The Wild Hunt—Euphemisms—Schimmelreiter—Odinwald—Pied Piper—Lyeshy—Waldemar’s Hunt—Palne Hunter—King Abel’s Hunt—Lords of Glorup—Le Grand Veneur—Robert le Diable—Arthur—Hugo—Herne—Tregeagle—Der Freischütz—Elijah’s chariot—Mahan Bali—Déhak—Nimrod—Nimrod’s defiance of Jehovah—His Tower—Robber Knights—The Devil in Leipzig—Olaf hunting pagans—Hunting-horns—Raven—Boar—Hounds—Horse—Dapplegrimm—Sleipnir—Horseflesh—The mare Chetiya—Stags—St. Hubert—The White Lady—Myths of Mother Rose—Wodan hunting St. Walpurga—Friar Eckhardt.
The most important remnant of the Odin myth is the universal legend of the Wild Huntsman. The following variants are given by Wuttke.[1] In Central and South Germany the Wild Hunt is commonly called Wütenden Heere, i.e., Wodan’s army or chase—called in the Middle Ages, Wuotanges Heer. The hunter, generally supposed to be abroad during the twelve nights after Christmas, is variously called Wand, Waul, Wodejäger, Helljäger, Nightjäger, Hackelberg, Hackelberend (man in armour), Fro Gode, Banditterich, Jenner. The most common belief is that he is the spectre of a wicked lord or king who sacrilegiously enjoyed the chase on Sundays and other holy days, and who is condemned to expiate his sin by hunting till the day of doom. He wears a broad-brimmed hat; is followed by dogs and other animals, fiery, and often three-legged; and in his spectral train are the souls of unbaptized children, huntsmen who have trodden down grain, witches, and others—these being mounted on horses, goats, and cocks, and sometimes headless, or with their entrails dragging behind them. They rush with a fearful noise through the air, which resounds with the cracking of whips, neighing of horses, barking of dogs, and cries of ghostly huntsmen. The unlucky wight encountered is caught up into the air, where his neck is wrung, or he is dropped from a great height. In some regions, it is said, such must hunt until relieved, but are not slain. The huntsman is a Nemesis on poachers or trespassers in woods and forests. Sometimes the spectres have combats with each other over battlefields. Their track is marked with bits of horseflesh, human corpses, legs with shoes on. In some regions, it is said, the huntsmen carry battle-axes, and cut down all who come in their way. When the hunt is passing all dogs on earth become still and quiet. In most regions there is some haunted gorge, hill, or castle in which the train disappears.
In Thuringia, it is said that, when the fearful noises of the spectral hunt come very near, they change to ravishing music. In the same euphemistic spirit some of the prognostications it brings are not evil: generally, indeed, the apparition portends war, pestilence, and famine, but frequently it announces a fruitful year. If, in passing a house, one of the train dips his finger in the yeast, the staff of life will never be wanting in that house. Whoever sees the chase will live long, say the Bohemians; but he must not hail it, lest flesh and bones rain upon him.
In most regions, however, there is thought to be great danger in proximity to the hunt. The perils are guarded against by prostration on the earth face downward, praying meanwhile; by standing on a white cloth (Bertha’s linen), or wrapping the same around the head; by putting the head between the spokes of a wheel; by placing palm leaves on a table. The hunt may be observed securely from the cross-roads, which it shuns, or by standing on a stump marked with three crosses—as is often done by woodcutters in South Germany.
Wodan also appears in the Schimmelreiter—headless rider on a white horse, in Swabia called Bachreiter or Junker Jäkele. This apparition sometimes drives a carriage drawn by four white (or black) horses, usually headless. He is the terrible forest spectre Hoimann, a giant in broad-brimmed hat, with moss and lichen for beard; he rides a headless white horse through the air, and his wailing cry, ‘Hoi, hoi!’ means that his reign is ended. He is the bugbear of children.
In the Odinwald are the Riesenäule and Riesenaltar, with mystic marks declaring them relics of a temple of Odin. Near Erbach is Castle Rodenstein, the very fortress of the Wild Jäger, to which he passes with his horrid train from the ruins of Schnellert. The village of Reichelsheim has on file the affidavits of the people who heard him just before the battles of Leipzig and Waterloo. Their theory is that if the Jäger returns swiftly to Schnellert all will go well for Germany; but if he tarry at Rodenstein ’tis an omen of evil. He was reported near Frankfort in 1832; but it is notable that no mention of him was made during the late Franco-German war.
A somewhat later and rationalised variant relates that the wild huntsman was Hackelberg, the Lord of Rodenstein, whose tomb—really a Druidical stone—is shown at the castle, and said to be guarded by hell-hounds. Hackelberg is of old his Brunswick name. It was the Hackelberg Hill that opened to receive the children, which the Pied Piper of Hamelin charmed away with his flute from that old town, because the corporation would not pay him what they had promised for ridding them of rats. It is easy to trace this Pied Piper, who has become so familiar through Mr. Robert Browning’s charming poem, to the Odin of more blessed memory, who says in the Havamal, ‘I know a song by which I soften and enchant my enemies, and render their weapons of no effect.’
This latter aspect of Odin, his command over vermin, connects him with the Slavonic Lyeshy, or forest-demon of the Russias. The ancient thunder-god of Russia, Perun, who rides in his storm-chariot through the sky, has in the more christianised districts dropped his mantle on Ilya (Elias); while in the greater number of Slavonic districts he has held his original physical characters so remarkably that it has been necessary to include him among demons. In Slavonian Folklore the familiar myth of the wild huntsman is distributed—Vladimir the Great fulfils one part of it by still holding high revel in the halls of Kief, but he is no huntsman; Perun courses noisily through the air, but he is rather benevolent than otherwise; the diabolical characteristics of the superstition have fallen to the evil huntsmen (Lyeshies), who keep the wild creatures as their flocks, the same as shepherds their herds, and whom every huntsman must propitiate. The Lyeshy is gigantic, wears a sheepskin, has one eye without eyebrow or eyelash, horns, feet of a goat, is covered with green hair, and his finger-nails are claws. He is special protector of the bears and wolves.
In Denmark the same myth appears as King Volmer’s Hunt. Waldemar was so passionately fond of the chase that he said if the Lord would only let him hunt for ever near Gurre (his castle in the north of Seeland), he would not envy him his paradise. For this blasphemous wish he is condemned to hunt between Burre and Gurre for ever. His cavalcade is much like that already described. Volmer rides a snow-white charger, preceded by a pack of coal-black hounds, and he carries his head under his left arm. On St. John the women open gates for him. It is believed that he is allowed brief repose at one and another of his old seats, and it is said spectral servants are sometimes seen preparing the ruined castle at Vordingborg for him, or at Waldemar’s Tower. A sceptical peasant resolved to pass the night in this tower. At midnight the King entered, and, thanking him for looking after his tower, gave him a gold piece which burned through his hand and fell to the ground as a coal. On the other hand, Waldemar sometimes makes peasants hold his dogs, and afterwards throws them coals which turn out to be gold pieces.
The Palnatoke or Palne Hunter appears mostly in the island of Fuen. Every New Year’s night he supplies himself with three horse-shoes from some smithy, and the smith takes care that he may find them ready for use on his anvil, as he always leaves three gold pieces in their stead. If the shoes are not ready for him, he carries the anvil off. In one instance he left an anvil on the top of a church tower, and it caused the smith great trouble to get it down again.