In pre-christian time this amiable goddess—called oftenest Bertha (shining) and Mother Rose—was related to Wodan as the spring and summer to the storms of winter, in which the Wild Huntsman’s procession no doubt originated. The Northman’s experience of seed-time and harvest was expressed in the myth of this sweet Rose hidden through the winter’s blight to rise again in summer. This myth has many familiar variants, such as Aschenputtel and Sleeping Beauty; but it was more particularly connected with the later legends of the White Lady, as victim of the Wild Huntsman, by the stories of transformed princesses delivered by youths. Rescue of the enchanted princess is usually effected by three kisses, but she is compelled to appear before the deliverer in some hideous aspect—as toad or serpent; so that he is repelled or loses courage. This is the rose hid under the ugliness of winter.
When the storm-god Wodan was banished from nature altogether and identified with the imported, and naturally inconceivable, Satan, he was no more regarded as Frigga’s rough lord, but as her remorseless foe. She was popularly revered as St. Walpurga, the original May Queen, and it was believed that happy and industrious children might sometimes see her on May-day with long flowing flaxen hair, fine shoes, distaff in hand, and a golden crown on her head. But for the nine nights after May-day she was relentlessly pursued by the Wild Huntsman and his mounted train. There is a picture by G. Watts of the hunted lady of Bocaccio’s tale, now in the Cosmopolitan Club of London, which vividly reproduces the weird impressiveness of this myth. The White Lady tries to hide from her pursuer in standing corn, or gets herself bound up in a sheaf. The Wild Huntsman’s wrath extends to all her retinue,—moss maidens of the wood, or Holtzweibeln. The same belief characterises Waldemar’s hunt. It is a common legend in Denmark that King Volmer rode up to some peasants, busy at harvest on Sobjerg Hill, and, in reply to his question whether they had seen any game, one of the men said—‘Something rustled just now in yonder standing corn.’ The King rushed off, and presently a shot was heard. The King reappeared with a mermaid lying across his horse, and said as he passed, ‘I have chased her a hundred years, and have her at last.’ He then rode into the hill. In this way Frigga and her little people, hunted with the wild creatures, awakened sympathy for them.
The holy friar. Eckhardt (who may be taken as a myth and type of the Church ad hoc) gained his legendary fame by being supposed to go in advance of the Wild Huntsman and warn villagers of his approach; but as time went on and a compromise was effected between the hunting Barons and the Church, on the basis that the sports and cruelties should be paid for with indulgence-fees, Eckhardt had to turn his attention rather to the White Lady. She was declared a Wild Huntress, but the epithet slipped to other shoulders. The priests identified her ultimately with Freija, or Frau Venus; and Eckhardt was the holy hermit who warned young men against her sorceries in Venusberg and elsewhere. But Eckhardt never prevailed against the popular love of Mother Rose as he had against her pursuer; he only increased the attractions of ‘Frau Venus’ beyond her deserts. In the end it was as much as the Church could do to secure for Mary the mantle of her elder sister’s sanctity. Even then the earlier faith was not eradicated. After the altars of Mary had fallen, Frigga had vitality enough to hold her own as the White Witch who broke the Dark One’s spells. It was chiefly this helpful Mother-goddess to whom the wretched were appealing when they were burnt for witchcraft.
At Urselberg, Wurtemberg, there is a deep hole called the ‘Nightmaidens’ Retreat,’ in which are piled the innumerable stones that have been cast therein by persons desiring good luck on journeys. These stones correspond to the bones of the 11,000 Virgins in St. Ursula’s Church at Cologne. The White Lady was sainted under her name of Ursel (the glowing one), otherwise Horsel. Horselberg, near Eisenach, became her haunt as Venus, the temptress of Tannhaüsers; Urselberg became her retreat as the good fairy mother; but the attractions of herself and her moss-maidens, which the Church wished to borrow, were taken on a long voyage to Rome, and there transmuted to St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. These Saints of Cologne encountered their ancient mythical pursuers—the Wild Huntsman’s train—in those barbarian Huns who are said to have slaughtered them all because they would not break their vows of chastity. The legend is but a variant of Wodan’s hunt after the White Lady and her maidens. When it is remembered that before her transformation by Christianity Ursula was the Huntsman’s own wife, Frigga, a quaint incident appears in the last meeting between the two. After Wodan had been transformed to the Devil, he is said to have made out the architectural plan for Cologne Cathedral, and offered it to the architect in return for a bond for his soul; but, having weakly allowed him to get possession of the document before the bond was signed, the architect drew from under his gown a bone of St. Ursula, from which the Devil fled in great terror. It was bone of his bone; but after so many mythological vicissitudes Wodan and his Horsel could hardly be expected to recognise each other at this chance meeting in Cologne.
[1] ‘Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart.’ Von Dr. Adolf Wuttke, Prof. der Theol. in Halle. Berlin: Verlag von Wiegand & Grieben. 1869.
[2] ‘Histoire de France et des Choses Mémorables,’ &c.
[3] The universal myth of Sleepers,—christianised in the myth of St. John, and of the Seven whose slumber is traceable as far as Tours,—had a direct pagan development in Jami, Barbarossa, Arthur, and their many variants. It is the legend of the Castle of Sewingshields in Northumberland, that King Arthur, his queen and court, remain there in a subterranean hall, entranced, until some one should first blow a bugle-horn near the entrance hall, and then with ‘the sword of the stone’ cut a garter placed there beside it. But none had ever heard where the entrance to this enchanted hall was, till a farmer, fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle, and his clew fell and ran downwards through briars into a deep subterranean passage. He cleared the portal of its weeds and rubbish, and entering a vaulted passage, followed the clew. The floor was infested with toads and lizards; and bats flitted fearfully around him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim, distant light, which, as he advanced, grew gradually brighter, till all at once he entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a fire, without fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor, blazed with a high and lambent flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted roof, and the monarch and his queen and court reposing around in a theatre of thrones and costly couches. On the floor, beyond the fire, lay the faithful and deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and on a table before it the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The shepherd firmly grasped the sword, and as he drew it from its rusty scabbard the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter, and as the sword was slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power, and they all gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes and hands and exclaimed—
O woe betide that evil day
On which this witless wight was born,