Listen – through the night air flies
A follow on foraging black horses.
In the storm roams the wild horde;
Just skies supporting their feet.
They go over valley, over hill and moors,
Through darkness and weather; they notice not.
The wanderer throws himself terrified on the road.
Hear that noise – It is Aasgaardsreien!
Freely translated from a poem by Johan S. Welhaven
Åsgårdsreia, Oskereia or the more widely known: the wild hunt.
A follow tracking through the dark winter skies. Causing chaos and mayhem wherever they roamed.
A wild horde. Existing in many cultures, and all of them with different members making it up. It is mostly linked to old norse mythology, and might seem like a remnant of the old trying to sneak back in, only paved off with devoted faith in the new God and his son.
The high seat of the old Gods, Åsgard. And with the name Åsgårdsreia, it is clear to see it is the old gods out riding to strike fear into the hearts of those not protected by the new God. In Scandinavia it was also called Odens jakt or Odin’s hunt.
In Norway it was described more as a follow of men and women, drunks, traitors and fraudsters. People that can never rest, because that will never be allowed into Heaven, but are not too bad to go to Hell. Different stories of who rides in the front. Some says Odin, some says Thor, but most known in Norway is it that Guro Åsgård rides first. She is giant and horrible, and her horse is as black as the devil himself. Her husband is Sigurd, and he is so old and wriggly they have to hook up his eyes when he wants to see. His horse is Grane, and its eyes glows.
In the back some say a hulder rides, and because of her hollow back, those seeing the follow from behind won’t see them at all.
But what exactly does this band of fiends do?
Firstly they are one of the big reasons for all the tar and crosses everywhere during the darker season. Because they had a love for the homemade Christmas ale, and if you didn’t put any sort of protection on your lot, it was then their lot. Other ways of warding also entails a bucket of water before the barrels, or just a bucket off tar. If any of these wards are used, they will just back out and have to leave the ale alone. But if not, free ale all around!
Also more horses to ride if someone forgot to ward their animals as well. If you returned to your barn the day after and the horses seemed to have been riding all night, well, they probably had then. Because you forgot the basics of surviving Christmas.
But most stories told of souls or people ending up in the wild hunt. Depending on what you did to protect yourself, or probably the mood of the hunt that day, determined your fate. To return alive and sane, or alive and not sane, or to return at all.
If they come upon you when you are outside on the fateful time, you could ward yourself if you tossed down into the snow and made a cross out of yourself. Then they would pass and be unable to take you.
As always, uttering anything Christian would also save you.
A man from Nord-bø in Nissedal had one night heard someone yell: ‘to horse, to horse’ outside, and not thinking it could be Reia, he had gone outside, only to then be pulled up by them.
‘to horse, to horse my Åsmund’ it screamed towards him, and in terror he called out Jesus’s name, and the second he did they dropped him from the air, and before he could really take in all that had happened, he found himself sitting on the roof of his own house.
You could be taken when you slept, and your soul could also be taken and leave your body behind. On a farm in Fyresdal it happened on Christmas eve. Suddenly at the dinner table a girl started making a racket, striding back and forth on the chair as if she was riding a horse. After a while she fell over and was out the entire night. Later she came herself and said she had been riding with Åsgårdsreia the entire night.
Her family knew she spoke the truth though. As they had found her hair bow at the top of their chimney.
It did not always end well if your soul was taken. A man from Seljord saw the follow pass him, and to his terror he saw his own brother among them. But he was so shocked at the sight he forgot to do the one thing he could do to save him: Utter his name.
When he returned home after, he found his brother dead.
If you are taken and is unable to save yourself, you can be saved if someone yells your name to bring you back. Also if you hold any sort of food, you are safe. Which explains why I have never been taken for a ride even with living my entire life in Norway.
So while the wild hunt is something you can find in most lore, even in Japan they have the parade of hundred demons that travel around at night and bring pandemonium. In England there is even a story of the wild hunt from a monastery in 1127.
“The huntsmen were black, huge, and hideous, and rode on black horses and on black he-goats, and their hounds were jet black, with eyes like saucers, and horrible.”
Even in England they added their own lore to it, where it was lead by known figures from their lore. Faeries or heroes from the King Arthur legends.
It is one of those stories that is everywhere, and built by the lore and society where it is. So it is hard to find where the first story was told or where it originated.
However, it probably did keep a lot of Norwegians from wandering around in the treacherous nights alone back in the times.
Have a happy and festive season, a better New Year, and remember. If you are out at night, and hear a horrible racket from above. And turn to find a progression of murderers and whatever folklore characters your area has.
Pray.
Or make sure to never leave the house without food on you.
Just saying, is not too hard.
Think we can beat this.
Sources:
Birger Sivertsen – Julens Myter – Om overtro og tradisjoner
Line Therkelsen – Magisk jul – Tradisjoner, myter og overtro fra vikingtid til i dag.
Picture is by Peter Nicolai Arbo, from 1872. The wild hunt of Odin. Found online at Nasjonalmuseet.