THE WILD HUNTSMAN.
The Wild Hunt--Euphemisms--Schimmelreiter--Odinwald--Pied
Piper--Lyeshy--Waldemar's Hunt--Palne Hunter--King Abel's Hunt
--Lords of Glorup--Le Grand Veneur--Robert le Diable--Arthur--
Hugo--Herne--Tregeagle--Der Freischütz--Elijah's chariot--Mahan
Bali--Déhak--Nimrod--Nimrod's defiance of Jehovah--His Tower--
Robber Knights--The Devil in Leipzig--Olaf hunting pagans--
Hunting-horns--Raven--Boar--Hounds--Horse--Dapplegrimm--Sleipnir
--Horseflesh--The mare Chetiya--Stags--St. Hubert--The White Lady
--Myths of Mother Rose--Wodan hunting St. Walpurga--Friar Eckhardt.
The most important remnant of the Odin myth is the universal legend of
the Wild Huntsman. The following variants are given by Wuttke. [184]
In Central and South Germany the Wild Hunt is commonly called
Wütenden Heere, i.e., Wodan's army or chase--called in the Middle
Ages, Wuotanges Heer. The hunter, generally supposed to be abroad
during the twelve nights after Christmas, is variously called Wand,
Waul, Wodejäger, Helljäger, Nightjäger, Hackelberg, Hackelberend
(man in armour), Fro Gode, Banditterich, Jenner. The most common
belief is that he is the spectre of a wicked lord or king who
sacrilegiously enjoyed the chase on Sundays and other holy days,
and who is condemned to expiate his sin by hunting till the day of
doom. He wears a broad-brimmed hat; is followed by dogs and other
animals, fiery, and often three-legged; and in his spectral train
are the souls of unbaptized children, huntsmen who have trodden down
grain, witches, and others--these being mounted on horses, goats,
and cocks, and sometimes headless, or with their entrails dragging
behind them. They rush with a fearful noise through the air, which
resounds with the cracking of whips, neighing of horses, barking of
dogs, and cries of ghostly huntsmen. The unlucky wight encountered
is caught up into the air, where his neck is wrung, or he is dropped
from a great height. In some regions, it is said, such must hunt until
relieved, but are not slain. The huntsman is a Nemesis on poachers or
trespassers in woods and forests. Sometimes the spectres have combats
with each other over battlefields. Their track is marked with bits
of horseflesh, human corpses, legs with shoes on. In some regions,
it is said, the huntsmen carry battle-axes, and cut down all who
come in their way. When the hunt is passing all dogs on earth become
still and quiet. In most regions there is some haunted gorge, hill,
or castle in which the train disappears.
In Thuringia, it is said that, when the fearful noises of the spectral
hunt come very near, they change to ravishing music. In the same
euphemistic spirit some of the prognostications it brings are not evil:
generally, indeed, the apparition portends war, pestilence, and famine,
but frequently it announces a fruitful year. If, in passing a house,
one of the train dips his finger in the yeast, the staff of life will
never be wanting in that house. Whoever sees the chase will live long,
say the Bohemians; but he must not hail it, lest flesh and bones rain
upon him.
In most regions, however, there is thought to be great danger in
proximity to the hunt. The perils are guarded against by prostration on
the earth face downward, praying meanwhile; by standing on a white
cloth (Bertha's linen), or wrapping the same around the head; by
putting the head between the spokes of a wheel; by placing palm leaves
on a table. The hunt may be observed securely from the cross-roads,
which it shuns, or by standing on a stump marked with three crosses--as
is often done by woodcutters in South Germany.
Wodan also appears in the Schimmelreiter--headless rider on a white
horse, in Swabia called Bachreiter or Junker Jäkele. This apparition
sometimes drives a carriage drawn by four white (or black) horses,
usually headless. He is the terrible forest spectre Hoimann, a giant
in broad-brimmed hat, with moss and lichen for beard; he rides a
headless white horse through the air, and his wailing cry, 'Hoi,
hoi!' means that his reign is ended. He is the bugbear of children.
In the Odinwald are the Riesenäule and Riesenaltar, with mystic marks
declaring them relics of a temple of Odin. Near Erbach is Castle
Rodenstein, the very fortress of the Wild Jäger, to which he passes
with his horrid train from the ruins of Schnellert. The village of
Reichelsheim has on file the affidavits of the people who heard him
just before the battles of Leipzig and Waterloo. Their theory is
that if the Jäger returns swiftly to Schnellert all will go well for
Germany; but if he tarry at Rodenstein 'tis an omen of evil. He was
reported near Frankfort in 1832; but it is notable that no mention
of him was made during the late Franco-German war.
A somewhat later and rationalised variant relates that the wild
huntsman was Hackelberg, the Lord of Rodenstein, whose tomb--really
a Druidical stone--is shown at the castle, and said to be guarded
by hell-hounds. Hackelberg is of old his Brunswick name. It was the
Hackelberg Hill that opened to receive the children, which the Pied
Piper of Hamelin charmed away with his flute from that old town,
because the corporation would not pay him what they had promised
for ridding them of rats. It is easy to trace this Pied Piper,
who has become so familiar through Mr. Robert Browning's charming
poem, to the Odin of more blessed memory, who says in the Havamal,
'I know a song by which I soften and enchant my enemies, and render
their weapons of no effect.'
This latter aspect of Odin, his command over vermin, connects him
with the Slavonic Lyeshy, or forest-demon of the Russias. The ancient
thunder-god of Russia, Perun, who rides in his storm-chariot through
the sky, has in the more christianised districts dropped his mantle
on Ilya (Elias); while in the greater number of Slavonic districts he
has held his original physical characters so remarkably that it has
been necessary to include him among demons. In Slavonian Folklore the
familiar myth of the wild huntsman is distributed--Vladimir the Great
fulfils one part of it by still holding high revel in the halls of
Kief, but he is no huntsman; Perun courses noisily through the air, but
he is rather benevolent than otherwise; the diabolical characteristics
of the superstition have fallen to the evil huntsmen (Lyeshies),
who keep the wild creatures as their flocks, the same as shepherds
their herds, and whom every huntsman must propitiate. The Lyeshy is
gigantic, wears a sheepskin, has one eye without eyebrow or eyelash,
horns, feet of a goat, is covered with green hair, and his finger-nails
are claws. He is special protector of the bears and wolves.
In Denmark the same myth appears as King Volmer's Hunt. Waldemar was
so passionately fond of the chase that he said if the Lord would only
let him hunt for ever near Gurre (his castle in the north of Seeland),
he would not envy him his paradise. For this blasphemous wish he is
condemned to hunt between Burre and Gurre for ever. His cavalcade is
much like that already described. Volmer rides a snow-white charger,
preceded by a pack of coal-black hounds, and he carries his head
under his left arm. On St. John the women open gates for him. It
is believed that he is allowed brief repose at one and another of
his old seats, and it is said spectral servants are sometimes seen
preparing the ruined castle at Vordingborg for him, or at Waldemar's
Tower. A sceptical peasant resolved to pass the night in this tower. At
midnight the King entered, and, thanking him for looking after his
tower, gave him a gold piece which burned through his hand and fell
to the ground as a coal. On the other hand, Waldemar sometimes makes
peasants hold his dogs, and afterwards throws them coals which turn
out to be gold pieces.
The Palnatoke or Palne Hunter appears mostly in the island of
Fuen. Every New Year's night he supplies himself with three horse-shoes
from some smithy, and the smith takes care that he may find them
ready for use on his anvil, as he always leaves three gold pieces in
their stead. If the shoes are not ready for him, he carries the anvil
off. In one instance he left an anvil on the top of a church tower,
and it caused the smith great trouble to get it down again.
King Abel was interred after his death in St. Peter's Church in
Sleswig, but the fratricide could find no peace in his grave. His
ghost walked about in the night and disturbed the monks in their
devotions. The body was finally removed from the church, and
sunk in a foul bog near Gottorp. To keep him down effectively, a
pointed stake was drove through his body. The spot is still called
Königsgrabe. Notwithstanding this, he appears seated on a coal-black
charger, followed by a pack of black hounds with eyes and tongues of
fire. The gates are heard slamming and opening, and the shrieks and
yells are such that they appal the stoutest hearts.
At the ancient capital of Fuen, Odense, said to have been built
by Odin, the myth has been reduced to a spectral Christmas-night
equipage, which issues from St. Canute's Church and passes to the
ancient manor-house of Glorup. It is a splendid carriage, drawn by
six black horses with fiery tongues, and in it are seated the Lords
of Glorup, famous for their cruelty to peasants, and now not able to
rest in the church where they were interred. It is of evil omen to
witness the spectacle: a man who watched for it was struck blind.
In France Le Grand Veneur bears various names; he is King Arthur,
Saint Hubert, Hugo. His alleged appearances within historic times
have been so strongly attested that various attempts have been made
to give them rational explanations. Thus Charles VI. of France,
when going to war in Bretagne, is said to have been met by such a
spectre in the Forest of Mans, and became insane; he believed himself
to have been the victim of sorcery, as did many of his subjects. It
has been said that the King was met by a disguised emissary of the
Duc de Bretagne. More particular accounts are given of the apparition
of the Wild Huntsman to Henry IV. when he was hunting with the Comte
de Soissons in the Forest of Fontainebleau, an event commemorated by
'La Croix du Grand Veneur.' According to Matthieu, [185] both the King
and the Count heard the cries of the hunt, and when the Count went to
discover their origin, the terrible dark figure stood forth and cried,
'You wish to see me, then behold!' This incident has been explained
variously, as a project of assassination, or as the jest of two fellows
who, in 1596, were amusing Paris by their skill in imitating all
the sounds of a hunt. But such phantoms had too long hunted through
the imagination of the French peasantry for any explanation to be
required. Robert le Diable, wandering in Normandy till judgment-day,
and King Arthur, at an early date domesticated in France as a spectral
huntsman (the figure most popularly identified at the time with the
phantom seen by Henry IV.), are sufficient explanations. The ruins of
Arthur's Castle near Huelgoat, Finistère, were long believed to hide
enormous treasures, guarded by demons, who appear sometimes as fiery
lights (ignes fatuui), owls, buzzards, and ravens--one of the latter
being the form in which Arthur comes from his happy Vale of Avallon,
when he would vary its repose with a hunt. [186]
A sufficiently curious interchange of such superstitions is represented
in the following extract from Surtees:--'Sir Anthon Bek, busshop of
Dureme in the tyme of King Eduarde, the son of King Henry, was the
maist prowd and masterfull busshop in all England, and it was com'only
said that he was the prowdest lord of Christienty. It chaunced that
emong other lewd persons, this sir Anthon entertained at his court
one Hugh de Pountchardon, that for his evill deeds and manifold
robberies had been driven out of the Inglische courte, and had come
from the southe to seek a little bread, and to live by staylinge. And
to this Hughe, whom also he imployed to good purpose in the warr of
Scotland, the busshop gave the land of Thikley, since of him called
Thikley-Puntchardon, and also made him his chiefe huntsman. And after,
this blake Hughe died afore the busshop; and efter that the busshop
chasid the wild hart in Galtres forest, and sodainly ther met with
him Hugh de Pontchardon, that was afore deid, on a wythe horse; and
the said Hughe loked earnestly on the busshop, and the busshop said
unto him, 'Hughe, what makethe thee here?' and he spake never word,
but lifte up his cloke, and then he showed sir Anton his ribbes set
with bones, and nothing more; and none other of the varlets saw him
but the busshop only; and ye said Hughe went his way, and sir Anton
toke corage, and cheered the dogges; and shortly efter he was made
Patriarque of Hierusalem, and he same nothing no moe; and this Hugh
is him that the silly people in Galtres doe call le Gros Veneur,
and he was seen twice efter that by simple folk, afore yat the forest
was felled in the tyme of Henry, father of King Henry yat now ys.'
Upon this uncanny fellow fell the spectral mantle of Hugo
Capet; elsewhere as is probable, worn by nocturnal protestant
assemblies--Huguenots.
The legend of the Wild Huntsman tinges many old English stories. Herne,
the Hunter, may be identified with him, and the demons, with ghostly
and headless wish-hounds, who still hunt evil-doers over Dartmoor on
stormy nights, are his relations. The withered look of horses grazing
on Penzance Common was once explained by their being ridden by demons,
and the fire-breathing horse has found its way by many weird routes
to the service of the Exciseman in the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' or that
of Earl Garrett, who rides round the Curragh of Kildare on a steed
whose inch-thick silver shoes must wear as thin as a cat's ear,
ere he fights the English and reigns over Ireland. The Teutonic myth
appears very plainly in the story of Tregeagle. This man, traced to
an old Cornish family, is said to have been one of the wickedest men
that ever lived; but though he had disposed of his soul to the Devil,
the evil one was baulked by the potency of St. Petroc. This, however,
was on condition of Tregeagle's labouring at the impossible task of
clearing the sand from Porthcurnow Cove, at which work he may still
be heard groaning when wind and wave are high. Whenever he tries
to snatch a moment's rest, the demon is at liberty to pursue him,
and they may be heard on stormy nights in hot pursuit of the poor
creature, whose bull-like roar passed into the Cornish proverb,
'to roar like Tregeagle.'
On a pleasant Sunday evening in July 1868, I witnessed 'Der Freischütz'
in the newly-opened opera-house at Leipzig. Never elsewhere have I seen
such completeness and splendour in the weird effects of the infernal
scene in the Wolf's Glen. The 'White Lady' started forth at every step
of Rodolph's descent to the glen, warning him back. Zamiel, instead
of the fiery garb he once wore as Samaël, was arrayed in raiment
black as night; and when the magic bullet was moulded, the stage
swarmed with huge reptiles, fiery serpents crawled on the ground,
a dragon-drawn chariot, with wheels of fire, driven by a skeleton,
passed through the air; and the wild huntsman's chase, composed of
animals real to the eye and uttering their distinguishable cries,
hurried past. The animals represented were the horse, hound, boar,
stag, chamois, raven, bat, owl, and they rushed amid the wild blast
of horns.
I could but marvel at the yet more strange and weird history of the
human imagination through which had flitted, from the varied regions
of a primitive world, the shapes combined in this apotheosis of
diablerie. Probably if Elijah in his fire-chariot, preached about
in the neighbouring church that morning, and this wild huntsman
careering in the opera, had looked closely at each other and at their
own history, they might have found a common ancestor in the mythical
Mahan Bali of India, the king whose austerities raised in power till
he excited the jealousy of the gods, until Vishnu crushed him with his
heel into the infernal regions, where he still exercises sovereignty,
and is permitted to issue forth for an annual career (at the Onam
festival), as described in Southey's 'Curse of Kehama.' And they
might probably both claim mythological relationship with Yami, lord of
death, who, as Jami, began in Persia the career of all warriors that
never died, but sometimes sleep till a magic horn shall awaken them,
sometimes dwell, like Jami himself and King Arthur, in happy isles,
and in other cases issue forth at certain periods for the chase or
for war--like Odin and Waldemar--with an infernal train.
But how did these mighty princes and warriors become demon huntsmen?
In the Persian 'Desatir' it is related that the animals contested
the superiority of man, the two orders of beings being represented by
their respective sages, and the last animal to speak opposed the claim
of his opponent that man attained elevation to the nature of angels,
with the remark, 'In his putting to death of animals and similar acts
man resembleth the beasts of prey, and not angels.'
The prophet of the world then said, 'We deem it sinful to kill
harmless, but right to slay ravenous, animals. Were all ravenous
animals to enter into a compact not to kill harmless animals, we
would abstain from slaying them, and hold them dear as ourselves.'
Upon this the wolf made a treaty with the ram, and the lion became
friend of the stag. No tyranny was left in the world, till man (Dehak)
broke the treaty and began to kill animals. In consequence of this,
none observed the treaty except the harmless animals. [187]
This fable, from the Aryan side, may be regarded as showing the
reason of the evil repute which gathered around the name of Dehak
or Zohak. The eating of animal food was among our Aryan ancestors
probably the provisional commissariat of a people migrating from
their original habitat. The animals slain for food had all their
original consecration, and even the ferocious were largely invested
with awe. The woodcutters of Bengal invoke Kalrayu--an archer
tiger-mounted--to protect them against the wild beasts he (a form of
Siva) is supposed to exterminate; but while the exterminator of the
most dangerous animals may, albeit without warrant in the Shastr,
be respected in India, the huntsman is generally of evil repute. The
gentle Krishna was said to have been slain by an arrow from the bow
of Ungudu, a huntsman, who left the body to rot under a tree where
it fell, the bones being the sacred relics for which the image of
Jugernath at Orissa was constructed. [188]
It is not known at what period the notion of transmigration arose,
but that must have made him appear cannibalistic who first hunted
and devoured animals. Such was the Persian Zohak (or Dehak). His
Babylonian form, Nimrod, represented also the character of Esau,
as huntsman; that is, the primitive enemy of the farmer, and of the
commerce in grains; the preserver of wildness, and consequently of
all those primitive aboriginal idolatries which linger in the heaths
(whence heathen) and country villages (whence pagans) long after
they have passed away from the centres of civilisation. Hunting is
essentially barbarous. The willingness of some huntsmen even now,
when this serious occupation of an early period has become a sport,
to sacrifice not only animal life to their pleasure, but also the
interests of labour and agriculture, renders it very easy for us to
understand the transformation of Nimrod into a demon. In the Hebrew
and Arabian legends concerning Nimrod, that 'mighty hunter' is shown
as related to the wild elements and their worshipper. When Abraham,
having broken the images of his father, was brought by Terah before
Nimrod, the King said, 'Let us worship the fire!'
'Rather the water that quenches the fire,' said Abraham.
'Well, the water.'
'Rather the cloud that carries the water.'
'Well, the cloud.'
'Rather the wind that scatters the cloud.'
'Well, the wind.'
'Rather man, for he withstands the wind.'
'Thou art a babbler,' said Nimrod. 'I worship the fire and will cast
thee into it.'
When Abraham was cast into the fiery furnace by Nimrod, and on the
seventh day after was found sitting amid the roses of a garden,
the mighty hunter--hater of gardens--resolved on a daring hunt for
Abraham's God himself. He built a tower five thousand cubits high, but
finding heaven still far away, he attached a car to two half-starved
eagles, and by holding meat above them they flew upward, until Nimrod
heard a voice saying, 'Godless man, whither goest thou?' The audacious
man shot an arrow in the direction of the voice; the arrow returned
to him stained with blood, and Nimrod believed that he had wounded
Abraham's God.
He who hunted the universe was destroyed by one of the weakest of
animated beings--a fly. In the aspiring fly which attacked Nimrod's
lip, and then nose, and finally devoured his brain, the Moslem and
Hebrew doctors saw the fittest end of one whose adventurous spirit
had not stopped to attack animals, man, Abraham, and Allah himself.
But though, in one sense, destroyed, Nimrod, say various myths, may
be heard tumbling and groaning about the base of his tower of Babel,
where the confusion of tongues took place; and it might be added,
that they have, like the groan, a meaning irrespective of race or
language. Dehak and Nimrod have had their brothers in every race, which
has ever reached anything that may be called civilisation. It was the
barbaric Baron and the Robber Knight of the Middle Ages, living by
the hunt, who, before conversion, made for the Faithful Eckhardts of
the Church the chief impediment; they might then strike down the monk,
whose apparition has always been the legendary warning of the Demon's
approach. When the Eckhardts had baptized these knights, they had
already been transformed to the Devils which people the forests of
Germany, France, and England with their terrible spectres. The wild
fables of the East, telling of fell Demons coursing through the air,
whispered to the people at one ear, and the equally wild deeds of the
Robber Knights at the other. The Church had given the people one name
for all such phantasms--Devil--and it was a name representative of
the feelings of both priest and peasant, so long as the Robber Knights
were their common enemy. Jesus had to be a good deal modified before he
could become the model of this Teutonic Esau. It is after the tradition
of his old relation to huntsmen that the Devil has been so especially
connected in folklore with soldiers. In the 'Annals of Leipzig,' kept
in Auerbach's Cellar, famous for the flight of Mephisto and Faust
from its window on a wine-cask, I found two other instances in which
the Devil was reported as having appeared in that town. In one case
(1604), the fiend had tempted one Jeremy of Strasburg, a marksman,
to commit suicide, but that not succeeding, had desired him to go with
him to the neighbouring castle and enjoy some fruit. The marksman was
saved by help of a Dean. In 1633, during a period of excessive cold
and snow, the Devil induced a soldier to blaspheme. The marksman and
the soldier were, indeed, the usual victims of the Wild Huntsmen's
temptations; and it was for such that the unfailing magic bullets
were moulded in return for their impawned souls.
How King Olaf--whose name lingers among us in 'Tooley Street,' so
famous for its Three Tailors! [189]--spread the Gospel through the
North after his baptism in England is well known. Whatever other hunt
may have been phantasmal, it was not Olaf's hunt of the heathen. To
put a pan of live coals under the belly of one, to force an adder
down the throat of another, to offer all men the alternatives of being
baptized or burnt, were the arguments which this apostle applied with
such energy that at last--but not until many brave martyrdoms--the
chief people were convinced. Olaf encountered Odin as if he had been a
living foe, and what is more, believed in the genuine existence of his
former God. Once, as Olaf and his friends believed, Odin appeared to
this devastator of his altars as a one-eyed man in broad-brimmed hat,
delighting the King in his hours of relaxation with that enchanting
conversation for which he was so famous. But he (Odin) tried secretly
to induce the cook to prepare for his royal master some fine meat
which he had poisoned. But Olaf said, 'Odin shall not deceive us,'
and ordered the tempting viand to be thrown away. Odin was god of
the barbarian Junkers, and the people rejoiced that he was driven
into holes and corners; his rites remained mainly among huntsmen,
and had to be kept very secret. In the Gulathings Lagen of Norway
it is ordered: 'Let the king and bishop, with all possible care,
search after those who exercise pagan rites, who use magic arts, who
adore the genii of particular places, of tombs, or rivers, and who,
after the manner of devils in travelling, are transported from place
to place through the air.'
Under such very actual curses as these, the once sacred animals of
Odin, and all the associations of the hunt, were diabolised. Even
the hunting-horn was regarded as having something præternatural
about it. The howling blast when Odin consulteth Mimir's head [190]
was heard again in the Pied Piper's flute, and passed southward
to blend its note with the horn of Roland at Roncesvalles,--which
brought help from distances beyond the reach of any honest horn,
and even with the pipe of Pan.
That the Edda described Odin as mounted on a mysterious horse,
as cherishing two wolves for pets, having a roasted boar for the
daily pièce de résistance of his table, and with a raven on either
shoulder, whispering to him the secret affairs of the earth, was
enough to settle the reputation of those animals in the creed of
christian priests. The Raven was, indeed, from of old endowed with
the holy awfulness of the christian dove, in the Norse Mythology. To
this day no Swede will kill a raven. The superstition concerning it
was strong enough to transmit even to Voltaire an involuntary shudder
at its croak. Odin was believed to have given the Raven the colour of
the night that it might the better spy out the deeds of darkness. Its
'natural theology' is, no doubt, given correctly by Robert Browning's
Caliban, who, when his speculations are interrupted by a thunderstorm,
supposes his soliloquy has been conveyed by the raven he sees flying
to his god Setebos. In many parts of Germany ravens are believed to
hold souls of the damned. If a raven's heart be secured it procures
an unerring shot.
From an early date the Boar became an ensign of the prowess of the
gods, by which its head passed to be the device of so many barbaric
clans and ancient families in the Northern world. In Vedic Mythology
we find Indra taking the shape of a Wild Boar, also killing a demon
Boar, and giving Tritas the strength by which a similar monster is
slain. [191] According to another fable, while Brahma and Vishnu are
quarrelling as to which is the first-born, Siva interferes and cries,
'I am the first-born; nevertheless I will recognise as my superior
him who is able to see the summit of my head or the sole of my
feet.' Vishnu, transforming himself to a Boar, pierced the ground,
penetrated to the infernal regions, and then saw the feet of Siva,
who on his return saluted him as first-born of the gods. De Gubernatis
regards this fable as making the Boar emblem of the hidden Moon. [192]
He is hunted by the Sun. He guards the treasure of the demons which
Indra gains by slaying him. In Sicilian story, Zafarana, by throwing
three hog's bristles on embers, renews her husband's youth. In
Esthonian legend, a prince, by eating pork, acquires the faculty
of understanding the language of birds,--which may mean leading on
the spring with its songs of birds. But whether these particular
interpretations be true or not, there is no doubt that the Boar,
at an early period, became emblematic of the wild forces of nature,
and from being hunted by King Odin on earth passed to be his favourite
food in Valhalla, and a prominent figure in his spectral hunt.
Enough has already been said of the Dog in several chapters of this
work to render it but natural that this animal should take his place
in any diabolical train. It was not as a 'hell-hound,' or descendant
of the guardians of Orcus, that he entered the spectral procession of
Odin, but as man's first animal assistant in the work of obtaining a
living from nature. It is the faithful friend of man who is demoralised
in Waldemar's Lystig, the spectre-hound of Peel Castle, the Manthe
Doog of the Isle of Man, the sky-dogs (Cwn wybir or aunwy) of Wales,
and Roscommon dog of Ireland.
Of the Goat, the Dog, and some other diabolised animals, enough
has been said in previous pages. The nocturnal animals would be
as naturally caught up into the Wild Huntsman's train as belated
peasants. But it is necessary to dwell a little on the relations of
the Horse to this Wild Hunt. It was the Horse that made the primitive
king among men.
'The Horse,' says Dasent, 'was a sacred animal among the Teutonic
tribes from the first moment of their appearance in history; and
Tacitus has related how, in the shade of those woods and groves which
served them for temples, white horses were fed at the public cost,
whose backs no mortal crossed, whose neighings and snortings were
carefully watched as auguries and omens, and who were thought to be
conscious of divine mysteries. In Persia, too, the classical reader
will remember how the neighing of a horse decided the choice for the
crown. Here in England, at any rate, we have only to think of Hengist
and Horsa, the twin heroes of the Anglo-Saxon migration--as the legend
ran--heroes whose name meant horse, and of the Vale of the White Horse,
in Berks, where the sacred form still gleams along the down, to be
reminded of the sacredness of the horse to our forefathers. The Eddas
are filled with the names of famous horses, and the Sagas contain many
stories of good steeds, in whom their owners trusted and believed as
sacred to this or that particular god. Such a horse is Dapplegrimm
in the Norse tales, who saves his master out of all his perils, and
brings him to all fortune, and is another example of that mysterious
connection with the higher powers which animals in all ages have been
supposed to possess.'
It was believed that no warrior could approach Valhalla except on
horseback, and the steed was generally buried with his master. The
Scandinavian knight was accustomed to swear 'by the shoulder of a
horse and the edge of a sword.' Odin (the god) was believed to have
always near him the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, whose sire was the
wonderful Svaldilfari, who by night drew the enormous stones for the
fortress defending Valhalla from the frost-giants. On Sleipnir the
deity rode to the realm of Hela, when he evoked the spirit of the
deceased prophetess, Vala, with Runic incantations, to learn Baldur's
fate. This is the theme of the Veytamsvida, paraphrased by Gray in
his ode beginning--
Up rose the king of men with speed,
And saddled straight his coal-black steed
The steed, however, was not black, but grey. Sleipnir was the foal of
a magically-created mare. The demon-mare (Mara) holds a prominent place
in Scandinavian superstition, besetting sleepers. In the Ynglinga Saga,
Vanland awakes from sleep, crying, 'Mara is treading on me!' His men
hasten to help him, but when they take hold of his head Mara treads
on his legs, and when they hold his legs she tramples on his head;
and so, says Thiodolf--
Trampled to death, to Skyta's shore
The corpse his faithful followers bore;
And there they burnt, with heavy hearts,
The good chief, killed by witchcraft's arts.
All this is, of course, the origin of the common superstition of
the nightmare. The horse-shoe used against witches is from the same
region. We may learn here also the reason why hippophagy has been so
long unknown among us. Odin's boar has left his head on our Christmas
tables, but Olaf managed to rob us of the horse-flesh once eaten in
honour of that god. In the eleventh century he proclaimed the eating
of horse-flesh a test of paganism, as baptism was of Christianity,
and punished it with death, except in Iceland, where it was permitted
by an express stipulation on their embracing Christianity. To these
facts it may be added that originally the horse's head was lifted,
as the horse-shoe is now, for a charm against witches. When Wittekind
fought twenty years against Charlemagne, the ensign borne by his
Saxon followers was a horse's head raised on a pole. A white horse
on a yellow ground is to-day the Hanoverian banner, its origin being
undoubtedly Odinistic.
The christian edict against the eating of horse-flesh had probably
a stronger motive than sentimental opposition to paganism. A Roman
emperor had held the stirrup for a christian pontiff to mount,
and something of the same kind occurred in the North. The Horse,
which had been a fire-breathing devil under Odin, became a steed of
the Sun under the baptized noble and the bishop. Henceforth we read
of coal-black and snow-white horses, as these are mounted in the
interest of the old religion or the new.
It is very curious to observe how far and wide has gone religious
competition for possession of that living tower of strength--the
Horse. In ancient Ceylon we find the Buddhist immigrants winning over
the steed on which the aborigines were fortified. It was a white horse,
of course, that became their symbol of triumph. The old record says--
'A certain yakkhini (demoness) named Chetiya, having the form and
countenance of a mare, dwelt near the marsh of Tumbariungona. A
certain person in the prince's (Pandukabhayo) retinue having seen this
beautiful (creature), white with red legs, announced the circumstance
to the prince. The prince set out with a rope to secure her. She
seeing him approach from behind, losing her presence of mind from
fear, under the influence of his imposing appearance, fled without
(being able to exert the power she possessed of) rendering herself
invisible. He gave chase to the fugitive. She, persevering in her
flight, made the circuit of the marsh seven times. She made three
more circuits of the marsh, and then plunged into the river at the
Kachchhaka ferry. He did the same, and (in the river) seized her
by the tail, and (at the same time grasped) the leaf of a palmira
tree which the stream was carrying down. By his supernatural good
fortune this (leaf) became an enormous sword. Exclaiming, 'I put
thee to death!' he flourished the sword over her. 'Lord!' replied
she to him, 'subduing this kingdom for thee, I will confer it on
thee: spare me my life.' Seizing her by the throat, and with the
point of the sword boring her nostril, he secured her with his rope:
she (instantly) became tractable. Conducting her to the Dhumarakkho
mountain, he obtained a great accession of warlike power by making her
his battle-steed.' [193] The wonderful victories won by the prince,
aided by this magical mare, are related, and the tale ends with his
setting up 'within the royal palace itself the mare-faced yakkhini,'
and providing for her annually 'demon offerings.'
Equally ambiguous with the Horse in this zoologic diablerie
is the Stag. In the Heraklean legends we find that hero's son,
Telephon, nursed by a hind in the woods; and on the other hand,
his third 'labour' was the capture of Artemis' gold-antlered stag,
which brought on him her wrath (it being 'her majesty's favourite
stag'). We have again the story of Actæon pursuing the stag too far
and suffering the fate he had prepared for it; and a reminiscence
of it in the 'Pentamerone,' when the demon Huoreo allures Canneloro
into the wood by taking the form of a beautiful hind. These complex
legends are reflected in Northern folklore also. Count Otto I. of
Altmark, while out hunting, slept under an oak and dreamed that he
was furiously attacked by a stag, which disappeared when he called
on the name of God. The Count built a monastery, which still stands,
with the oak's stump built into its altar. On the other hand, beside
the altar of a neighbouring church hang two large horns of a stag
said to have brought a lost child home on its back. Thus in the old
town of Steindal meet these contrary characters of the mystical stag,
of which it is not difficult to see that the evil one results from its
misfortune in being at once the huntsman's victim and scapegoat. [194]
In the legend of St. Hubert we have the sign of Christ--risen
from his tomb among the rich Christians to share for a little the
crucifixion of their first missionaries in the North--to the huntsmen
of Europe. Hubert pursues the stag till it turns to face him, and
behold, between its antlers, the cross! It is a fable conceived in the
spirit of him who said to fishermen, 'Come with me and I will make you
fishers of men.' The effect was much the same in both cases. Hubert
kneels before the stag, and becomes a saint, as the fishermen left
their nets and became apostles. But, as the proverb says, when the
saint's day is over, farewell the saint. The fishermen's successors
caught men with iron hooks in their jaws; the successors of Hubert
hunted men and women so lustily that they never paused long enough
to see whether there might not be a cross on their forehead also.
It was something, however, that the cross which Constantine could
only see in the sky could be seen by any eye on the forehead of a
harmless animal; and this not only because it marked the rising in
christian hearts of pity for the animals, but because what was done to
the flying stag was done to the peasant who could not fly, and more
terribly. The vision of Hubert came straight from the pagan heart of
Western and Northern Europe. In the Bible, from Genesis to Apocalypse,
no word is found clearly inculcating any duty to the animals. So
little, indeed, could the christians interpret the beautiful tales
of folklore concerning kindly beasts, out of which came the legend
of Hubert, that Hubert was made patron of huntsmen; and while, by
a popular development, Wodan was degraded to a devil, the baptized
sportsman rescued his chief occupation by ascribing its most dashing
legends to St. Martin and their inspiration to the Archangel Michael.
It is now necessary to consider the light which the German heart cast
across the dark shadows of Wodan. This is to be discovered in the myth
of the White Lady. We have already seen, in the confessions of the
witches of Elfdale, in Sweden, that when they were gathering before
their formidable Devil, a certain White Spirit warned them back. The
children said she tried to keep them from entering the Devil's Church
at Blockula. This may not be worth much as a 'confession,' but it
sufficiently reports the theories prevailing in the popular mind of
Elfdale at that time. It is not doubtful now that this White Lady and
that Devil she opposed were, in pre-christian time, Wodan and his wife
Frigga. The humble people who had gladly given up the terrible huntsman
and warrior to be degraded into a Devil, and with him the barbaric
Nimrods who worshipped him, did not agree to a similar surrender
of their dear household goddess, known to them as Frigga, Holda,
Bertha, Mother Rose,--under all her epithets the Madonna of the North,
interceding between them and the hard king of Valhalla, ages before
they ever heard of a jealous Jehovah and a tender interceding Mary.
Dr. Wuttke has collected many variants of the myths of Frigga, some
of which bear witness to the efforts of the Church to degrade her
also into a fiend. She is seen washing white clothes at fountains,
milking cows, spinning flax with a distaff, or combing her flaxen
hair. She was believed to be the divine ancestress of the human
race; many of the oldest families claimed descent from her, and
believed that this Ahnenfrau announced to them good fortune, or,
by her wailing, any misfortune coming to their families. She brought
evil only to those who spoke evil of her. If any one shoots at her
the ball enters his own heart. She appears to poor wandering folk,
especially children, and guides them to spots where they find heaps
of gold covered with the flower called 'Forget-me-not'--because her
gentle voice is heard requesting, as the only compensation, that the
flowers shall be replaced when the gold is removed. The primroses are
sacred to her, and often are the keys (thence called 'key-blossoms')
which unlock her treasures. The smallest tribute she repays,--even a
pebble consecrated to her. Every child ascending the Burgeiser Alp
places a stone on a certain heap of such, with the words, 'Here I
offer to the wild maidens.' These are Bertha's kindly fairies. (When
Frederika Bremer was with a picnic on the Hudson heights, which
Washington Irving had peopled with the Spirits he had brought from
the Rhine, she preferred to pour out her champagne as a libation to
the 'good spirits' of Germany and America.) The beautiful White Lady
wears a golden chain, and glittering keys at her belt; she appears at
mid-day or in strong moonlight. In regions where priestly influence
is strong she is said to be half-black, half-white, and to appear
sometimes as a serpent. She often helps the weary farmer to stack
his corn, and sorely-tasked Cinderellas in their toil.
In pre-christian time this amiable goddess--called oftenest Bertha
(shining) and Mother Rose--was related to Wodan as the spring
and summer to the storms of winter, in which the Wild Huntsman's
procession no doubt originated. The Northman's experience of seed-time
and harvest was expressed in the myth of this sweet Rose hidden
through the winter's blight to rise again in summer. This myth has
many familiar variants, such as Aschenputtel and Sleeping Beauty;
but it was more particularly connected with the later legends of
the White Lady, as victim of the Wild Huntsman, by the stories of
transformed princesses delivered by youths. Rescue of the enchanted
princess is usually effected by three kisses, but she is compelled
to appear before the deliverer in some hideous aspect--as toad or
serpent; so that he is repelled or loses courage. This is the rose
hid under the ugliness of winter.
When the storm-god Wodan was banished from nature altogether and
identified with the imported, and naturally inconceivable, Satan, he
was no more regarded as Frigga's rough lord, but as her remorseless
foe. She was popularly revered as St. Walpurga, the original May
Queen, and it was believed that happy and industrious children
might sometimes see her on May-day with long flowing flaxen hair,
fine shoes, distaff in hand, and a golden crown on her head. But for
the nine nights after May-day she was relentlessly pursued by the
Wild Huntsman and his mounted train. There is a picture by G. Watts
of the hunted lady of Bocaccio's tale, now in the Cosmopolitan Club
of London, which vividly reproduces the weird impressiveness of this
myth. The White Lady tries to hide from her pursuer in standing corn,
or gets herself bound up in a sheaf. The Wild Huntsman's wrath extends
to all her retinue,--moss maidens of the wood, or Holtzweibeln. The
same belief characterises Waldemar's hunt. It is a common legend in
Denmark that King Volmer rode up to some peasants, busy at harvest
on Sobjerg Hill, and, in reply to his question whether they had
seen any game, one of the men said--'Something rustled just now in
yonder standing corn.' The King rushed off, and presently a shot was
heard. The King reappeared with a mermaid lying across his horse, and
said as he passed, 'I have chased her a hundred years, and have her at
last.' He then rode into the hill. In this way Frigga and her little
people, hunted with the wild creatures, awakened sympathy for them.
The holy friar. Eckhardt (who may be taken as a myth and type of the
Church ad hoc) gained his legendary fame by being supposed to go in
advance of the Wild Huntsman and warn villagers of his approach; but
as time went on and a compromise was effected between the hunting
Barons and the Church, on the basis that the sports and cruelties
should be paid for with indulgence-fees, Eckhardt had to turn his
attention rather to the White Lady. She was declared a Wild Huntress,
but the epithet slipped to other shoulders. The priests identified
her ultimately with Freija, or Frau Venus; and Eckhardt was the holy
hermit who warned young men against her sorceries in Venusberg and
elsewhere. But Eckhardt never prevailed against the popular love
of Mother Rose as he had against her pursuer; he only increased
the attractions of 'Frau Venus' beyond her deserts. In the end it
was as much as the Church could do to secure for Mary the mantle
of her elder sister's sanctity. Even then the earlier faith was not
eradicated. After the altars of Mary had fallen, Frigga had vitality
enough to hold her own as the White Witch who broke the Dark One's
spells. It was chiefly this helpful Mother-goddess to whom the wretched
were appealing when they were burnt for witchcraft.
At Urselberg, Wurtemberg, there is a deep hole called the
'Nightmaidens' Retreat,' in which are piled the innumerable stones that
have been cast therein by persons desiring good luck on journeys. These
stones correspond to the bones of the 11,000 Virgins in St. Ursula's
Church at Cologne. The White Lady was sainted under her name of Ursel
(the glowing one), otherwise Horsel. Horselberg, near Eisenach, became
her haunt as Venus, the temptress of Tannhaüsers; Urselberg became her
retreat as the good fairy mother; but the attractions of herself and
her moss-maidens, which the Church wished to borrow, were taken on a
long voyage to Rome, and there transmuted to St. Ursula and her 11,000
Virgins. These Saints of Cologne encountered their ancient mythical
pursuers--the Wild Huntsman's train--in those barbarian Huns who are
said to have slaughtered them all because they would not break their
vows of chastity. The legend is but a variant of Wodan's hunt after
the White Lady and her maidens. When it is remembered that before
her transformation by Christianity Ursula was the Huntsman's own
wife, Frigga, a quaint incident appears in the last meeting between
the two. After Wodan had been transformed to the Devil, he is said
to have made out the architectural plan for Cologne Cathedral, and
offered it to the architect in return for a bond for his soul; but,
having weakly allowed him to get possession of the document before
the bond was signed, the architect drew from under his gown a bone of
St. Ursula, from which the Devil fled in great terror. It was bone
of his bone; but after so many mythological vicissitudes Wodan and
his Horsel could hardly be expected to recognise each other at this
chance meeting in Cologne.