Wild Hunt
Sign in to saveAlso known as E501 Wild Hunt, the Wild Hunt, E501.
motif in northern European folk myth
In the Vinony graph
Within Vinony's link graph, Wild Hunt is referenced by 673 other articles, and connects out to Odin, folklore and Francis Drake.
It sits within the topics Hunting, Literary motifs and Medieval legends.
Its subject is documented across 38 Wikipedia language editions.
Wikidata facts
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- Wild Hunt
- catalog code
- E501.
via Wikidata · CC0
~36 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Asgårdsreien [The Wild Hunt of Odin] (1872) by Peter Nicolai Arbo
The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif occurring across various northern, western and eastern European societies, appearing in the religions of the Germanics, Celts, and Slavs (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 psychopomp of Welsh mythology Gwyn ap Nudd, biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel, or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul. The hunters are generally the souls of the dead or ghostly dogs, sometimes fairies, valkyries, or elves.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Wild Hunt” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.