Wild Hunt

plural Wild Hunts

1. EuropeanartsA spectral hunting party of riders and hounds, often led by a supernatural huntsman, that sweeps noisily through the sky or countryside at night or during storms, especially in winter; traditionally lacking a visible quarry and regarded as an omen of death or disaster.

   The night grew lighter as we welcomed the Aelfkin and Frey to join us, the Mothers we honoured and speeches made on Woden and the Wild Hunt.

   1998, “The Raven's Call”, in Heartland, volume 1, number 3

   4 more examples

   Before the Venusberg — according to the preface to the Heldenbuch — sits the trusty Eckhard, and warns people; as he also rides and warns before the Wild Hunt.

   1851, Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology, volume I, London: Edward Lumley, page 287

   Mr. Kelly (Indo-European Tradition) very ably and poetically resolves all the various superstitions of this Wild Hunt into figurative descriptions of natural phenomena, but Mr. Yarrell, the distinguished naturalist, reduces the cries of the Gabriel Hounds into the whistling of the Bean Goose, Anser Segetum, as the flocks are flying southward in the night, migrating from Scandinavia.

   1883, James Bowker, Goblin Tales of Lancashire, London: W. Swan Sonnenschein, page 266

   In Germanic myth Woden, in common with his Nordic counterpart, was the leader of the spooky Wild Hunt which rides through the midwinter sky collecting the souls of the dead.

   1990, Michael Howard, Understanding Runes, →ISBN, page 35

   Throughout the Continent it was originally she who led the dread and awesome Wild Hunt through the thick forest and the mid-night snows, leading ghosts, wolves, witches and elves.

   1993, Ed Fitch, The rites of Odin, Llewellyn Publications, →ISBN, page 320