Welcome to PART TWO, or another two-part episode of LOST IN THE RABBIT HOLE. In this episode, we cover just some of the variants of The Wild Hunt tales, which come from Europe, but can also be found in some form all over the world.
The Wild Hunt is a tale of a pack of spectral beings riding horses, sometimes flying, late at night. Sometimes there are demon dogs, or other packs of animals. These tales are moral tales, with the riders or hunters presaging something really bad -- war, plague, discord, or even the death of the person who sees the riders.
We see in this episode (both parts) that the frame of the pack of ghost hunters carries across cultures, but with some interesting shifts and detail changes.
PART ONE: focuses on the background of the tale frame; from WODEN/ODIN leading the pack to the HERLE KING, this is an old lore that is still somehow very elastic. Part one includes the history of FRAU BERCHTA , one of the female figures to lead the pack of night riders.
PART TWO: shares other cultures' tales, including THE NIGHT OF A HUNDRED DEMONS from Japan, HAWAIIAN NIGHT MARCHERS, the Canadian New Years tale of THE BEWITCHED CANOE, and the Old American West tale of the GHOST RIDERS.
References for Part Two of this episode:
NIGHT OF A HUNDRED DEMONS
Elizabeth Lillehoj, in her article “Transfiguration: Man-Made Objects as Demons in Japanese Scrolls” (Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp 7-34; 1995)
Michael Dylan Foster (Author), Shinonome Kijin (Illustrator), The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore
Masako Watanabe, Storytelling in Japanese Art
Matthew Meyer's Night Parade of One Hundred Demons
Maria Kitsunebi's blog, HYAKKI YAGYO: THE NIGHT PARADE OF ONE HUNDRED YOKAI
Amelia Starling's blog, Tsukumogami: Japan’s Household Spirits, is also really fun
LA CHASSE-GALARIE
Donovan King, Haunted Montreal
Honoré Beaugrand, La chasse galerie: Légendes Canadiennes
THE HAWAIIAN HUAKA'I PO
Martha Warren Beckwith, Hawaiian Mythology
Wounded: A Native True Crime Podcast, Night Marchers: Huaka'i Po'
This is a blog post from the To Hawaii website The Legend of the Nightmarchers
AMERICAN OLD WEST GHOST RIDERS
Fairweather Lewis's blog post on the song Ghost Rider's In The Sky
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