the wild hunt only gets a quick, blink and you’ll miss it mention in the witcher pilot, but they’re certainly a more prominent presence in the new season, especially in the finale where you put the fear of god into everybody.
While they weren’t addressed in much depth in Season 2, they are a sinister force that is central to understanding the machinations of the season and the greater Warlock universe heading into Warlock Season 3.
You are reading: The wild hunt witcher books
what is the wild hunt?
The Wild Hunt is first mentioned in the second of Andrzej Sapkowski’s witchcraft books, The Sword of Destiny, and is the focus of the third game. Called the Wraiths of Mörhogg by the Skellige Islanders, and known to themselves as the Red Riders, the Wild Hunt is a convoy of spectral riders that gallops across the sky and is considered an omen signaling times of war to come, something that the sorcerer show seems observed. His first mention in the Netflix series came just before Nilfgaard invaded Cintra, from a king who claimed to have seen the wraiths. At the start of Season 2, sightings of these terrifying horsemen have sparked murmurs among humans about an apocalypse looming on their world.
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The idea of the wild hunt actually predates the witch books, and has a real-world mythological counterpart in the motif of Northern European folklore, dating 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 they are undead, sometimes they are fairies. While there are many accounts that line up, the most commonly accepted version was solidified by Jacob Grimm (of Brothers Grimm fame) in his book Teutonic Mythology, who claimed that he based them on Germanic tales.
Like their counterparts, the Wild Hunt is known for kidnapping unsuspecting souls to join the ranks of their ghastly cavalcade. the people of skellige claim that wraiths of mörhogg raid their shores aboard a ship called the naglfar, a longship made from the fingernails and toenails of the dead, leading to their practice of clipping the nails of the dead to deprive wraiths of building materials is a pretty gross and horrible image, all told.
then why does the wild hunt do that?
Image: Netflix
These riders are not mere specters, nor are they aimless. Most of their qualities are the result of psychological warfare: Their skeletal armor is made to look like it was lifted from corpses, their spectral appearance to inflate their numbers and hide those in their rank who are flesh and blood. It’s all a means to terrify any onlookers while they make their raids on the world of humans.
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In truth, the Wild Hunt is not the undead who come to claim the souls of the living. they are actually elves from another world, known as aen elle, whose world has never been conquered by humans. the aen elle come to this world to kidnap humans, not to join their cavalry, but to bring them to be slaves in their world.
They were once able to move large numbers between worlds, allowing them to explore and conquer as they pleased. but since the conjunction of the spheres, the cataclysmic event that caused dozens of dimensions to collide, his powers have been limited. the wild hunt can now only take a few riders at a time, hence their illusions and theatrics, which intimidate but also conveniently hide their true numbers.
The fact that they have some power to move between worlds is a feat made possible for the riders by the king of the wild hunt, known to his brethren as eredin bréacc glas, a general among the aen elle who keeps his people supplied. with reluctant subjects. eredin has nothing but contempt for humans, but he also considers the elves of the human world, the aen seidhe, to be lesser because they were conquered at the hands of humans.
But their power to move between worlds is dwindling, and the Wild Hunt now sets its sights on a specific prize: seeking out those of ancient blood.
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