Hallowe’en Special: The Wild Hunt in America?

Image: “Wild Hunt” by Ksenia Svincova [IrenHorrors] at DeviantArt

Between the Norman (French Viking) invasion of England in 1066 and the time of Chaucer‘s Canterbury Tales (from the late 1300s), we have perhaps only one history book written from the viewpoint of the vanquished Anglo-Saxons or “English”.

This would be the Peterborough Chronicle, which is a version (but not an exact copy) of the earlier Anglo-Saxon Chronicles – writings which were preserved and updated during the early Middle Ages by monks working in monasteries scattered throughout what would only later be called “England”.

As ever in the history of conquest and colonization, the invading power slowly installed their own people in various administrative and bureaucratic positions.

In 1127, a Norman named Henry d’Angely was appointed abbot over the monastery at Peterborough.

It can scarcely be considered mere coincidence that the Anglo-Saxon monks began to write about terrible visions and omens shortly after, including this report of a sighting of “The Wild Hunt”:

“Many men both saw and heard a great number of huntsmen hunting. The huntsmen were black, huge, and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats, and their hounds were jet black, with eyes like saucers, and horrible. This was seen in the very deer park of the town of Peterborough, and in all the woods that stretch from that same town to Stamford, and in the night the monks heard them sounding and winding their horns.”

“The Wild Hunt” is a term used by modern folklorists to describe a recurring motif which was part of the ancient pagan belief systems and lore of Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic Europe, in which various heroes and gods were believed to lead periodic otherworldly hunts (on land and in the sky), with the other hunters often seen as restless souls of the dead, along with their ghost dogs or “Hounds of Hell”.

What exactly was being hunted varied by time and region – some Wild Huntsmen (and Huntswomen) sought to run down normal prey, others were seeking the souls of mortals.

In other cases, the leaders of the hunt were not gods or heroes, but simply the condemned souls of sinful mortals, doomed to forever ride the night alongside The Devil, as punishment for their worldly misdeeds.

Much of this folklore might have been lost forever, but for the efforts of two brothers from 19th century Germany named Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

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The US American incarnation of these ancient folk beliefs will probably never be tracked to its source, due to the American propensity for creating “false folklore”.

An Arizona man named Stan Jones wrote a song during his off-hours while working for the National Park Service in California in the 1940s.

Stan Jones worked various jobs in his relatively short life (he died of cancer aged 49) – park ranger, miner, firefighter, rodeo rider, a stint in the navy.

He also ended-up befriending legendary film director John Ford, due to the Hollywood film industry constantly scouting locations for the hugely popular Western film genre.

Stanley Davis Jones would sometimes claim that his most famous and commercially successful song had been inspired by a story told to him by Indigenous American elders in Arizona.

This writer is a little suspicious that our gentleman was adding a bit of spice to the broth.

He was, after all, no fool.  Aside from his other occupations, he had also managed to earn a Master’s Degree in zoology from Berkeley.

It is tempting to wonder if Mr. Jones was drawing on something else for his evocative songwriting?

Maybe Welsh traditons of Gwyn ap Nudd – the Welsh version of “The Wild Hunt”?

Jones, after all, is a quintessential Welsh surname.

Maybe he just read The Brothers Grimm at some stage?

Whatever the truth, in 1948 Stan Jones wrote probably the greatest “Western” song of all time in the Country & Western music pantheon.

“Ghost Riders in the Sky”.