Editing Wild Hunt (section)

=== 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}}