Next day his body was found floating on the lake by some woodcutters, and the nixie of the Mummel-lake was seen no more.

The Wild Huntsman

One of the most interesting Rhine myths is that concerning the Wild Huntsman, which is known all over Rhineland, and which is connected with many of its localities.  The tale goes that on windy nights the Wild Huntsman, with his yelling pack of hounds, sweeps through the air, his prey departing souls.  The huntsman is, of course, Odin, who in some of his aspects was a hunter-god.  The English legend of Herne the Hunter, who haunts Windsor Park, is allied to this, and there can be little doubt that Herne is Odin.  Indeed, it is here suggested that the name Herne may in some way be connected with one of Odin’s titles, Hari, the High One.  It was the legend of the Wild Huntsman that inspired Sir Walter Scott to write one of his finest ballads of the mysterious.  An Edinburgh friend had perused a ballad by Burger, entitled Lenore, but all he could remember of it were the following four lines:  Tramp, tramp, across the land they ride; Splash, splash, across the sea.  Hurrah! the dead can ride apace, Dost fear to ride with me?

This verse fired Scott’s imagination.  He liked this sort of thing, and could do it very well himself.  So on reaching home he sat down to the composition of the following ballad, of which we give the most outstanding verses: 

     The wild huntsman

     The Wildgrave winds his bugle horn: 
     To horse, to horse, haloo, haloo! 
     His fiery courser sniffs the morn,
     And thronging serfs their lord pursue.

     The eager pack, from couples freed,
     Dash through the bush, the brier, the brake
     While answering hound, and horn, and steed,
     The mountain echoes startling wake.

     The beams of God’s own hallowed day
     Had painted yonder spire with gold,
     And, calling sinful men to pray,
     Loud, long, and deep the bell hath tolled.

     But still the Wildgrave onward rides;
     Haloo, haloo, and hark again! 
     When, spurring from opposing sides,
     Two stranger horsemen join the train.

     Who was each stranger, left and right? 
     Well may I guess, but dare not tell. 
     The right-hand steed was silver-white;
     The left, the swarthy hue of hell.

     The right-hand horseman, young and fair,
     His smile was like the morn of May;
     The left, from eye of tawny glare,
     Shot midnight lightning’s lurid ray.

     He waved his huntsman’s cap on high,
     Cried, “Welcome, welcome, noble lord! 
     What sport can earth, or sea, or sky,
     To match the princely chase, afford?”

     “Cease thy loud bugle’s clanging knell,”
     Cried the fair youth with silver voice;
     “And for devotion’s choral swell,
     Exchange the rude, unhallowed noise.