of Wild Hunt tales by using surviving folktales from his own time to ‘fill in the gaps’ in more fragmentary earlier stories. He also believed that certain early pagan beliefs and superstitions survived, even if the only real evidence for them only existed within relatively modern folk stories.
Perhaps, then, folklore acted as a kind of living fossil, giving us clues as to the nature of truly ancient Indo-European pagan belief.
Wotan/Odin’s Hunt
To what extent, then, was Odin (or the Germanic Wotan) originally associated with some kind of Wild Hunt in early medieval times? Was this truly part of a pagan Norse/Germanic tradition? Or something later?
In answering these questions, we encounter some problems. In the case of Wotan, we have a paucity of hard information concerning early pagan German beliefs. Theirs was a culture reliant on oral tradition that left no written record beyond what the Romans chose to record.
In the case of Odin, we are luckier in having a medieval record of pagan Norse myths and beliefs. Most significant amongst these are the Prose and Poetic Eddas (compilations of earlier myths, put together in the C13th). These show Odin occasionally travelling using a supernatural horse (Sleipnir). In addition, he also sends out his Valkyries to collect the souls of the glorious dead for Valhalla. And he is also destined to lead a host of heroes at Ragnarök. But the fact is, there is no account of anything resembling a Wild Hunt tale in these medieval stories. Indeed, the medievalist Claude Leconteux observed that there is no firm evidence of any direct association between Odin and the Wild Hunt prior to the early modern period.
The Furious Host
Early medieval German myths concerning the Wild Hunt make no specific mention of Wotan. However, they nevertheless speak of a Furious Host or Army rampaging through the countryside. This spectral horde is referenced in a charm dating to the C14th or C15th. The language of the text is difficult, such that the phrase ‘das wütende heer’ (the Furious Host) could arguably be transcribed to replace wütende with Wotan. It reads thus…
“The Furious Host and all its members
Who bear wheels and rags
Go far from me!”
Medieval Charm
The reference to ‘bearing wheels’ tells us that these are dead criminals who were broken upon a wheel and hanged. The Furious Host, in this instance, is another example of a cavalcade of the tormented dead. Sinners condemned to purgatorial suffering or perhaps even consigned to hell. Indeed, in some tales of the host it is led/shepherded by a demon.
Herne the Hunter
A significant supernatural huntsman from English folklore is, of course, Herne the Hunter. He first appears in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor (c.1597) as an apparition said to haunt Windsor Forest. Shakespeare tells us he is said to be the ghost of a former keeper of the forest and describes him in the most chilling terms:
[Herne] Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg’d horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
Shakespeare. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 4, Scene 4
The question then arises as to whether this reference reflects older tales of Herne, that pre-date Shakespeare’s time.
Some folklorists have attempted to link Herne with Cernunnos, an ancient Celtic deity. Both characters are indeed ‘horned’ and Cernunnos was often depicted in Celtic art surrounded by wild animals. Could ‘Cern…’ have devolved into ‘Herne’?
However, once again, we run into problems. We know very little of Cernunnos beyond what can be deduced from his Gaulish images. There is no evidence to demonstrate that Cernunnos was ever worshipped in Britain or that stories of Herne were in circulation prior to 1597.
Horned Huntsmen and Black Goats
Herne is described as horned (and it was on this basis that a comparison was drawn with Cernunnos). Nordic folklore also sometimes feature stag riding huntsmen in Wild Hunt tales. Indeed, themes of horned creatures of various kinds are common in these stories. Consider the faun-king in Walter Map’s tale or the black goat riders of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle.
Folklore in the Low Countries speak of ‘buckriders’ – witches who flew through the night mounted on flying bucks. Written record of these stories appear only in the 1700s. However, the late-medieval artist, Hieronymus Bosch, included an image of a buckrider in one of his paintings (the Garden of Earthly Delights). This suggests that Low Country tales of buckriders, in some form, may well have been in circulation in late medieval times.
Goats and satyrs had a reputation for lascivious debauchery, dating back to classical and early medieval times. In addition, the Bible states that on judgement day mankind will be separated into the sheep (the saved) and the goats (the damned). Thus, the association of such creatures with the Wild Hunt strongly suggests a sinful / ungodly pagan connection in the medieval mind.
However, the idea of people actually riding goats or stags, let alone flying ones, is of course preposterous.
… or is it?
The Pagan Stag Riders
The stag had considerable cultural significance for nomadic peoples who inhabited the Eurasian steppes between the 9th and 3rd centuries BC. Most prominent amongst these peoples were the Scythians, with whom the ancient Greeks had significant contact.
The Scythians were horse-riding nomads, regarded as simple but savage barbarians by the Greeks. Scythian art frequently features depictions of animals in jewellery such as belt buckles and decorations for horse harnesses. Prominent amongst these are images of griffins (creatures Herodotus also associated with the Scythians) and stags. Sometimes these stags are portrayed with magnificent, almost supernaturally elaborate, horns. It would seem the stag had considerable cultural and quite likely spiritual significance for these people.
Amongst the range of peoples that might be classed as belonging to ‘Scythian’ culture from this period was the Pazyryk people found in Siberia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. As with the western Scythians, with whom the Greeks were more familiar, the stag was important for Pazyryk people.
An excavation of one Pazyryk tomb, dating to the C4th BC, uncovered several remarkable finds. Amongst them was a mask, designed to be worn by a horse, that features prominent stag antlers. And so the archaeological record shows that pagan stag riders (of a sort) were an historic reality!
Diana’s Riders
One phenomenon associated with the Wild Hunt legend relates to a range of tales concerning female night spirits. These tales speak of women who either fly, or whose spirits depart their bodies to travel, at night. In these tales they are typically led by a female pagan goddess or spirit with various names (depending on the tale).
These stories differ from the kinds of tales we’ve been discussing in so far as the troop are not spirits of the dead or demons. And, whilst they might be led by a pagan deity or spirit, the host consists of living women (or, at least, their spirits). These tales are old, dating back to early medieval or perhaps even classical times. The women described could be either malevolent or benevolent in nature.
A ninth century AD document, written by the abbot of Prüm, testifies to the belief that certain women still followed an ancient pagan practice. The abbot claimed they “profess to ride upon certain beasts in the nighttime hours with Diana, the goddess of the pagan”. In this case ‘Diana’ probably does not refer to the classical goddess of this name. More likely, it is an attempt to render in Latin the name of some local Germanic pagan deity or spirit.
Malevolent and Benevolent Ones
The visitations of these women could either be portrayed as malevolent or benevolent, depending on the tale and the author. Buchard of Worms, writing in 1066, was most condemning of these vestigial pagan beliefs which he claimed were still flourishing in his day. These witches supposedly wandered far and wide committing evil deeds, murdering people and engaging in cannibalism. No doubt, Buchard speculates, they were deceived by the devil and ride forth with demons to do their evil work.
But not all accounts of this phenomenon are so malevolent. Bertold of Regensburg, in a C13th sermon, confirms that these beliefs were still common in his time. Furthermore, he states that these women could be either ‘Benevolent Ones’ or ‘Malevolent Ones’. Intriguingly, he denounced the custom of setting out a table for what local folk tradition called the ‘blessed ladies’.
An anonymous pamphlet of 1350 tells us more of this custom. On Epiphany it was said that some women still followed the old pagan custom of setting out a table for the ‘blessed ladies’. These ladies were led by a pagan spirit known as Fraw Percht. If Fraw Percht and her troop were pleased with the spread, they would bless the household with good fortune for the coming year.
The Wild Hunt Phenomenon
At this point it is worth considering that it was Jacob Grimm, writing in the C19th, who gave us the term ‘Wild Hunt’. In doing so he sought to make sense of a wide range of sometimes quite different folk tales. Much had survived from medieval times, but Grimm also had to rely on a considerable volume of post-medieval material.
What we have, under the umbrella term ‘Wild Hunt’ is quite a mixed bag. Some stories clearly relate to a hunt or huntsman but in many cases the hunt is more of a procession or marauding host. Participants are variously portrayed as ghosts, demons, pagan spirits, fairies or even as the spiritual projections of living people. Herla and his doomed companions are clearly of a radically different character to Fraw Pecht and her blessed ladies. Usually, we are dealing with a host or group but some of these tales feature only a lone huntsman such as Herne or Arawn. But even Herne and Arawn are quite different from each other. Arawn is the fay king of a Welsh otherworld. Herne is the ghost of the old keeper of Windsor Forest, condemned to some kind of purgatorial haunting.
Questions
In a paper on The Wild Hunt and the Witches’ Sabbath, in 2014, the folklorist Ronald Hutton questioned traditional views of ‘Wild Hunt’ phenomena. Perhaps, he suggests, we are actually dealing with a number of different folkloric themes. One theme relates to the benevolent and malevolent night ladies. Another, to a lone huntsman, often cursed or in search of some kind of redemption. The third relates to troops of tormented souls, either in search of purgatorial redemption or already utterly damned.
The first of these themes reflects an old early-medieval belief that probably does have earlier pagan origins. The latter two, especially tales of the cavalcade of the damned, are more heavily influenced by medieval concerns over the fate of souls and the nature of purgatory. Indeed, it is no coincidence that tales of processions of the damned only emerge in any significant volume during the high to later medieval period. These, then, are clearly stories strongly influenced by (and quite possibly originating in) medieval Christian mythology.
The Myth of the Wild Hunt
Grimm’s assumption (and the assumption of many since) has been that these Wild Hunt stories constitute a distinct, discernible, folkloric tradition. A tradition that is reflective of a related corpus of specific ancient pagan beliefs. It therefore follows that by studying what survives, we might discern a pattern that potentially reveals a truly ancient, pagan, grandfather myth. Lost to us in its original form but still readable in the noise of what has come since.
But what if that assumption is flawed? What if the reality is that the process by which folklore surrounding the Wild Hunt has evolved is quite different?
What if the tales we have inherited have been formed from a tapestry of different earlier folkloric strands? That the tale we see today is, in fact, constructed from a melange of many different earlier tales and themes. Quite likely, some contain old pagan elements. But, in many cases, we may well be looking primarily at medieval Christian mythology rather than anything earlier. Indeed, some themes that we see in many surviving tales may well originate in early modern stories, or perhaps even later.
The Wild Hunt phenomenon, then, may well consist of a rich tapestry of a great many different, earlier, influences rather than any single, specific, original grandfather myth.
Other recent stories covering medieval myths and folklore
If you would like to catch up with some of my recent features covering medieval myths and folklore, you might want to check out these stories:
Omens, Portents and Richard II
Sea Monsters in the Middle Ages
Medieval Summer Folk Traditions
Saint George in Medieval England
Myths and Legends of the Medieval World
If you enjoyed reading this article, you might be interested in my book: Myths and Legends of the Medieval World.
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References and Further Reading
Hutton, R. The Wild Hunt and the Witches’ Sabbath, (University of Bristol, 2014)
Lecouteux, C. Phantom Armies of the Night, (Inner Traditions, 2011)
Schmitt, J. Ghosts in the Middle Ages, (University of Chicago Press, 1998)
Watts, P. Myths and Legends of the Medieval World, (Pen and Sword, 2024)
Images
Wild Hunt: painting by Franz Stuck, 1889 (via Wiki Commons)
Jacob Grimm: photograph by Siegmund Friedlaender, 1857 (via Wiki Commons)
Cernunnos: (Nationalmuseet) photo by Roberto Fortuna & Kira Ursem, 2007 (via Wiki Commons)
Ancient Pazyryk stag mask: photo by Garrett Ziegler, 2013 (via Wiki Commons)