Editing Wild Hunt (section)

==Attestations==
===Germany===
An abundance of different tales of the Wild Hunt has been recorded in Germany. The leader, often called ''der Schimmelreiter'',{{Sfn|Kershaw|1997|p=48}} is generally identified with the god [[Odin|Wotan]],{{Sfn|Greenwood|2008|p=196}} but sometimes with a feminine figure: the wife of Wotan, [[Frau Holle|Holda]] ('the friendly one'; also Holle or Holt), Fru Waur, or Fru Gode in Northern Germany; or [[Perchta]] (the bright one; also Berchta, Berhta or Berta) in Southern Germany.{{Sfn|Kershaw|1997|p=30}}{{Sfn|Greenwood|2008|p=198}} The leader also is sometimes an undead noble, most often called Count Hackelberg or Count Ebernburg, who is cursed to hunt eternally because of misbehaviour during his lifetime, and in some versions died from injuries of a slain boar's tusk.{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}}

Dogs and wolves were generally involved. In some areas, werewolves were depicted as stealing beer and sometimes food in houses. Horses were portrayed as two-, three-, six-, and eight-legged, often with fiery eyes.{{Sfn|Kershaw|1997|p=30}} In the 'Host' variants, principally found in southern Germany, a man went out in front, warning people to get out of the streets before the coming of the Host's armed men, who were sometimes depicted as doing battle with one another. A feature peculiar to the 'Hunt' version, generally encountered in northern Germany, was the pursuit and capture of one or more female demons, or a hart in some versions, while some others did not have prey at all.{{Sfn|Kershaw|1997|p=30}}

Sometimes, the tales associate the hunter with a dragon or the devil. The lone hunter (''der Wilde Jäger'') is most often riding a horse, seldom a horse-drawn carriage, and usually has several hounds in his company. If the prey is mentioned, it is most often a young woman, either guilty or innocent. [[Gottfried August Bürger]]'s ballad ''Der wilde Jäger'' describes the fate of a nobleman who dares to hunt on the Sabbath and finds both a curse and a pack of demons deep in the woods.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}} He might also have asked God to let him hunt until [[Judgement Day]], as has ''[[ewiger Jäger]]'' (the eternal hunter).<ref>Wilhelm Grimm, Jacob Grimm: ''Deutsche Sagen''. Hamburg 2014, p. 307.</ref>

The majority of the tales deal with some person encountering the Wild Hunt. If this person stands up against the hunters, he will be punished. If he helps the hunt, he will be awarded money, gold, or, most often, a leg of a slain animal or human, which is often cursed in a way that makes it impossible to be rid of it. In this case, the person has to find a priest or magician able to ban it or trick the Wild Hunt into taking the leg back by asking for salt, which the hunt can not deliver. In many versions, a person staying right in the middle of the road during the encounter is safe.<ref>{{cite book|title=Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens. Waage-Zypresse, Nachträge |editor=Hoffmann-Krayer, Eduard |editor2=Baechtold-Staeubli, Hanns |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |year=2002 |series=Handwörterbuecher zur Deutschen Volkskunde |volume=1 |pages=191ff |isbn=978-3-11-006597-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cqdVHI1lHGkC&pg=PA191 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Neumann |first=Siegfried |author2=Tietz, Karl-Ewald |author3=Jahn, Ulrich |title=Volkssagen aus Pommern und Rügen |editor=Neumann, Siegfried |editor2=Tietz, Karl-Ewald |publisher=Edition Temmen |location=Bremen-Rostock |year=1999 |pages=407, 29ff |isbn=978-3-86108-733-5|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Simrock|first=Karl|title=Handbuch der deutschen Mythologie mit Einschluß der Nordischen|publisher=Marcus|year=1878|edition=5th|pages=[https://archive.org/details/handbuchderdeut06simrgoog/page/n207 191], 196ff|language=de|url=https://archive.org/details/handbuchderdeut06simrgoog}}</ref>

===Scandinavia===
[[File:Odin's hunt (Malmström).jpg|upright|right|thumb|Odin continued to hunt in [[Norse mythology|Norse myths]]. Illustration by [[August Malmström]].]]
In Scandinavia, the leader of the hunt was Odin and the event was referred to as ''Odens jakt'' (''Odin's hunt'') and ''Oskoreia'' (from ''Asgårdsreien'' – ''the Asgard Ride''). Odin's hunt was heard but rarely seen, and a typical trait is that one of Odin's dogs was barking louder and a second one fainter. Besides one or two shots, these barks were the only sounds that were clearly identified. When Odin's hunt was heard, it meant changing weather in many regions, but it could also mean war and unrest. According to some reports, the forest turned silent and only a whining sound and dog barks could be heard.{{sfn|Schön|2004|pp=201–205}}

In western Sweden and sometimes in the east as well, it has been said that Odin was a nobleman or even a king who had hunted on Sundays and therefore was doomed to hunt down and kill supernatural beings until the end of time.{{sfn|Schön|2004|pp=201–205}} According to certain accounts, Odin does not ride, but travels in a wheeled vehicle, specifically a one-wheeled cart.{{sfn|Schön|2004|p=204|ps=, referring to a report from Voxtorp in Småland.}}

In parts of [[Småland]], it appears that people believed that Odin hunted with large birds when the dogs got tired. When it was needed, he could transform a bevy of sparrows into an armed host.{{sfn|Schön|2004|pp=201–205}}

If houses were built on former roads, they could be burnt down, because Odin did not change his plans if he had formerly travelled on a road there. Not even charcoal kilns could be built on disused roads, because if Odin was hunting the kiln would be ablaze.{{sfn|Schön|2004|pp=201–205}}

One tradition maintains that Odin did not travel further up than an ox wears his yoke, so if Odin was hunting, it was safest to throw oneself onto the ground in order to avoid being hit, a [[pourquoi story]] that evolved as an explanation for the popular belief that persons lying at ground level are [[Lightning strike#Personal safety|safer from lightning strikes]] than are persons who are standing.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} In [[Älghult]] in Småland, it was safest to carry a piece of bread and a piece of steel when going to church and back during [[Yule]]. The reason was that if one met the rider with the broad-rimmed hat, one should throw the piece of steel in front of oneself, but if one met his dogs first, one should throw the pieces of bread instead.{{sfn|Schön|2004|pp=201–205}}

=== Britain ===
In the ''[[Peterborough Chronicle]]'', there is an account of the Wild Hunt's appearance at night, beginning with the appointment of a disastrous abbot for the monastery, [[Henry d'Angely]], in 1127:
{{blockquote|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, and horrible. This was seen in the very deer park of the town of Peterborough, and in all the woods that stretch from that same town to Stamford, and in the night the monks heard them sounding and winding their horns.<ref name=Garmonsway>{{cite book|editor=Garmonsway, G.N.|title=The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle|publisher=London: J.M. Dent; New York: Dutton|date=1972|page=258|isbn=0460106244}}</ref>}}

[[File:Wistman's Wood in winter.jpg|thumb|right|[[Wistman's Wood]] in Devon, England.]]

Reliable witnesses were said to have given the number of huntsmen as twenty or thirty, and it is said, in effect, that this went on for nine weeks, ending at Easter.<ref name="Garmonsway" /> [[Orderic Vitalis]] (1075–c. 1142), an English monk cloistered at [[St Evroul-en-Ouche]], in [[Normandy]], reported a similar cavalcade seen in January 1091, which he said were "Herlechin's troop" (''familia Herlechini''; cf. [[Harlequin]]).<ref>{{cite journal|last=Peake|first=Harold|author1-link=Harold Peake |date=February 1922|title=17. Horned Deities|url=https://zenodo.org/record/2368249|journal=[[Man (journal)|Man]]|volume=22|doi=10.2307/2840222|jstor=2840222|page=28}}</ref>

While these earlier reports of Wild Hunts were recorded by clerics and portrayed as diabolic, in late medieval romances, such as ''[[Sir Orfeo]]'', the hunters are rather from a [[faery]] otherworld, where the Wild Hunt was the hosting of the [[fairy|fairies]]; its leaders also varied, but they included [[Gwydion]], [[Gwynn ap Nudd]], [[King Arthur]], [[Nuada]], [[Herla|King Herla]], [[Woden]], [[Satan|the Devil]] and [[Herne the Hunter]]. Many legends are told of their origins, as in that of "Dando and his dogs" or "the dandy dogs": Dando, wanting a drink but having exhausted what his huntsmen carried, declared he would go to hell for it. A stranger came and offered a drink, only to steal Dando's game and then Dando himself, with his dogs giving chase. The sight was long claimed to have been seen in the area.{{sfn|Briggs|1967|p=49}} Another legend recounted how King Herla, having visited the [[Oberon|Fairy King]], was warned not to step down from his horse until the greyhound he carried jumped down; he found that three centuries had passed during his visit, and those of his men who dismounted crumbled to dust; he and his men are still riding, because the greyhound has yet to jump down.{{sfn|Briggs|1967|pp=50–51}}

The myth of the Wild Hunt has through the ages been modified to accommodate other gods and folk heroes, among them [[King Arthur]] and, more recently, in a [[Dartmoor]] [[folk legend]], [[Francis Drake|Sir Francis Drake]]. At [[Cadbury Castle, Somerset|Cadbury Castle]] in Somerset, an old lane near the castle was called King Arthur's Lane and even in the 19th century, the idea survived that on wild winter nights the king and his hounds could be heard rushing along with it.{{sfn|Westwood|1985|p=8}}

In certain parts of Britain, the hunt is said to be that of hell-hounds chasing sinners or the unbaptized. In [[Devon]] these are known as Yeth (Heath) or [[Wisht Hounds]], in Cornwall Dando and his Dogs or the Devil and his Dandy Dogs, in Wales the [[Cwn Annwn]], the Hounds of Hell, and in [[Somerset]] as Gabriel Ratchets or Retchets (dogs).{{sfn|Westwood|1985|pp=155–156}} In Devon the hunt is particularly associated with [[Wistman's Wood]].{{sfn|Westwood|1985|p=32}}

=== Iberia ===
The [[Santa Compaña]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilkinson |first=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJ7Lxae-bmIC&dq=holy+company+Santa+Compa%C3%B1a&pg=PA285 |title=Myths and Legends: An Illustrated Guide to Their Origins and Meanings |date=2009-07-01 |publisher=Dorling Kindersley Limited |isbn=978-1-4053-4403-6 |language=en}}</ref> (known also in [[Galician language|Galician]] as: ''Rolda'', ''As da nuite'', ''Pantalla'', ''Avisóns'' or ''Pantaruxada''; in [[Asturian language|Asturian]] as ''Güestia'', ''Güeste'', ''Güestida'' or ''Güéstiga'';<ref>{{cite web |url=https://mas.lne.es/diccionario/palabra/43243 |title=Diccionario General de la Lengua Asturiana |last=García Arias |first=Xose Lluis |date=2004 |access-date=4 October 2024 |language=es}}</ref> in [[Spanish language|Spanish]] as ''Estantigua''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://dle.rae.es/estantigua |title=Diccionario de la Lengua Española (Real Academia Española)|access-date=4 October 2024 |language=es}}</ref>)  is a mythical belief in Northwestern [[Spain]] and northern [[Portugal]] which consists in a procession of ghosts or souls. The procession is led by a living person (usually a parishioner of a particular church) carrying a cross or a cauldron of holy water (sometimes they carry both), followed by several of the souls of the dead holding lit candles.

=== Balkans ===
The [[South Slavs|South Slavic]] folklore of [[the Balkans]] features a supernatural procession of horsemen known as the Todorci that occurs on the first week of the [[Great Lent]] (known as the [[Todor]] or [[Theodore Tiron|St. Theodore]] Week)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://bnr.bg/en/post/100102720/st-todors-day-folk-wise |title=St. Todor's Day, folk-wise |date=February 18, 2010 |publisher=Bulgarian National Radio |access-date=December 12, 2024 }}</ref> and attacks the people who consume or cook meat and dairy products. Sometimes these horsemen are instead depicted as monstrous [[centaur]]ic creatures whose torsos grow out of the horses' backs, not too dissimilarly to the traditional depiction of the [[Nuckelavee]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Гајић |first=Ненад |date=2021 |title=Словенска митологија |trans-title=Slovenska mitologija |language=Serbian |location=Београд |publisher=Лагуна }}</ref> The horseshoe-shaped wounds inflicted by the hooves of their steeds don't heal naturally; instead, the victim must visit the site of the attack one year later, where the wounds will either magically heal instantaneously if he's been living piously for the previous year, or kill him if he's been living sinfully. They can be defended against with garlic or an improvised cross made from forks or knives.<ref>{{cite book |last=Королёв |first=Кирилл |date=2005 |title=Энциклопедия сверхъестественных существ |trans-title=Entsiklopediya sverkh"estestvennykh sushchestv |language=Russian |location=Москва |publisher=Эксмо }}</ref>

In Serbia, stories involving the Todorci are generally concentrated in the north-west of the country. They're traditionally depicted as a procession of horsemen whose steeds lack tails. They usually appear on the night between Monday and Tuesday of the Todor Week. They're led by an elder man called Great Todor wearing a white cloak and riding a lame white horse. Certain versions of the story claim that he is St. Theodore himself.<ref name="Zečević">{{cite book |last=Зечевић |first=Слободан |date=1974 |title=Русалке и тодорци у народном веровању североисточне Србије |trans-title=Rusalke i todorci u narodnom verovanju severoistočne Srbije |language=Serbian |location=Београд |publisher=Гласник Етнографског музеја у Београду }}</ref>