Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif occurring across various northern European cultures (motif E501 per Thompson). Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by a ghostly or supernatural group of hunters engaged in pursuit. The leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Odin in Germanic legends, but may variously be a historical or legendary figure like Theodoric the Great, the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag, the dragon slayer Sigurd, the Welsh psychopomp Gwyn ap Nudd, biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel, or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul either male or female. The hunters are generally the souls of the dead or ghostly dogs, sometimes fairies, valkyries, or elves.

Seeing the Wild Hunt was thought to forebode some catastrophe such as war or plague, or at best the death of the one who witnessed it. People encountering the Hunt might also be abducted to the underworld or the fairy kingdom. In some instances, it was also believed that people's spirits could be pulled away during their sleep to join the cavalcade.

The concept was developed by Jacob Grimm in his Deutsche Mythologie (1835) on the basis of comparative mythology. Grimm believed that a group of stories represented a folkloristic survival of Germanic pagan tradition, but comparable folk myths are found throughout Northern, Western and Central Europe. Grimm popularised the term Wilde Jagd ('Wild Hunt') for the phenomenon.