The Wild Hunt or chasse sauvage is a pack of spectres and demons, usually as hunters on horses, sometimes accompanied by hounds which used to crawl in the sky at night to gather the departed souls. A tumultuous racket of pounding hooves, howling dogs and raging winds usually announce them and for those who had no time to hide, seing the Wild Hunt was considered a very bad omen, usually foretelling a time of strife or death. This strange and awesome folk belief with many variants was endemic in Britain and Northern Europe, especially France and Germany during the early Middle Age.

The Wild Hunt originates in the old pagan beliefs but has been demonized, associated and confused with the Sabbath after he XII century. The form of the Wild Hunt, the name of the Hunter as well as  the quarry of this spectral horde varied across each of the geographical locations in which the tradition was found.

Description

Descriptions of the Wild Hunt are broadly the same: the Hunt is preceded by a great noise of baying, barking and shouting. Then a tall rider on a black, white, or gray horse, storm through the air with his hounds followed by a host of strange spirits. The rider is often black, sometimes headless and the spirits bear the battle-wounds that would have caused his mortal demise. Fire spurts from the mouths and noses of the phantom horses and hounds which are often only two or three legged. Often the recently dead are seen in the infernal train. There are numerous local adaptations like in the Okehampton district (UK) where the spirit of death rode in a carriage made of human bones, preceded by a one-eyed black dog.

Names

• The Herlathing in England
• The Yeth or Wish Hounds in Durham
• The Yule Host, Wutan's or Wuet's Army, the Raging or Furious Host in Germany
• La Chasse Maccabée, la Chasse Artus , and the Mesnée d'Hellequin in France
• The Oskorei in Norway
• The Nuada also known as The Fairy Cavalcade in Ireland
• Gabriel Hounds or Gabbel Ratchets or Retchets in North Yorkshire
• Odensjakt in Denmark and Sweden
• The chasse-galerie or witched canoe in Quebec
• The Santa Compaña in Galicia

Time

Across Europe, the Wild Hunt appears at various times of the year, being frequently seen in spring and fall, but most commonly over the Yule season. This is not surprising as Yule was regarded as the season in which supernatural visitations were most common. In particular, the spirits of the dead were allowed to return. The hauntings in Eyrbyggja saga take place at Yule, as does the death of Glam in Grettis saga. Folk tales of all the Scandinavian countries have trolls or elves making their appearance at Yule.

"These times are intercalendary periods in Celtic and Teutonic year-reckoning, the paradoxical 'time between the times' when the crack appears and the paths between the worlds are laid open. They are periods of 'ritual reversal' when the dead enter the world of the living and the living enter the world of the dead."