Online Reference For Body, Mind & Spirit

Term: Wild Hunt

DEFINITION:

An ancient European myth involving seeing a group of phantom-like hunter or hunters (often considered to be the dead or perhaps fairy beings), in full hunter’s garb, riding wildly through the night. In some Wiccan traditions this is interpreted as the Horned God on Samhain madly seeking the souls of the recent dead. Because Samhain is a time “between the worlds” (and thus outside of time), He sometimes neglects to differentiate between the living and dead. Some Pagan traditions reenact the Wild Hunt in a sort of semi-Dionysian and shamanic hunt.