The Wild Hunt: The Veneration and Demonization of the Dead (Mythology Explained)

Discover the legend of the Wild Hunt, a supernatural procession that roams the countryside, hunting and revelling, leaving destruction in its path. From England to Iceland, this myth has been passed down through generations. In this video, we explore the origins, variations, and beliefs surrounding the Wild Hunt. Join us as we delve into the dark and fascinating world of this ancient folklore.

Words provided and information provided by Imelda Almqvist, from North Sea Water in My Veins.

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North Sea Water in My Veins by Imelda Almqvist

North Sea Water in My Veins is a quest for the reconstruction of an indigenous or native spirituality of the Low Countries and covers pre-Christian material from the Netherlands, Belgium and the region just across the German border. Seeking out and documenting ancient gods and goddesses, practices and traditions, this book asks the question: is there enough material for such a reconstruction? The conclusion is a resounding yes!

You can purchase this book here: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/our-books/north-sea-water-in-my-veins

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Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seidr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). She has published three books: Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019 and Medicine of the Imagination – Dwelling in possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020. She has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Neolithic arctic deer shamanism. Her fourth book, about the pre-Christian spirituality of The Netherlands and Low Countries, has just gone into production. She has already started her fifth book: about the runes of the Futhark/Uthark. In response to the 2020 pandemic she has opened an on-line school, called Pregnant Hag Teachings, to make more of her classes available on-line.

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before we can dive into the myth of the wild Hunt we must first lay the groundwork that is the veneration and demonization of the Dead to understand it properly in context one key feature that most tribal indigenous and ancient cultures share distinguishing them from contemporary Western culture is an active relationship with the ancestors and the dead some authors have made a case for St Nicholas being associated with the ancient phenomenon of the wild Hunt where a deity or another legendary figure leads a ghostly Army traveling across the European winter Sky especially the nights in the dead of winter between December 6th the birthday of St Nicholas and January 6th Epiphany the general concept is that at a certain time of year the V between world’s Thins and the dead will visit the living often in dis skies in Heathen times it was understood that not all the dead rest in peace forever after some Souls of the Dead continue to roam the land and visit the living in All Seasons therefore one of the purposes of the wild Hunt is to sweep the land and Sky clean of old energy energetic manifestations that serve no more and The Souls of the unquiet Dead deep winter once held real terror as death prayed on the weak and vulnerable Scandinavian people expressed age as how many Winters a person had lived this holy Terror was felt deeply by our pre-christian ancestors and lives on in many ulai Traditions let’s make one crucial point up front hell spelled with two L’s is a Christian invention pre-christian people did not believe in Hell one L as a realm of Eternal damnation of the human soul however there was a general cultural awareness that death can be compromised and that not all the dead automatically arrive in an idilic location in the afterlife Christianity deliberately replaced this nuanced and realistic cosmology with the more dualistic and simplistic model of three destinations after death Heaven God-fearing good Christians fly straight up to heaven hell the realm of Eternal damnation and eternal punishment Purgatory an intermediate state after physical death dedicated to purification but some orientations within Christianity such as protestantism deny that this realm exists Purgatory was invented in the 12th century it was not included in the original teachings of Christ as the kingdom of heaven was what did exist long before the birth of Christ was the belief in appear per period of purification after death and that saying prayers which became the prayer cycle called the office of the Dead in church supports this important process Germanic tribes knew an underworld called hell the domain of the Goddess hell Wells were seen as access points to this realm fr’s domain for example is called fenia the hall in the marshes the church fathers actively projected Christian overlays on the more ancient Customs they could not stomp out onto hell as a watery realm of beyond death and rebirth domain of both the deceased and those waiting to be B born the Christian dogma of hell as a fearsome realm of punishment was projected to State the obvious literacy rates were low few people had access to books before the invention of the printing press even if they could read there was no law requiring children to attend school the internet would not be invented for many centuri CES to come morality plays acted as a form of education and entertainment at the same time the myth of the wild Hunt occurs in many countries ranging from England Scotland Germany and Iceland to the Netherlands and the Alps the wild Hunt is a procession led by a supernatural being or deity roaming the countryside and reveling hunting killing or eating every everything in their path the name of the leader of the hunt varies from place to place perhaps surprisingly the leader of this hunt was originally female a goddess her most common name was Pak or hula which was recorded by Latin authors as Diana or herodes seeing the wild Hunt was thought to prage some catastrophe such as war or plague or at best the death of the one who witnessed it Mortals getting in the path of or voluntarily following the hunt could be kidnapped and end up in the Land of the Dead one girl who saw Wild edric’s Ride was warned by her father to put her apron over her head to avoid the sight others believed that people’s Spirits could be pulled away during their sleep to join the cavalcade it has argued that St Nicholas festivities are the ritual counterpart to the wild Hunt there are many Regional variations in the name of the leader ranging from Odin voden to Hearn the hunter or th H bur the otherw world Hunters are said to be the dead elves in the northern tradition elves are associated with the male dead ancestors or even fairies in the original meaning of the word Fay inhabitants of Supernatural Realms in 1673 yannes shefner in his famous book laponia recounts stories by samet people about the wild Hunt and the author Helen Adeline Gruber wrote about Odin and his eight-legged magical horse schir collecting The Souls of the dead in her book from 1895 myths of the northern land the concept entered the popular imagination courtesy of Jacob Grim in 1835 when he published Deutsche mythology Grim suggested that this myth began Life as a hunt led by a god and goddess visiting the land during a holy period they would have brought blessings in return for the offerings left out by the people their voices could be heard in the howling winds but due to the filter imposed by Christianity this later became a pack of ghouls with malicious intent in the medieval period after the ancient gods had been demonized and banned from Collective Consciousness the leaders of the wild Hunt were said to be characters based on real life personi such as Chalan King Arthur or federick Barbarosa the Holy Roman Emperor of the 12th century in the 16th century Hans Von Hackenberg was said to lead the wild Hunt the story recounts him slaying a boar accidentally piercing his foot on the B’s Tusk and poisoning himself the wound was fatal and upon his death Von Hackenberg declared he didn’t want to go to heaven but instead continue with his treasured vocation hunting he was then forced to do this for an eternity in the night sky or as recounted in alternate versions condemned to lead the wild Hunt sources cite his name as possibly being a Corruption of an epithet of Odin’s name in Wales we find a variation of the tale where Gwen apud the Celtic lord of the Dead appears as the leader he is said to be followed by a pack of hounds with blood red ears those same hounds appear in England where they were called the Gabriel hounds seeing them spelled Doom in England the leader was heard the hunter of haing with a possible connection to the mythical King hurler the tradition of the orany island speaks of fairies or ghosts coming out at night and Galloping around on white horses in France we find a female leader of the hunt mezan dequin the goddess of death the word myth has two opposite meanings it can refer to a timeless ultimate truth such as the creation myth that underpin many world religions or it can mean a madeup tale or falsehood for that reason it is easy to read up on the topic with 21st century eyes and claim that it is Pure Fantasy born of the human imagination however consider the following clerics in 12th century Britain reportedly witnessed the wild Hunt they claimed there were 20 to 30 hunters in the party and the hunt continued Ed for 9 weeks the earlier reports available of the wild Hunt generally represented the participants as diabolical whereas in later medieval retellings the hunters became fairies instead in Scotland the wild Hunt is closely linked to the fairy world in many sources evil fairies or Fay were said to be cast out from the slug or un Seely Court the noble fairy Court the slug allegedly flew in from the West in order to capture dying Souls resulting in people in Scotland well into the 20th century closing windows and doors on the west side of their houses when they had a sick person inside in Scandinavia the wild Hunt was not seen only heard in our time contemporary Heathen Pagan shamanic practitioners actively work with the concept of the wild Hunt and perform psychopomp work escorting souls to the right destination in the afterlife the aim of this work is to embrace not fight the forces of Chaos in a constructive way meaning that old and stuck energies are cleared away seeds for New Concept and paradigms are planted this is magical power in a very real sense it must be married to the principle of right action we must use it well on behalf of our community not for our personal gain or egoic Des desires the engagement with this type of work has brought a renewed interest in folklore because so many people are eagerly honoring and reconstructing the old ways of our ancestors once again A reversal is at stake the reversal of the SI Extinction The Accelerated loss of species the pillaging of our planet I am confident that Mother Earth Will Survive it certainly remains to be seen if the human race will Christianity teaches about original sin and the need for Redemption North mythology teaches that there are several Realms where dead people go Odin’s H Valhalla for the Warriors the heroic dead threr Hall in cesia located in fonia or Hell also known as helheim hell is visualized as situated in the north the direction of death and winter and is by no means a realm of punishment the goddess hell receives her guests well some offers distinguish between a male or female leader of the wild Hunt the origin of a female leader is Mediterranean as the ancient Greek goddess Hecate had a ghostly Army she was called the queen of the witches and Witchcraft and also the queen of the ghosts together with her sisters Artemus and Diana she was the Godmother of witches the First full description I of A procession of ghosts was written in Paris about a night in January 1092 the priest wacklin was coming back from visiting a sick person saw a swarm led by an enormous Warrior swinging a mighty Club in his hand the shapes that followed wept and moaned over their sins then came a horde of corpse bearers with Coffins on their shoulders the priest counted some 50 coffins then women on Horseback Seated on sadd with glowing Nails stuck into them then a host of ecclesiastical on Horseback the priest knew many of these people who had died recently he concluded at last that he had seen The Familiar henini of whom many had told him but in whom he had never believed now he had truly seen the dead we have accounts of the wild Hunt from the southernmost and easternmost providences in the low countries babaran gelderland and limberg in gelderland we find a hunter who is doomed to hunt forever as a punishment for hunting on Sunday the holy day of rest he is said to be out hunting in Spring especially in N bant the hunter is called wild dieger Durk or Durk Med deia Durk with the ball he was a farmer who lost all his animals to the animal plague which enraged him enough to point his rifle at the heaven to shoot God this sealed his fate in limberg we find stories of a ghostly Army nearly the mukah Heidi even St Hubert and St Martin were said to lead the wild Hunt this is most remarkable as the named leader is rup this is the name of St Nicholas’s helper in Germany in twente we find the wild Hunt of tupes at the winter solist rushing down the hackenburg folklore written down in Germany and Switzerland states that the more ferociously the wild Hunt rages the more fertile the land covered will [Music] be if you enjoyed this video I’m going to guess that you’d be interested in the pre-christian spirituality of the low countries which means we have the perfect book for you North sea water in my veins written by aalda anest who also provided the words and information for this video it’s available right now from Moon Books thank you so much for watching a special thanks to our members you can also become a member if you want to support us further please do subscribe for weekly content ring the bell and we’ll see you next [Music] time