The Wild Hunt is only briefly featured in the pilot of The witcher, but they’re certainly a more prominent presence in the new season – especially in the finale where they instill fear of God in everyone.
While not addressed in a lot of depth in Season 2, they are an ominous force that is an integral part of understanding the machinations of the season and the larger Witcher universe it goes into The witcher Season 3.
What is the wild hunt?
The wild hunt is mentioned for the first time in the second of Andrzej Sapkowski’s witcher’s books. The sword of fate, and is the focus of the third video game. Called the Wraiths of Mörhogg by the islanders of Skellige and also called the Red Riders by them, the Wild Hunt is a convoy of ghostly riders who gallop across the sky and are considered an omen that signals approaching war times, something The witcher
The idea of the wild hunt actually goes b ack before the witcher’s books and has a mythological counterpart from the real world in the northern European folklore motif that goes back centuries with a variety of interpretations. In Scandinavia the horsemen were led by Odin, while for some Christians they were led by the devil. Sometimes it’s the undead, sometimes it’s fairies. Although many accounts agree, the most widely accepted version of Jacob Grimm (by the Brothers Grimm) was solidified in his book Teutonic Mythology, which claimed it was based on Germanic stories.
Like their counterparts, the Wild Hunt are known to abduct unsuspecting souls to join the ranks of their hideous cavalcade. The Skellige people claim the Wraiths of Mörhogg raided their shores aboard a ship called Naglfar, a longship made from the nails and toenails of dead people, causing them to cut the nails of the dead around the Wraiths of building to deprive materials. All in all, it’s a pretty gross and terrifying picture.
So why does the wild hunt do this?
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Image: Netflix
These horsemen are not mere ghosts, nor are they aimless. Most of its qualities are the result of psychological warfare: their skeletal armor looks like it was lifted from corpses, their ghostly appearance increases their numbers, and hides in their rank those of flesh and blood. It is all a means of terrifying all viewers as they make their raids on the human world.
In truth, the Wild Hunt are not the undead who have come to claim the souls of the living. They are actually elves from another world known as the Aen Elle, whose world has never been conquered by humans. The Aen Elle come to this world to abduct people, not to join their cavalry, but to bring them back to their world as slaves.
They were once able to move large numbers between worlds, allowing them to explore and conquer at will. But since the conjunction of the spheres, the catastrophic event that brought dozens of dimensions into collision, their powers have been limited. The wild hunt can now only accept a few riders each time, hence its illusions and theatrics, which intimidate but also practically hide their true number.
The fact that they even have the power to move between the worlds is an achievement for the riders thanks to the king of the wild hunt, whom his brothers know as Eredin Bréacc Glas, a general of the Aen Elle who provides his people with unwilling subjects. Eredin has nothing but contempt for humans, but also considers the elves of the human world, the Aen Seidhe, to be less, since they were conquered by humans.
But their power to move between worlds is waning, and the Wild Hunt is now focusing its attention on a price: the search for those of Elder Blood.
