Chapter 31

Similar to this Odenberg host are the excursions of the Rothenthaler in Aargau, (50) of the Rodensteiner to Schnellerts, (51) of the grey man over the Rockenstul near Geisa in the Fulda country (Bechst. Fränk. sag. 1, 68), and of other parts, see Mone's Anz. 3, 259. 8, 306; as the host passed over Wolfartsweiler, one of them shouted down: 'If thou suffer harm, bind thee with red yarn!' 8, 307. We read in Heimreich's Nordfries. chron. 2, 93 that outside Tondern in 1637 armies were seen mustering in the air and fighting, in clear weather. (52) An Irish folktale gives an account of the ancient chieftain O'Donoghue, who yearly on the first of May, mounted on a milkwhite steed, rises from the waters of a lake, to revisit his realm. On an August night, an earl of Kildare shews himself armed, on a splendid war-horse, and reviews the shades of his warriors (Elfenm. 192-3. 233). Strikingly similar to the 'duris, dürst' on pp. 521. 920 is a Finnic Turisas, god of war and at the same time a giant (turras, turrisas, tursas), who, when a war is imminent, has his drum beaten high up in the clouds. To the Lettons johdi or murgi means ghost, souls of the dead; when the northern lights flicker, they say 'johdi kaujahs,' ghosts are fighting, or 'karru lauschu dwehseles kaujahs,' the souls of fallen warriors fight. (53) They connect the ghostly tumult with a shining phenomenon, as we do with a sounding one; it reminds one also of the war stirred up by our landsknechts in heaven itself, and still more of the ON. name for war and battle, 'Hiaðnînga veðr eða èl,' Hedaningorum tempestas vel procella, Sn. 163. In a lengthened fight the heroes had fallen, when Hildur the valkyrja came to the battlefield at night, waked them all up, and let them fight it over again, and so every day till the end of the world they shall do battle by day and lie dead at night. This, I think, is the very earliest example of an army warring in the clouds, which was a way of explaining the natural phenomenon, as we see by the words 'veðr, èl.' Of a battle between Swedes and Croats the Thuringians have a story, that on its anniversary, at 11 o'clock at night, all the buried soldiers start up and begin to fight afresh till the clock strikes one, then they sink into the ground and lie quite still again for a year, Bechst. 4, 231 (see Suppl.).

But the Romance nations havo no less their own traditions of this aërial host, which on some points agree exactly with the German.

In France such an air-picture of contending spirits goes by the name of Hellequin, Hielekin (Bosquet 70-77), and in Spain of exercito antiguo. (54) Guilielm. Alvernus (d. 1248) p. 1037: 'de equitibus vero nocturnis, qui vulgari gallicano Hellequin, et vulgari hispanico exercitus antiquus vocantur, nondum tibi satisfeci, quia nondum declarare intendo qui sint; nec tamen certum est eos malignos spiritus esse, loquar igitur tibi de his in sequentibus.' P. 1065: 'de substantiis apparentibus in similitudine equitantium et bellatorum, et in similitudine exercituum innumerabilium, interdum autem et paucorum equitum.' P. 1067: 'narratur quoque, quod quidam videns hujusmodi exercitum (at a parting of roads) terrore percussus a via publica declinavit in agrum contiguum, ubi quasi in refugio, transeunte juxta illum toto illo exercitu, illaesus permansit et nihil mali passus est ab illis. propter quod opinio inolevit apud multos, agros gaudere protectione Creatoris propter utilitatem hominum, et hac de causa non esse accessum malignis spiritibus ad eos, neque potestatem nocendi propter hanc causam hominibus existentibus in eis. Gens autem idolatrarum tutelam istam et defensionem, si eam vel crederet vel audiret, numinibus arvorum illam attribueret. opinor autem, quod Cererem deam, quae agris praeest, hujusmodi hominem protexisse crederent, exercitumque illum intra fines regnumque Cereris nemini posse nocere.' P. 1073: 'nec te removeat aut conturbet ullatenus vulgaris illa Hispanorum nominatio, qua malignos spiritus, qui in armis ludere ac pugnare videri consueverunt, exercitum antiquum nominant, magis enim anilis et delirantium vetularum nominatio est quam veritatis.' Radulfus de Presles ad libr. 15 cap. 23 De civ. Dei: 'la mesgnée de Hellequin, de dame Habonde (p. 286), et des esperis quils appellent fees.' Ducange sub v. In the Jeu d'Adan, the maisnie Hielekin is heard approaching with tinkling bells, the three fays (p. 411) accompanying, and a sires Hellequins is named. Reiffenberg's Renseign. p. 94. Vincent. bellov. lib. 30 cap. 118, and after him Keisersp. (Omeiss 37-8) mention a certain Natalis, Alle quinti, Karoli quinti, who when dead appeared again, and, being questioned on the furious host, reported that it had ceased ever since Carolus quintus performed his penance. To the furious host is here given the name Caroliquinti, some say Allequinti, obviously the same thing as Hellequin and our Hessian Karlequinte in the Odenberg, p. 938. Nevertheless it seems a false interpretation of the older Hellequin, whose mesnie is mentioned several times in poems of the 13^th cent. (55) as well as by Guil. Alvernus, and who cannot therefore be the French king Charles V. of the latter half of the 14^th cent. That in France too they connect Charles the Great with the furious host, appears from a Burgundian poem of the 17^th cent., in which Charlemagne bestrides his horse at the head of the airy apparition, and Roland carries the standard (Journ. des savans 1832, p. 496). But what if Hellequin were after all the German helle (underworld) or its diminutive hellekin, personified and made masculine? (56) At Tours they say chasse briguet (briguet is hound), and le carosse du roi Hugon, (57) who rides round the city walls at night, and beats or carries off all that encounter him. Here also king Hugo Capet's carriage represents that of a heathen god; in Poitou they call it chasse-gallerie. In the forest of Fontainebleau le grand veneur is supposed to hunt.

In Gervase of Tilbury's time the British woods already rang with king Arthur's mighty hunt (Ot. imp. 2, 12): 'narrantibus nemorum custodibus, quos forestarios vulgus nominat, se alternis diebus circa horam meridianam et in primo noctium conticinio sub plenilunio luna lucente saepissime videre militum copiam venantium et canum et cornuum strepitum, qui sciscitantibus se de societate et familia Arturi esse affirmant.' The Complaynt of Scotland p. 97-8 says: 'Arthour knycht he raid on nycht with gyldin spur and candillycht.'' The elf-queen and the fays have already been spoken of (p. 934n.). Shakspeare (M. Wives of W. iv, 4. v, 5) tells how 'Herne the hunter doth all the winter time at still midnight walk round about an oak.' (58)

Boccaccio (Decam. 5, 8) has the story of a ghost who, having been done to death by his false mistress, chases her naked through the wood every Friday, and has her torn to pieces by his hounds: every time she is slain, she rises again, and the gruesome hunt begins anew. Manni says the tale is taken out of Helinand; it may afford some solution of the wild hunter's pursuit of the wood-wife (p. 929), even if we are bound, as is fair, to trace the novelist's plot in the first instance to the simple basis of a folktale. In the poem on Etzel's court, the Wunderer shews himself almost exactly such a wild man and hunter; he chases frau Sœlde with his dogs, and threatens to devour her, as the hunter does the fleeing wood-wife, or the infernalis venator a departed soul (see Suppl.). Far more important is a story in the Eckenlied: Fasolt hunts with hounds a wild maiden in the forest, just as the wild hunter does the holzweiblein, Lassberg's ed. 161-201, Hagen's 213-54, conf. 333. This becomes of moment to our understanding of Fasolt, who was a storm-giant (pp. 530. 636), and here turns up like Wuotan in the wild host.

Between the Norse legends and ours the links are not so far to seek. The Danes have made a wild hunter of their famous and beloved king Waldemar. The Zealand fable represents him, like Charles the Great (p. 435n.), as irresistibly drawn, by a magic ring, to a maiden, and after her death to a woodland district. He dwells in the forest of Gurre, and there hunts night and day; (59) like Hackelberg, he uttered the presumptuous wish: 'God may keep his heaven, so long as I can hunt in Gurre for evermore!' So now he rides from Burre to Gurre every night; as soon as the ear can catch his 'hoho' and the crack of his whip, the people slink aside under the trees. Foremost in the train run coal-black hounds, with fiery red-hot tongues hanging out of their throats; then appears Wolmar on a white horse, sometimes carrying his head under his left arm (conf. Superst. I, 605). If he meets any men, especially old men, he gives them hounds to hold. He follows one particular route, doors and locks fly open before him, and his track is named Wolmar's street, Volde-mars-vej (Antiqvariske annaler 1, 15); here one cannot help thinking of Irmingstræt and Eriksgata (p. 356-361). Those who held his hounds he presents with seeming trifles, which afterwards turn into gold: he will give a ducat for a horse-shoe (Thiele 1, 89-95). These stories are alike suggestive of Charles the Great, of Hackelberg, and of frau Holla or Perhta; conf. Müllenhoff's Schlesw. holst. sag. nos. 485-6.

In the I. of Möen is a wood named Grünewald: there every night the Grönjette hunts on horseback, his head tucked under his left arm, a spear in his right, and a pack of hounds about him. In harvest time the husbandmen leave him a bundle of oats for his horse, that he may not trample their crops that night; by this one circumstance we recognise Wuotan (p. 155), and perhaps Frey (p. 212). (60) He is here a jette, as in Switzerland he is a durst (p. 940). The 'grön,' I would explain, not by the green colour of his hunting dress, but by the ON. grön (barba), Grönjette = ON. graniötunn, bearded giant; and Grani (barbatus) is a name of Oðinn (p. 858). Grönjette, like Wolmar, makes the peasants holds his dogs; he also hunts the merwoman (conf. wood-wife). One man saw him return with the dead merwoman laid across his horse: 'seven years have I chased her, now in Falster I have slain her.' He made the man a present of the band with which he had held the hounds, and the longer he kept it, the richer he grew (Thiele 1, 95-97).

In Fünen the hunter is Palnejäger, i.e. the ON. Pâlnatôki (Fornm. sög. 11, 49-99. Thiele 1, 110): a far-famed her (p. 381).

In some parts of Denmark, instead of naming Wolmar, they say 'den flyvende jäger,' flying huntsman, or 'den flyvende Markolfus;' in Kallundborg district the hunt is transferred to a later king: Christian the Second rides on a white horse and with black hounds (Thiele 1, 187).

In Schleswig hunts king Abel: 'in eo loco ubi sepultus est……venatoris cornu inflantis vocem et sonum exaudiri, multi fide digni referunt, et affirmant usque adeo similem, ut venatorem ibi venari quis diceret, idque saepe a vigilibus qui Gottorpii nocte vigilare solent audiri: sed et Abelem multis nostra aetate apparuisse et visum esse constans omnium est rumor, ore et corpore atrum, equo pusillo vectum, comitatum canibus tribus venaticis, qui et saepe specie ignea et ardere visi sunt,' Cypraei Ann. episc. slesvic. p. 267; conf. Thiele 2, 63. 142. Dahlmann's Dän. gesch. 1, 408. Müllenhoff nos. 487-8.

With Swedish traditions of the wild hunter I am imperfectly acquainted, but they may safely be inferred from what is told of the strömkarls-lag (p. 492), that its eleventh variation is reserved for the use of the night spirit and his host; and we found a point of agreement between the 'neck' and our elf-natured Tanhäuser (p. 936n.). Sweden retains too the primitive fashion of referring the natural phenomenon to the god (p. 919). Tales are told of two ardent sportsmen, Nielus Hög and Jennus Maar (Arwidsson 2, 71).

One Norwegian story offers rich material. Souls that have not done so much good as to win heaven, nor yet harm enough to merit hell, drunkards, scoffers, tricksters, are doomed to ride about until the end of the world. At the head of the cavalcade comes Gurorysse or Reisarova (61) with her long tail, by which you may know her from the rest; she is followed by a great multitude of either sex. Rider and steed have a stately appearance in front; from behind you see nothing but Guro's long tail. The horses are coal-black, have glowing eyes, and are governed with fiery rods and iron reins: the noise of the troop is heard from afar. They ride over water as over land, their hoofs scarce skimming the surface. When they throw a saddle on a roof, some person will presently die in that house; where they expect drunken revelry, rioting and murder, they come and sit over the door; (62) they keep still so long as no crime is committed, but when it is, they laugh out loud, (63) and rattle their iron rods. They make their journeys at Yule-tide, when there is much carousing. If you hear them come, you must get out of the way, or throw yourself flat on the ground (64) and feign sleep, for there have been cases of living men being dragged along with the moving mass. An upright man, who takes that precaution, has nought to fear, save that each of the company spits upon him; when they are gone, he must spit out again, or he will take harm. In some parts, this ghostly array is called aaskereia, aaskerej, aaskereida, in others hoskelreia; the former corrupted from âsgard-reida, -reid, the Asgard march, whether as a passage of souls to heaven, or as a journey of gods, of valkyrs, visiting earth; or may it not be more simply explained by åska (lightning) and reid (thunder)? in which case it would be confined more to a manifestation of Thor. Sometimes you do not see the procession, but only hear it rush through the air. Whoever does not make the sign of the cross on his stable-doors the three nights of Yule, will in the morning find his horses blown and dripping with sweat (p. 661), because they have been taken and ridden (Faye 70-72).




ENDNOTES:

50. Wyss's Reise ins Berner Oberland 2, 420. Back

51. Deut. sag. no. 169. Schnellerts = house of Schnellert, Snelhart. A monstrous spirit named Snellaart in Marg. van Limb. 7b. Back

52. Guicciardini's Hist. d'Italia (1583) p. 22: 'Risuonava per tutto la fama, essere nel territorio d'Arezzo passati visibilmente molti di per l'aria infiniti huomini armati, sopra grossissimi cavalli e con terribile strepito di suoni di trombe e di tamburi.' Conf. the Dan. legend of Klintekönig's or Ellekönig's trooping out, Thiele, 1, 98. 3, 55. Even children marching with pike and flag portend war, Superst. I. 106. Back

53. Stender's Lett. gram. (1783) p. 262-6. Bergmann p. 145. Back

54. I. e. the vast throng of the dead (p. 847): 'he geit in 't olde heer' = he dies, Narragonia 84b. 'dem alten haufen zuschicken,' Keisersp. serm. on Brant. p. m. 43. Back

55. E.g. in Richard sans peur, in the Roman de Fauvel; conf. Jubinal's Contes 1, 284. Michel's Théâtre fr. pp. 73-76. Back

56. Kausler's Chron. v. Flandern 8049: 'ten Hallekine,' at little hell (name of a place). Back

57. Mém. des antiq. 8, 458. Noei bourguignons p. 237. Thuanus lib. 24 p. 1104. Back

58. Herne too, if a myth, had got localized: 'sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest.' --- Trans. Back

59. In hunting he practises cruelties on the peasantry; he also chases a mermaid, Thiele 1, 46. 52. Back

60. Still closer comes the statement in Thiele p. 192: in olden days it was the custom in the I. of Möen, when they were harvesting, and had tied the last sheaf of oats, to throw it on the field with the words: 'this for the jöde of Upsala, this let him have for his horse on Yule-eve!' and if they did not do it, their cattle died. The 'jötunn of Upsala' is a christian euphemism for Wodan or Oðinn, whose divine image is set up at Upsala. The phraseology might originate at a period when Denmark was converted and Sweden remained heathen. Back

61. 'Guro rysserova = Gudrun horse-tail.'---Suppl. Back

62. 'Quia Mors secus introitum delectationis posita est.' Regula Benedicti, cap. 7. Back

63. Conf. 'manes ridere videns' in the Waltharius 1040. Back

64. As on p. 922: a precaution prescribed in all the folktales (Bechstein's Thür. sag. 4, 234 and Fränk. sag. 1, 57). It is practised in Italy when hot winds blow. [Back]