1. I know the Kitty Genovese story wasn’t exactly as egregious as it’s become in our popular imagination, but Lord love me, I’m a follower, and there are few things I love more than the diminished moral culpability that comes with being part of a big crowd. Sorry we ruined your crops and trampled your comeliest sons!!!! Wild Hunt, sorry, gotta keep moving, sorry byyyyyyyye!
2. I love telling people bad news. Not like, Bad news, but bad news, like, “You guys are not going to believe this” bad news, so the idea of presaging disaster would fit just exactly right upwards of my alley.
3. I would happily ride a horse into Hell behind any of the following: “the leader of the hunt is often a named figure associated with Woden (or other reflections of the same god, such as Alemannic Wuodan in Wuotis Heer (“Wuodan’s Army”) of Central Switzerland, Swabia etc.), but may variously be a historical or legendary figure like Theodoric the Great, the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag, the Welsh psychopomp Gwyn ap Nudd, biblical figures such as Herod, Cain, Gabriel or the Devil, or an unidentified lost soul or spirit, either male or female.”
4. I am a reasonably competent horsewoman and have an excellent seat. I can ride both Western and the useless way.
5. In high school I was friends with a lot of dudes who were pretty into metal, so I know a lot of Germanic hell-deities. The other type of person I was friends with took German language courses (as well as a lot of AP prep work in general) so I can also make words sound German, if necessary. I could yell German-ish yells while winding a horn, is what i’m getting at.
6. I spent a lot of time in college in groups that would self-consciously sing things like “Show Me The Way To Go Home” really loudly while we were heading home from a bar, especially if we were in a town with cobblestoned streets, so I think I could fit the qualification “Noisy Riders” pretty neatly.
7. Jacob Grimm once wrote “Look where you will, it betrays its connexion with heathenism” of the Wild Hunt but also of me.
8. At several points during my early twenties, I received a lot of noise complaints from neighbors in my apartment buildings.
9. I really enjoyed The Dark Is Rising series by Susan B. Cooper as a kid, which I feel like has prepared me for all the Welsh folklore (I think it was Welsh) I’d need to know.
10. If it weren’t so affected and self-consciously goth-y, I’d probably wear a cloak all the time in my personal life.
11. I have a general and vague misunderstanding of pagan ritual in pre-Christian Europe.
12. I often get bored and restless in midwinter, and get along great with dogs.
13. I very much enjoy the idea of experiencing battle frenzy without ever having to go into actual battle.
14. I enjoy giving people rides.
I’m stalwart in my campaign to bring back robes and cowls to everyday dress.
I’m currently reading the “Dark Is Rising” series to my 7yo. It’s one of my favorite series so I’m, of course, thrilled to see the shout out. Remember when Herne casually popped up in it?
There was also Cornish and English mythology, kind of a smorgasbord of really incomprehensible and thrilling to me stuff.
I re-read that series at least once a year. It’s in my top five favorite things to read of all time.
I love those books!
Those books really are as good today as they were when I first read them.
Oh my gosh I have met zero people in my life who have read this series. I need some real-life friends that I can freak out over those books with.
Found this series when I was an early teen, and probably re-read it every year since. I wanted to be Will really badly.
I wanted to be Will so badly that I convinced my parents that what I really really really REEEEAAALLLY wanted for my 10th birthday was Welsh lessons. Which I kept up with for two years, and visited my Welsh teacher’s family in Wales even, but now all I can say is “Tom is here,” which is only useful in extreeeemely specific circumstances.
HERE FOR IT. Also I am (mostly) Welsh and have a (possibly) magical enormous blind dog named Cavall* who came to me as a puppy under Mysterious Circumstances and guards me with his life, so…maybe I am also the Pendragon? But a fat woman in her 30s?
*I think they spelled it Cafall in the books, but Cavall is the preferred Welsh spelling. It’s pronounced the same way (KAHvfath) though.
YES I knew you all would get me on my Dark Is Rising obsession.
I also tried to teach myself Welsh in high school, just in case.
My fave is Greenwitch. Jane doesn’t get the credit she deserves.
AGREED. I have so many deep, deep emotions about Greenwitch. The all women ceremony??
AND THE END
“‘Twasn’t her dreaming that stays with me.’ Mrs Penhallow looked out at the quiet harbour, and the drifting gulls. “Twas her room. Clean as a pin it was the night before, she’m a neat little maid. But everywhere in that room, that morning, there was a great mess of little twigs and leaves, hawthorn leaves, and rowan. And everywhere a great smell of the sea.’”
MY EMOTIONS. TAKE ME TO THE SEA.
Like, the community that just takes Jane in and accepts her. Women supporting women, women having important ceremonies that keep the world running. Jane saving the day with empathy and love. Jane being smart and brave and taking initiative instead of being the passive blank canvas so many female characters are, even now, let alone back then. Ah, Jane. Jane Jane Jane. Move over Will, you’re the best.
ahhhhh you are making me tear up over here!!!!
I am excited for my daughter to be old enough to appreciate them!
Oh, yes, that series is lovely! I first read it when I was about 9 or so and immediately started to read up everything I could on Arthurian legends, Celtic mythology… basically, anything related to old British stories.
Ten years later, I focused on Medieval lit in my English degree– and even went to semi-heroic lengths to get access to courses in Anglo Saxon language and literature, Celtic studies, and Arthurian lit.
Gradate school continued in a similar vein. And it’s all because of “The Dark Is Rising.”
Spoiler: Now I work in tech.
Whomp whomp. In a similar vein an episode of Reading Rainbow that was set at a Renaissance Faire is to blame for my interest in costuming and all things Tudor England, as well as a degree in theatrical costuming. And now I’m a meeting planner…
YESSSSS MY PEOPLE! Chomping at the bit to read these to my 8 year old, but we have a list and we’re gonna stick to it! Probably when he’s 9 or 10 will be optimum age for Susan Cooper.
I would love to hear more about your list.
I don’t have it in front of me but we’re working through lots of my childhood faves along with some newer good stuff with a mix of both male and female main characters. So far we’ve done the whole Bunnicula Series, the first 3 Harry Potter books, A selection of Roald Dahl, and too many picture books to remember. Currently we’re reading Flora And Ulysses, the Illuminated Adventures, next I think we’re going to move on to the Spiderwick Chronicles, and then the Mouse on the Motorcycle books as well as Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh. So maybe after that we’ll get to The Dark is Rising? It’s on the list for sure. Also need to get the Narnia Chronicles in there somewhere. It’s a big list. Kid is not a tremendous reader on his own due to physical vision issues but I’m hoping that eventually the bug will kick in, he loves listening to me read and audiobooks though.
We did most of the Narnia books already and other than them I’m giving a hard pass (at least now) to any books featuring cute mice in them because he’s a bit of an animist (NO MAMA don’t throw out THAT PIECE OF LITERAL GARBAGE if you throw it away YOU WILL HURT ITS FEELINGS) and we get mice almost every year for a month or two in the fall until we find out where they’re coming in from. so I don’t want him objecting to us not sharing living quarters with vermin.
Oh dear, yes I can understand why the anthropomorphized mice would be an issue! Boychild is overall skeptical of animals as living companions even though we have always had very friendly cats, life is a rich tapestry!
I took a solo pilgrimage to Cader Idris because of those books (I am 100% here for Greenwitch but The Grey King was my favorite), about 10 years ago while I was studying in London during college. I was ready for the place to be not as cool as I imagined it, or whatever, but it was November so nobody else was there and the weather was enchantingly capricious and it was absolutely every single bit as magical as I could ever ever have dreamed. A couple years later I wrote Susan Cooper a fan letter about the experience, and she sent me back a beautifully wistful handwritten note on a card featuring The Cat Who Walks By Himself, telling me how much she enjoyed my description of being alone on Cader in November, since these days she only ever gets to go to North Wales in the summer when she takes her grandkids there, and places like Cader are much more crowded and less magical then. 10/10 would recommend, both the pilgrimage and the correspondence.
I LOVE the Dark is Rising and just reread it. On the other hand, the ending of the series is bullshit, and also Susan Cooper ends all her books that same way for some reason (the Normal People forget all their adventures and go back to their regular lives).
There’s some pretty good Dark is Rising fanfic which usually takes place long after the series has ended. I really liked one where Jane’s troubled by dreams about the Dark, years later.
If you have a link I’d definitely be interested in that!
“I could yell German-ish yells while winding a horn”….is surely itself a single 30 letter German word, right?
Deutscheswortschrien waehrend des Horns spielen?
OK, I tried, but I just Frankenstein’s monster’d that together.
Is that not how actual German linguistics works?
Touche!
that was always my assumption, given that I’m in a discipline where Überlieferungsgeschichtliche is a thing that exists
Yeesh. German spelling bees must be murder.
That is exactly how it works. In this case I think it might be “Waehrenddeshorsspielendeutscheswortschreien” because the verb usually goes on the end, and personally I’d probably have gone for “Hornspielendedeutschesgeschreischreien” instead, but fabricating ridiculous compound nouns out is definitely legitimate linguistic practice.
As long as you’re using actual German morphemes– I once wasted 15min of my precious life being disgusted by a Tumblr post claiming that “Waltersobchakeit” was a German word meaning “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole” when CLEARLY that is a meaningless made-up word and if they had BOTHERED they could have EASILY come up with “Arschlocherweisenichtunrichtigkeit” which actually FUNCTIONS as a WORD…. until I suddenly got the Big Lebowski reference, and felt very silly about my misplaced Nerd Rage.
Hornspielbegeleitet Deutschwortschreien.
“I can ride both Western and the useless way.” SHOTS FIRED.
LITERALLY just came down here to say that!
Me too!!! Thankfully I do Centered Riding so I’m not on the receiving end of this incredible shade.
I mean, it DOES seem counterproductive…
we always called english saddles “self-emptying” where I grew up #reversesnobbery
Me and my tall boots are coming for you Mallory. I am an excellent shot with a lunge whip. You have been warned.
15. I actually already have a collection of swords so you don’t even need to give me a weapon!
16. I have long desired to murder shitty men and I feel like all that pent-up rage would be really helpful to the whole Wild Hunt goal.
You have my bow.
No, really. I have a recurve bow.
Most of these reasons are not me at all and my inability to yell German-sounding words probably disqualifies me and I’m scared of horses but can’t I go all Norse and ride along in a cat chariot or something? Yell some loud, angry numbers in Russian?
I wanna wild hunt too you guys!!
I would be all about the cat chariot with you! Panthers/jaguars for me. I like a jungle cat.
Does anyone else remember that weird Jane Yolen book…? It confused me so badly.
I do! It was great. (It was called The Wild Hunt.)
YES! with the boy and the cat and the dog and I still remember it even though I read it in like first grade, and still don’t understand it. At all.
God, I loved that book.
That one and Dogsbody by Diane Wynne Jones.
Ah, Dogsbody! Still one of my favorites.
My single greatest aspiration in life is to become an old woman who wears a hooded cloak at all times. It is all I have ever wanted in life — more than a fulfilling career, a loving partner, or financial security.
I just want to be the town witch with 3-5 cats and a flowing, massively-hooded, black wool cloak.
#toowitches
*sputters* Th-thank you! That’s the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me. *weeps with gratitude*.
I would also like to be able to wear a long cloak without feeling super self-conscious! (I am not old yet, but I’m getting there)
Right? I substitute with hooded coats (which is also just sensible) and I’m getting better with wearing shawls, but I’m not to cloak territory yet.
But I will be.
I totally have one of those cloaks. Wore it all of last winter.
It’s from Topshop (she said underwhelmingly).
Lol that’s like the time I bought a studded leather cuff from Delia’s.
I tend to buy winter jackets that have the hint of a cloak about them. For years I had a bright red wool coat that was slightly too small but was straight out of Little Red Riding Hood.
Now I have a beautiful dark grey, empire-waist, hooded coat that would be great in DC if it ever got cold enough for it.
I have essentially this cloak, that belonged to my grandmother. It’s cream rather than gray, and has fewer buttons and an additional belt, but it’s basically this. After buttoning it all the way up, I have roughly 30 seconds to get outside before I start sweating. I can only wear it if the temperature is below freezing, because it’s so incredibly warm. Oh, and it has hidden pockets in the sleeves.
gorgeous
Hidden pockets in the sleeves??? That is magical and I think you might be a witch and will you teach me how to witch?
The structure of the cloak has panels running the whole length of the thing inside the sleeves (so it’s sort of a regular coat, but with cloak bits where the sleeves would be), and there are pockets on the side. So the pockets aren’t actually part of the sleeve structure, but are still inside the sleeves. It’s a Sear’s original, probably made in the 60s, and I’m almost positive Grandma paid no more than 1/3 of its full price.
I have an image in my head — is it a bit like a cross between a poncho and a coat?
So, where those almost-princess-seams are, along the side? There’s a panel connecting those seams to matching ones on the back. So yes, like a poncho, a caftan, and a glorious wool coat had a cozy, beautiful baby with pockets for warm woolen mittens.
C’mon buddy Etsy is right there this is a very achievable dream
to dream … the achievable dream …
To fight the quite fightable foe
To bear with quite bearable feelings
And to run where lots of other folks go!
To right the quite minor wrong
To love both up close and afar
To try when you’re pretty well rested
To reach the quote reachable star!
This is my quest!
To follow that star!
Though it’s pretty easy,
I haven’t gone far
To fight for what’s right
With good words and applause
To be willing to march pretty far
For a good and just cause!
And I know that to be good and true
To this glorious quest
That I must engage in self care
And to get lots of rest.
Ooops my hand slipped.
I don’t yet have the gravitas! Do they sell gravitas or disdain on Etsy? I’d buy that immediately.
You don’t need to buy gravitas! Review Charlize Theron on how to murder walk. Then remind yourself that you have no fucks to spare on the opinions of strangers.
Charlize Theron is a goddess. I’m not sure I can match her murder walk.
I have a similar dream. When I get old I want to be the Margaret Rutherford version of Miss Marple, complete with dramatic cape and crime fighting. I’ve kind of screwed it up by getting married, but my spouse would be an able Mr. Stringer. I just need him to get a job at the public library so he can sneak me the best mysteries before the other old women.
I feel like my several terms of floundering in Medieval Welsh has really equipped me for this future. For example, I can scream random phrases in Welsh like ‘estuary’ and ‘I carry a head a my side!’ to both terrify and deeply confuse those who behold our passing. Also, I possess a vaguely reddish dog, and we all know red-and-white dogs are magical, right?
I am learning Welsh via Duolingo so I can join you and yell “Good evening!” “Friday!!” and “I am a dragon, Gareth!!”
Because Welsh Duolingo has its priorities straight
Fucking Gareth…
(I) have an excellent seat
At several points during my early twenties, I received a lot of noise complaints from neighbors in my apartment buildings.
I enjoy giving people rides.
This is terrific, thank you.
Here for all your innuendo needs!
It is interesting to me that “winding a horn” and “winding a watch” are spelled the exact same way and it is only the fact that one would never wind a watch nor wind a horn that allows one to work out the correct pronunciations.
…so I just now realized that these are not, in fact, pronounced the same way.
Yup. Mind *blown* right here.
And people complain about German.
German is a difficult language in a lot of ways but at least the pronunciations are fairly consistent, whereas English all over the place…
What do you mean? …Aren’t they pronounced the same?? Also, you actually say these phrases in real conversations? Also, I do have a watch that literally needs winding. You do wind watches???
What is English.
Apparently one winds a horn like the blowing of wind in the trees, not like the winding of a windy staircase, which is just blowing my mind right now. It makes complete sense – obviously you blow into a horn with your breath, which is like the wind – but I had always thought you wound a horn.
There is no good way to differentiate between these words.
OOHHHHHH that makes sense thx
I am available to accompany more assertive wild huntswomen as a hype person, possibly in a sidecar, yelling “YA BURNT” and cackling appreciatively. I will also bring snacks.
I would like to apply for the heckling job as well.
“Lord love me, I’m a follower”
By the next harvest moon, the Wild Hunt had a new, even more terrifying leader.
I can’t make up my mind between maenad and Wild Hunt and it’s seriously stalling my career in wreaking ruin.
Why not both?
If I’m right, Maenads tore apart men as their specialty while the Wild Hunt doesn’t have such a narrow focus. So I guess you need to decide what your goals are as a force of vengeance. May I also suggest being one of Zeus’ forces for retribution, a Harpy?
You raise an important point! I think I can safely dismiss Harpying because Zeus is such a tool, but why are all these savage and retributive forces canonically led by men, anyway? With my beloved Maenads, it’s Dionysus. The Wild Hunt is nearly always led by men. What gives?
There’s always the Erinyes, I suppose. They’re independent operators, right? But they have to listen to tone policing and complaints all the time. Plus, they seem fundamentally lawful. So perhaps not.
Maenads get a lot of complimentary booze as part of their ruin-wreaking activities.
Am now singing “Ghost Riders in the Sky” to myself.
I also admit that I would have real problems if I came across the Wild Hunt because I learned as a child to Never Give The Bullies What They Want, so if they want to chase you, you plant your feet in one place and you stand there no matter how close they get to your face. I want to believe the Wild Hunt can’t chase you if you don’t run.
I- have a deep and possibly unhealthy affection for Gwynn ap Nudd, which I blame on Diana Wynn Jones and Susan Cooper
– was an accomplished horse-child, have affinity for hoofed beasts
– fired a bow a couple of times, presumably could do so on horseback
– enjoy reminding people of the inevitability of death
– look fab in red
Thank you for considering my application
All I want for Christmas is the Welsh psychopomp Gwynn ap Nudd.
Re: #4
Oh no! Not the comely sons tho!
I would just like to point out that galloping in a hunt while topless is a dangerous endevour and should not be attempted by anyone. Trust me.
Also all the flowing robes are just a safety hazard waiting to catch on a tree and pull you off. These ladies are not the most practical in their hunting attire.
I know the Kitty Genovese story wasn’t exactly as egregious as it’s become in our popular imagination, but Lord love me, I’m a follower, and there are few things I love more than the diminished moral culpability that comes with being part of a big crowd
Disappointingly, I would make a terrible member of the Wild Hunt, because being part of a big crowd and going along with it makes me super uncomfortable, even if it’s just being in a concert hall or something where everyone is clapping along with the music in unison. Any sort of enforced jollity makes me deeply suspicious. (For this I blame my immediate family, who will always be the ones sitting grumpily with arms folded while the rest of the crowd enjoys a bonding moment; my dad spent my childhood telling me that people were either sheep or goats, and that being a sheep was something to be avoided.) See also: the equality and diversity training I had to attend a few weeks ago, where most of the attendees where laughing and joking around and I was sitting by myself and shouting things like “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE LAUGHING AT THIS, SEXUAL HARASSMENT IS NOT OKAY WHEN IT’S A WOMAN DOING IT”.
(Argh, just thinking about crowd behaviour and group dynamics is making me uncomfortable and miserable just sitting here by myself in silence; the diminished moral culpability that comes with being part of a large crowd is one of my least favourite things in the world. No Wild Hunt for me.)
Now I’m imagining the Wild Hunt being led by Herod in his Jesus Christ Superstar incarnation, which, I have to tell you, is a good visual.
#2 – it me. I am the WORST at conveying this kind of gossip. I try to resist but…
The Dark is Rising! I loved that series. I made a faux medieval manuscript in middle school with some of the Welsh lines from one of the poems. It was unfortunately the line that translates to “The mountains are singing and the lady comes” and it took me a really long time to realize why the rest of my classmates laughed so hard when I told them what the Welsh meant.
If I ride with an Australian stock saddle does that make me halfway useful or halfway useless? Either way, I can totally ride fast while yelling inappropriate things (some of them in badly pronounced Welsh) at people/ the world. So I’m in.
Ever since I read Tamsin I have wanted to be a member of the Wild Hunt, if only for the weekend. Like, is there a “City Slickers” type of touristy thing? Spend a weekend in the English countryside, ride a Pooka (so much scarier than a roller coaster! where would I end up?), chase down someone nasty by riding in the Wild Hunt. I’d pay for that.
I LOVE the Dark is Rising and just reread it. On the other hand, the ending of the series is bullshit, and also Susan Cooper ends all her books that same way for some reason (the Normal People forget all their adventures and go back to their regular lives).
AND MY AXE
And my bows and my swords and maybe a baseball bat.
I might have a cricket bat around here someplace…
There's some pretty good Dark is Rising fanfic which usually takes place long after the series has ended. I really liked one where Jane's troubled by dreams about the Dark, years later.
If you have a link I'd definitely be interested in that!
So I just finished Hild by Nicola Griffith. Early middle ages, kick-arse lead character, lots and lots of detail on 7th century Britain (feel the RESEARCH), with slatherings of Welsh, Briton and Anglo-Saxon, and the beginning of the rise of the Roman church. It doesn't get to the part where the lead character becomes part of the church, and eventually a saint.
So pretty much up many people's alleys here on this site.
Actually, not much happens plotwise other than travelling between villages and burghs, and some gruesome battles. But the RESEARCH didn't bore me (unlike Neal Stephenson), and it's not a misery-fest like many quasi-fantasy novels based on the Arthurian cycle. I should hasten to add it's not a fantasy novel – very much historical fiction.