The wanderer, when he hears the ghostly hunt, listens in terror to the barking of dogs, and hears the hu! hu! of the chase, and the uhu of the death-owl.
In a Kloster in Thuringia lived, in the primeval days of convents, a nun called Ursel—Ursula—who always disturbed the choir of nuns by her howling singing; hence she was called Tut-Ursel. But after her death she disturbed them even more than in her lifetime, for at eleven every evening she poked her head through a hole in the church tower and tooted dreadfully, and every morning at four she joined her voice in the matin-song.
For some days the holy sisters bore this lamentable disturbance; but at last one morning one of the nuns whispered in fear to her neighbour, "That is certainly the Ursel!"
Instantly the music ceased, their hair rose to mountains, and the nuns rushed out of the church screaming: "Tut-Ursel! Tut-Ursel!" And no punishment could induce a single nun to enter the church again until a Capuchin monk from a monastery on the Danube, noted for his sanctity, was summoned.
He condemned Tut-Ursel to banishment in the Harz, and to bear the form of a death-owl.
Here she encountered Hackelberg, and found as much delight in the hu, hu! of his eternal hunt as he in her uhu! and so they hunt for ever in company.
Another story is that the screech-owl is a nun who was false to her vows, and left her convent to follow Hackelberg.
The origin of this legend belongs to the ancient pagan days. It is even disputed that a person called Hackelberg existed, and if so, the legend is ages older than the sixteenth century, the time when he is said to have lived.
The Wild Hunter, the Wanderer, was Wodan himself in the pagan days.
At the introduction of Christianity we find a new development of the ancient myths. Wodan becomes the foul fiend, then the godless Hunter, and the Wandering Jew. In the Black Forest the eternal Hunter and the eternal Jew are regarded as the same person. They both always carry a groschen in the pocket. In some parts of Germany the harrows are placed in the fields with the teeth together, that the wanderer may rest himself. According to some authorities, he may only rest Christmas night, and then only when he finds a plough in the field; only on that may he sit down.