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"The Wild Hunt"

As we finish Christmas we can reflect on the origins of many of our customs and festivals. Early Christians took pagan festivals and "Christianised" them. The festival of Christmas draws many of his customs from the festival of "Yule" of Central and Northern European origin. Ivy, the forest tree, the blood red apples adorning the tree, later to become gold, silver or bronze baubels.

Midnight was also a time of dread at Yule. Stay safe and feast and drink in one's halls. Do not brave the dark forests. The wind whines and moans at the cracks at the shuttered windows. For outside rides "The Wild Hunt" of the Wild Hunter and his Valkure hordes.

For those brave or foolish souls that explore the midnight woods, many were never seen again or were found mad at what they had seen.

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Read here a passage from the fictional book "Rhinegold" (Stephan Grundy)

"It was not much longer till the wind of Alapercht's yawn put out one of the candles, and not long after that when the rest were blown out and the men began to curl up in the blankets they had brought with them, muffling themselves against the cold. Sigifrith, too, wrapped himself up and lay down near the one of the low-burning fires with the other thanes. He could hear the wind rushing through the pines, moaning low and eerie over the roof of Chilpirich's hall as the men inside settled down into a deep sleep. Only Sigifrith lay awake in the dark hall, the hairs prickling on his arms with the thrumming of the hidden lightning through the air.

A sudden banging jerked Sigifrith out of his blankets and to his feet. He pulled his cloak over his shoulders and raced on tiptoe to see what it was. The biting wind tore the door open beneath his hand, whirling his cloak in a shower of snowflakes. He heard the banging again, more loudly, and knew that it was coming from the barn where the horses were kept. A shock of memory shot through him: Harifaxa would not stay tied or penned when the weather was stormy; she must be trying to kick her way out. And what would become of her if she got lost in the blizzard? He pulled the door of the hall to against the wind and ran blindly through the driving snow and the darkness, finding his way to the barn by memory till a flash of lightning lit the driving whiteness with an eerie glow and showed him the black shadow ahead. A crack of splitting wood echoed the thunder's roar as something huge and dark tore out of the barn and past Sigifrith, knocking him flying to land on his back in the snow.

The blood was hot and sweet in his mouth as he got to his feet, gasping the breath back into his lungs, and began to run into the woods after the fleeing horse, crying, 'Harifaxa, Harifaxa!' The wind swept his voice away, its cry rising to an echoing moan like a pack of dogs or wolves howling in full throat through the pines.

In only a few moments, Sigifrith had lost all sense of direction. He halted for a moment, panting, straining his eyes through the blind night for any trace of the lost mare. Then a white flash of lightning seared his sight with the stark blackness of the wind-whipped trees against the whirling torrents of snow and the sound of a hunting horn rang through the thunder and the gale, its irresistible wod trembling along Sigifrith's veins till he lifted his head and howled at the storm. Looking up, he could see the far-off glowing of the wolves' red eyes through the snow, the streaming clouds in the tree tops twisting and writhing into the shapes of the mirky riders, their dead faces shining pale through snow and night as they spurred their misty steeds on. And before them stormed the mighty figure of Wodan on Sleipnir, the ghost-grey horse's eight hooves flying wildly through the sharp pines and his rider's dark cloak streaming out behind into the wind like the long hair of the wolf-riding women around him, the mad walkurjas whose piercing song shrieked their blood-lusting wod through the storm.

The Wild Hunter raised his horn and blew it again as his one glinting eye fixed on Sigifrith. The youth rose to his toes in a burst of eagerness as though hoping for the wind to lift him up. He could no longer think as the dark ghosts rode down towards him, the black wings of ravens beating around his head and the harsh coats of the wolves brushing around his body like the needled branches of firs as he ran - or did he ride, swept up in the wod that whelmed him, mad with the brightness of the lightning burning sharp through the howling snow of the storm? A high clear voice shouted wordlessly into the wind, crying out in wild longing and joy as he rode screaming through the night sky, the deep pounding of hooves beneath him beating the dark madness of the Hunt through his body. Now he ran as a wolf with hot blood in his mouth; now blood streamed from his open throat as he howled between the doors of life and death, lost and hungry, following the night-shape of a raven who wheeled through the flashes of lightning above. Then the black branches of a yew tree whipped around him, its hidden fire glowing deep and steady. He reached out to catch hold of it, and tumbled into the snow with a thump that knocked the breath from him."

Edited by NitroX (18/03/12 01:21 AM)

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