In these night-ridings Odin was the leader of a wild hunt. In stormy, blustering autumn weather
"The wonted roar was up among the woods."
Milton: Comus.
Odin rode in pursuit of shadowy deer with the Furious Host behind him. A ghostly huntsman of a later age was Dietrich von Bern, doomed to hunt till the Judgment Day.
Frau Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser held her revels in an underground palace in the Horselberg in Thuringia, Germany. This was one of the seats of Holda, the goddess of spring. Venus herself is like the Christian conception of Freya and Hel. She gathers about her a throng of nymphs, sylphs, and those she has lured into the mountain by intoxicating music and promises. "The enchanting sounds enticed only those in whose hearts wild sensuous longings had already taken root." Of these Tannhäuser is one. He has stayed a year, but it seems to him only one day. Already he is tired of the rosy light and eternal music and languor, and longs for the fresh green world of action he once knew. He fears that he has forfeited his soul's salvation by being there at all, but cries,
"Salvation rests for me in Mary!"
Wagner: Tannhäuser.
At the holy name Venus and her revellers vanish, and Tannhäuser finds himself in a meadow, hears the tinkling herd-bells, and a shepherd's voice singing,
"Frau Holda, goddess of the spring,
Steps forth from the mountains old;
She comes, and all the brooklets sing,
And fled is winter's cold.
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