The Wild Hunt: Symbolisms, Meanings, and Folklore (Part 3)

Part 3: Wotan as archetypal leader of the Wild Hunt; folkloric figures relating to him

by Sean Jobst

26 January 2021

1896 work by Swabian painter Hans Thoma
(1839-1924), forming the costume design
for Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen"

   In my last post of 2020, I examined the qualities of Frau Holle or Perchta as leader of the Wild Hunt. Yet other traditions cite the Germanic god Wodan as the One who leads the Wild Hunt. This is not surprising given that Holle/Perchta seems to be the same as his wife, Frija - the different names depending on the region and time period (much like Wodan gradually became known as Wotan due to developments in the German language). Their roles would be complementary towards each other, making the Wild Hunt a balance of the masculine and feminine power forces that exist within Nature. "Not only Wuotan and other gods, but heathen goddesses too, may head the furious host: the wild hunter passes into the wood-wife, Woden into frau Gaude"(Grimm, III, 932). He is identified so much with the Wild Hunt that in Swabia and Switzerland (the lands of the ancient Suebi and Alemanni), the Wild Hunt itself was often called Wuotis Heer (Wodan's Army).

   Wotan or Wodan is a multifaceted god we can relate to and emulate in many different ways as varied as individuals. His 'Wode' being the personified wind or divine breath, the battle frenzy of warriors, comes from the same "inspiration" as the words of a writer or a poet. His ordeal on the World Tree was truly about "killing" himself to himself so as to discover the enlightenment within, the immortal command to "Know Thyself". The Runes are not only letters and symbols but each laden with deep esoteric meanings about the psyche, cosmos, nature and memories - thus related to the Unconscious. Wotan's healing abilities, such as with Balder's horse in the Merseburg Charms, can be emulated to "heal" both physical and spiritual maladies. His great "shamanic" abilities offer general ways to sense there is more than just one physical reality; his leadership over the Wild Hunt in some folklore showing the "veils" between life and death, physical and spirit worlds, can be thin and obscure within the overall cycle of life, death and rebirth. 

   He often contrasts with the god Ziu (known as Tiw to the Anglo-Saxons and Týr to the Norse, all from Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz), the Germanic Sky Father whose iconography shows balance of the Sun and Moon (solar and lunar energies), represents values such as order and courage, the North Star, and other natural and cosmic symbolisms. Whereas Ziu is a god of war, Wotan is more specifically tied to those who died in battle or otherwise a violent, traumatic death. In the tripartite functions he applied to Indo-European mythologies, French philologist and mythologist Georges Dumézil identified Ziu with Sovereignty - the "light" aspect of society, exoteric values such as justice and order for all the tribe - and Wotan as representing the "dark" aspect of society - the esoteric, mysterious, shadowy realms, and inspiration. The two deific power-forces are to be balanced so one may truly know themselves. The "dark" for me conveys imagery of the Unconscious and the Shadow which are essential for any growth. Those qualities as personified by Wotan are most at play in the Wild Hunt.

   Ziu is more concerned with rules and principles guiding war, while Wotan is with the state of mind achieved through acts of battle, the warrior's fury and ecstasy. Continental Germanic sources, such as bractaetes like those found in Schwaben and charms like that of Merseburg, stress his ecstasy and healing abilities more than many functions he had in Scandinavia as Óðinn (where he absorbed the functions and qualities of other deities). There is no evidence for a Valhalla in continental sources, there being more of a stress on the Underworld such as the mounds. Folklore speaks of people's spirits being pulled away while asleep to join the Wild Hunt or being "abducted" or "guided" to the Underworld, recalling the psychopomp archetype who is also leader of the Wild Hunt. Aside from Wotan, the Welsh psychopomp Gwyn ap Nudd is associated with both the Wild Hunt and the Otherworld. 

Illustration of the Wild Hunt from Das festliche Jahr in Sitten,
Gebräuchen und Festen der germanischen Völker (1863), a work by
Swabian historian and linguist Otto von Reinsberg (1822-1876)

   Similar to "wode" also conveying the power of the wind and fury, French sources identified the leader of the Herlathingus (Furious Army) as Herla, whose name seeks like a combination of Old French herler "make a racket" and herle "tumult, noise" (Lecouteux, 171). Could this be remnant of an earlier Gaullic equivalent to Wotan? A saying from Ottenhöfen in the Schwarzwald states: "Der Wind isch e altes Männle" - "The Wind is an old man"(Meyer, 370). That all these qualities are combined in the Wild Hunt's leader is no accident. "It was natural that the ancient god of the dead who rode through the air should keep a place in this way in the memory of the people, and it reminds us of the terror which his name must once have inspired"(Davidson, 148). Grimm expands on this theme (with various references):

   "This wind's-bride is a whirlwind, at which our mythology brings the highest gods into play. Even Wuotan's 'furious host,' what is it but an explanation of the stormwind howling through the air? The OHG. ziu, turbines, we have traced to Zio, pp. 203. 285; and the storm-cloud was called maganwetar (p. 332 last l.). But the whirlwind appears to be associated with Phol also (pp. 229. 285), and with an opprobrious name for the devil (schweinezagel, säuzagel, sûstert, sow's tail), to whom the raising of the whirl was ascribed (Superst. I, 522) (102) as well as to witches (ibid. 554). It was quite natural therefore to look upon some female personages also as prime movers of the whirlwind, the gyrating dancing Herodias, and frau Hilde, frau Holde (p. 285). In Kilian 693 it is a fahrendes weib; in Celtic legend it is stirred up by fays, and the Irish name for it is sigh gaoite (O'Brien), sighgaoithe (Croker III, xxi); in a whirlwind elvish sprites can steal (Stewart p. 122). It is a popular belief in Sweden, that the skogsrâ (wood-wife) makes her presence known by a violent whirlwind which shakes the trees even to breaking. The Slav. polednice (supra, p. 478n.) is a female daemon, who flies up in the dust of the whirlwind (Jungmann sub v.). According to a legend of the Mark (Kuhn no. 167) the whirlwind was a noble damsel who loved the chase above everything, and made havock of the husbandman's crops, for which she is doomed to ride along with the storm to all eternity; this again reminds us of Diana and the huntress Holda (see Suppl.)"(Grimm, II, 632-633).  

   Much like Irish folklore about someone being "away with the sidhe (fairies)", the Wild Hunt conveys much imagery of people being swept up in its furious winds. One of these may be the medieval German Emperor Friedrich der Barbarossa, about whom Grimm cites a 14th century folk legend: "Yet some have seen him awake: a shepherd having piped a lay that pleased him well, Frederick asked him: 'fly the ravens round the mountain still?' the shepherd said yes: 'then must I sleep another 100 years'(Grimm, III, 955)." The shepherd was then led into Friedrich's armory, where he was "presented with the stand of a hand-basin, which the goldsmith found to be sheer gold"(ibid., 956). This is interesting given the folklore throughout Europe that the one who helps the Wild Hunt may be given gifts such as gold. 

   It also carries on the ancient Indo-European archetype of the hero who will ultimately awaken after a prolonged slumber, conveyed in such varied legends (even if in thinly-veiled Christian or literary veneers) as the Portuguese Sebastianismo or the Upstate New York story of Rip Van Winkle (possibly a remnant of an old Dutch tradition and not merely Washington Irving's creation). In the Germanic context, it ultimately stems from Balder, whose life personifies this cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Its no accident that the leader of the Wild Hunt (Wotan) is his "father" and heals his horse, placing the Wild Hunt within the never-ending cycle of life. This theme survives within German folklore through the "undead nobleman" Count Hans von Hackelberg, cursed to hunt eternally due to bad actions during his lifetime. To me this manifests the ancient Germanic worldview that included multiple incarnations to "resolve" one's problems (reincarnation rather than just one lifetime), so that the dead may have some kind of unresolved "business" in this world. A variation says he died by a boar's tusk, and upon his death his soul shunned the Christian heaven, preferring to eternally join the company of the Wild Hunt across the night sky. 

 

Odin's Hunt, by the Swedish artist
August Malmström (1829-1901)

   Wild Huntsman of Death. As the guider of dead souls into the Underworld (in addition to his many other qualities), Wotan "was most generally known as the Wild Huntsman, and when people heard the rush of the wind they cried aloud in superstitious fear, fancying they heard and saw him ride past with his train, all mounted on snorting steeds, and accompanied by baying hounds"(Guerber, 30). Conveying the "chaotic" forces of Nature, the Wild Hunt had such names as the Furious Bond in Schwaben and Muetiseil in Switzerland. What is "hunted" here is death, which is why supernatural images of a ghostly knight were introduced. Grimm saw this "knight" as Wotan, downgraded by Christianization to a ghostly figure who "lost his sociable character, his near familiar features, and assumed the aspect of a dark and dreadful power....a specter and a devil"(Grimm, III, 918).

   This Hunter Archetype was innate to indigenous European tribal faiths, part of the animistic worldview held by our ancient Ancestors. He was not only a guardian of the primal forces within Nature, but so often was also a god of the "threshold", going beyond boundaries of the physical and perceivable world into the supernatural and unseen. Examples include the Gaullic god Cernunnos, or Herne the Hunter and the Green Man within English folklore. The Celtiberians had various localized gods with horns or antlers, allegorical of "aggressive power, genetic vigor and fecundity"(Simón, 310) - expressions within the Wild Hunt. In German folklore, a hunter figure variously called Waul, Waur, Waurke, Wod, Wode, Wolk or Wuid (according to region), clearly comes from Wotan and his "wode" energy. The victims of a figure called the Wild Huntsman include "unjust judges, cruel castle custodians, Sunday violators, passionate hunters who have to ride as punishment for their offenses in the wild 'Hunt'"(Bächtold-Stäubli, 633). One story describes "four sons" of the Hunter, named after the four cardinal directions (ibid., 634), which could be symbolic of the Wind from all directions and allegory for different manifestations of Wotan.

   Eckhart and Tannhäuser. A closely related figure to the Huntsman is the "faithful" Eckhart, a heroic knight most associated with the forests of Thuringia, where he helps Holle in the Wild Hunt. "In Frankhausen Holda moves at the head of the fellow hunters. In Schwarza (Thuringia) she is accompanied by 'the faithful Eckhart', in Hassloch and Gruneworth her horse carries little bells and the villagers shout: 'Listen, the Rollegaul (Holle's horse) moves around!'"(Gardenstone, 105). He warns people of the Hunt's approach and to keep their distance from the various supernatural forces in the Thuringian forests. He is the male protagonist in the story of "Venus and Tannhäuser", about an obscure Swabian Minnesinger and poet; the Minnesinger were traveling musical poets of the Age of Chivalry whom several scholars have proposed carried on the Old Ways - minne itself meaning "memory" in the sense of ancestral memories. Upon entering the Thuringian forests, Tannhäuser discovers the Venusberg (Mountain of Venus), presided over by Lady Minne who was none other than Frau Holde, dwelling within the mountain with many heroes and minnesänger (Rahn, 95).

   From Venusberg come the howls and lamentations of souls and spirits, creating a thin veneer between worlds of the living and dead. Its a story of a human hero undertaking a shamanic journey into the Otherworld, where he experiences various supernatural events and beings, but ultimately yearns to return to the earth only to find out that many years had passed in earthly time. Eckhart and these occurrences are closely associated with the Ember Days that roughly correlate with Germanic Yule. A "Furious Army" leaves from the Venusberg, consisting of unbaptized infants, warriors fallen in battle, and ecstatics, the latter according to the 16th century Bavarian historian Martin Crusius being those "whose personality splits but whose traveling soul has not returned to the body"(Lecouteux, 146). Eckhart carries a staff and is "an old man with a white beard"(ibid., 147), according to Zuanne della Piatte, a shaman from Altrei (Anterivo) in South Tyrol who carried "many signs and diabolical formulas in the German language". During his 1497 "witchcraft" trial, he told stories about travels to the "beyond", being snatched away to Venusberg, where he met Holle and Tannhäuser, in whose company he traveled around the world on black horses in what appeared to be five hours in earthly time (Behringer, 56). All of these accounts and qualities make Eckhart/Tannhäuser allegories of Wotan.

   Jung on Archetypes of the Wild Hunt. Among the pioneering work of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was uncovering the Wotan Archetype whose remnants he identified in the memories and dreams of his patients of Germanic descent. From the northeast Swiss canton of Thurgau, a region that was inhabited by the Alemanni and later part of the Duchy of Swabia, Jung resonated with highly specified traditions of the Suebi and Alemanni. In one of his later works, he described a dream he once had of a large ghostly wolfhound hunting a human soul. He interpreted the hound as his mother's psychopomp guiding her into the Otherworld, a remarkable synchronicity since he discovered soon after his dream that she had indeed died. He saw the soul as her soul being "reclaimed" by the god of their Alemanni ancestors (Jung, 1965, 313). This god he interpreted as Wotan, presiding over the army of the dead which was sälig Lüt (selige Leute) "the blessed folk" in his Alemannic dialect (ibid., 230-231). In 1956, Jung wrote in a lengthy letter to Melvin J. Lasky, an American publicist then resident in Germany:

   "Wotan is a restless wanderer, an ancient god of storm and wind, unleashing passion and frenzy. His name means literally 'Lord and Maker of Fury.' Adam of Bremen wrote in 1070 or thereabouts: 'Wodan id est furor.' His essence is ecstasy; he is a turbulent spirit, a tempest that sets everything in motion and causes 'movements.' Among these were the orgiastic midsummer's day dances mentioned by Dr. Schmitz-Cliever; the religious movements of the Middle Ages named by H. Scholz also bore the mark of this perturbing spirit. The exodus of the children from Hamelin comes into this category. It should be noted that music is a primitive means of putting people into a state of frenzy; one has only to think of the drumming at the dances of shamans and medicine-men, or of the flute-playing at the Dionysian orgies.

 

   "Leibniz mentioned St. Vitus's dance as a possible cause of the events at Hamelin. In this connection I would like to draw attention to a related, though far more dangerous, manifestation of collective frenzy upon which Wotan has likewise left his mark. This is the 'going berserk' of Wotan's followers, a regular seizure that drove them to madness and gave them supernatural strength. Not only single individuals were seized in this way, but whole crowds were swept along and infected with the 'berserker rage.' It was a mass frenzy, to which other people gave the expressive name furor Teutonicus. The exodus of the children from Hamelin may be conceived as a less brutal movement activated by the same 'ecstatic' spirit. The rat-catching Pied Piper himself must have been possessed by the spirit of Wotan, which swept all those who were liable to such transports - in this case children - into a state of collective frenzy. 

   "As to the disappearance of the children in the mountain, it should be remembered that legends often banish into a mountain certain heroes in whose death the populace cannot or will not believe, and whose return is expected, with fear or hope, in the distant future. For the psychologist this is an apt way of saying that though the forces represented by the banished and vanished children have momentarily disappeared from consciousness, they are still very much alive in the unconscious. The unconscious is perfectly symbolized by the dark, unknown interior of the mountain. It scarcely needs mentioning that a reawakening of these forces has actually taken place.

   "Another aspect of this disappearance is the state of 'being lost to the world' which is frequently reported in connection with ecstasy and more particularly with 'going berserk.' According to legend, the hero becomes invisible or is transported to another place, or occasionally his double appears, as when he is seen in battle, while in reality he is sunk in trance-like slumber....From a psychological point of view the motif of the rats, which seems to have been added afterwards, is an indication of Wotan's connection with the daemonic and chthonic realm, and with evil. Wotan was banished by Christianity to the realm of the devil, or identified with him, and the devil is the lord of rats and flies"(Jung, 1990, 331-332).

Illustration by Carl Emil Doepler (1824–1905)

[To be continued in Part 4, about the Männerbünde, the Wild Hunt's origins in ancient processions, its shamanic and initiatory elements, and Iberian traditions of the Wild Hunt....]

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bächtold-Stäubli, Hanns, and Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer, eds. Handwörterbücher Zur Deutschen Volkskunde. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter Verlag, 1941.

Behringer, Wolfgang. Shaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Night, trans. H.C. Erik Midelfort. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.

Davidson, Hilda R. Ellis. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1964.

Gardenstone. Goddess Holle: In Search of a Germanic Goddess, trans. Michelle Lina Marie Hitchcock. Norderstadt, Germany: BoD - Books on Demand GmbH, 2011.

Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology, Vol. II, trans. James Steven Stallybrass, 1883. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology, Vol. III, trans. James Steven Stallybrass. London: George Bell & Sons, 1883.

Guerber, Hélène Adeline. Myths of Northern Lands: Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art. New York/Cincinnati/Chicago: American Book Company, 1895.

Jung, Carl. Letters of C.G. Jung, Vol. II: 1951-1961, eds. Gerhard Adler and Aniela Jaffé. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge, 1990.

Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Random House, 1965.

Lecouteux, Claude. Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2011.

Meyer, Elard Hugo. Mythologie der Germanen. Straßburg: Verlag von Karl J. Trübner, 1903.

Rahn, Otto. Lucifer's Court: A Heretic's Journey in Search of the Light Bringers, trans. Christopher Jones. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2008.

Simón, Francisco Marco. "Religion and Religious Practices of the Ancient Celts of the Iberian Peninsula". e-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies (Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison), March 10, 2005, Vol. 6, Article No. 6.