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Figure above:

Detail of the floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Annunziata (dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary), Otranto, Italy, executed in the XII century. It shows the figure of King Arthur riding on a goat.
Since the XI century, a series of literary texts both in Latin and in Vernacular, coming from most of European countries – France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavia – report the apparitions of a “furious army” (Wütischend Heer, Mesnie furieuse, Mesnie Hellequin, exercitus antiquus), also called “Wild Hunt” (Wilde Jagd, Chasse sauvage, Caccia Selvaggia, Chasse Arthur). In these manifestations it was recognized the troop of the dead, sometimes, more precisely, the troop of those who died prematurely : soldiers killed in battle, unbaptized children. Leading them there were mythical characters or historical personages mythologized (Herlechinus, Wotan, Odin, Arthur, and so forth) (Ginzburg 1989, p. 78).
“Hellequin, Herla, Arthur are different names for the same mythical character, the king of the dead, who, sometimes at night in the forests or on the main road rides at the head of his furious troop, sometimes is sitting on his throne in his subterranean palace at the borders of the country of Wales, in the Etna or in the Mont-Chat, aiming to attract the living in a practice of gifts and exchanges, in which what is at stake is life and death. Now, in half a century, the preachers formed by Scholastic theology succeed to the ecclesiastics of the court, greedy for the mirabilia. To the king of the dead they end up to substitute the Devil” (Schmitt 1995, p.162).

[Image: www.mondimedievali.net]

Figure below:

Detail view of the oak trees of Wistman's Wood, Devon, England.
The name is derived from a local expression, wisht, signifying “mysterious”, “uncanny”, “haunted”, and it is due to the fact that this place was associated with the belief of the Wild Hunt, which was deemed visible in this wood.
In continental Europe, a witness of 1688 relates that in Frankfurt, every year, a group of youths led a big cart covered with branches from house to house, reciting chants and predictions. They impersonated the “furious troop”, led by the Old Eckhart, that is the troops of the dead roving in the woods and taking on themselves elements of the plant world (Ginzburg 1989, p. 161).

[Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wistman%27s_Wood]




World of the Dead

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Figure above: Detail of the floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Annunziata (dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary), Otranto, Italy, executed in the XII century. It shows the figure of King Arthur riding on a goat. Since the XI century, a series of literary texts both in Latin and in Vernacular, coming from most of European countries – France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavia – report the apparitions of a “furious army” (Wütischend Heer, Mesnie furieuse, Mesnie Hellequin, exercitus antiquus), also called “Wild Hunt” (Wilde Jagd, Chasse sauvage, Caccia Selvaggia, Chasse Arthur). In these manifestations it was recognized the troop of the dead, sometimes, more precisely, the troop of those who died prematurely : soldiers killed in battle, unbaptized children. Leading them there were mythical characters or historical personages mythologized (Herlechinus, Wotan, Odin, Arthur, and so forth) (Ginzburg 1989, p. 78). “Hellequin, Herla, Arthur are different names for the same mythical character, the king of the dead, who, sometimes at night in the forests or on the main road rides at the head of his furious troop, sometimes is sitting on his throne in his subterranean palace at the borders of the country of Wales, in the Etna or in the Mont-Chat, aiming to attract the living in a practice of gifts and exchanges, in which what is at stake is life and death. Now, in half a century, the preachers formed by Scholastic theology succeed to the ecclesiastics of the court, greedy for the mirabilia. To the king of the dead they end up to substitute the Devil” (Schmitt 1995, p.162). [Image: www.mondimedievali.net] Figure below: Detail view of the oak trees of Wistman's Wood, Devon, England. The name is derived from a local expression, wisht, signifying “mysterious”, “uncanny”, “haunted”, and it is due to the fact that this place was associated with the belief of the Wild Hunt, which was deemed visible in this wood. In continental Europe, a witness of 1688 relates that in Frankfurt, every year, a group of youths led a big cart covered with branches from house to house, reciting chants and predictions. They impersonated the “furious troop”, led by the Old Eckhart, that is the troops of the dead roving in the woods and taking on themselves elements of the plant world (Ginzburg 1989, p. 161). [Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wistman%27s_Wood]