Why does everyone in The Witcher keep talking about the Wild Hunt?

The Wild Hunt only gets a quick, blink-and-you-miss-it entry in the pilot’s The witcherbut they’ve certainly gotten a lot more exposure on the show since then, with notable performances in the second and third seasons – even grabbing Ciri (Freya Allan) by the shoulder in Part 1 of Season 3.

While not covered in much depth in most Seasons 2 or 3, they are an ominous force that is integral to understanding the season’s machinations and the greater Witcher universe moving towards The witcher season 3. In addition, their king was featured prominently in the prequel spin-off, The Witcher: Blood Origin.

While the Wild Hunt may not be the most urgent problem for Geralt (Henry Cavill) and Ciri in season 3 part 1, they certainly pose an existential threat, and one that – as we see in episode 3 of the new season – is getting closer and closer to the Cintran princess.

What is Wild Hunt?

The Wild Hunt is first mentioned in the second book of Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher, The sword of fate, and is the focus of the third video game. Called the Wraiths of Mörhogg by the islanders of Skellige, and known to themselves as the Red Riders, the Wild Hunt is a convoy of ghost riders galloping through the air, considered an omen signaling impending times of war The witcher show seems to observe. Their 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 rightly sparked murmurs among people about an apocalypse coming to their world. The same goes for the Ferryman in Season 3, though Geralt eases his concerns by calling the Wild Hunt “fairy tales.”

The scene comes just minutes after Geralt saves Ciri from being caught by the Wild Hunt, who leaves behind a black – and foreboding – piece of armor (complete with chain mail and bone) after Geralt uses his limited magic to drive them back. Still, Ciri seems haunted by the experience, sympathizing with Geralt about how she can still feel the spectral presence on her shoulder where someone grabbed her.

The idea of ​​the Wild Hunt actually predates the Witcher books, with a true mythological counterpart in the Northern European folklore motif, 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 it’s the undead, sometimes it’s fairies. While there are many accounts, the most widely accepted version was solidified by Jacob Grimm (of Brothers Grimm fame) in his book Teutonic Mythology, who claimed that he based them on Germanic stories.

Like their counterparts, the Wild Hunt are known for kidnapping unsuspecting souls to join their gruesome cavalcade. People from Skellige claim that the Wraiths of Mörhogg raid their shores aboard a ship called the Naglfar, a longship made from the nails and toenails of dead men, which led them to cut the nails of the dead to avoid the ghosts of building. to rob. materials. It’s a pretty gross and horrifying image, all things considered.

So why do the Wild Hunt do that?

These horsemen are not just ghosts, 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 ghostly appearance to inflate their numbers and hide those in their rank who are flesh and blood. It’s all a means to frighten onlookers as they make their inroads into people’s worlds.

In reality, the Wild Hunt are not the undead who 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 kidnap people, not to join their cavalry, but to take them to become slaves again in their world.

They could once move large numbers between worlds, allowing them to explore and conquer as they saw fit. But since the Conjunction of the Spheres, the cataclysmic event that collided dozens of dimensions, their powers have been limited. The Wild Hunt can now only take a few horsemen at a time, hence their illusions and theatrics, which intimidatingly but also deftly hide their true numbers.

That they have some power to move between worlds is a feat made possible by the Horsemen thanks to the King of the Wild Hunt, known to his brethren as Eredin Bréacc Glas, a general among the Aen Elle who supplies his people with unwilling subjects . Eredin has nothing but contempt for humans, but also views the elves of the human world, the Aen Seidhe, as lesser because they have been vanquished by humans.

The Witcher: Blood Origin marks Eredin’s first onscreen appearance in the Netflix Witcherverse, showing how he became the leader of the Wild Hunt – and with an origin story different from the one in the books. Captain Eredin (Jacob Collins-Levy) and a small group of his men find themselves stranded in a strange new world after tricking the evil mage Balor (Lenny Henry). While kneeling despondently in a wasteland, Eredin sees a broken skull buried in the sand. He puts it on his head and the Wild Hunt, it seems, is born.

With a few thousand years of history in the universe between the world of Blood origin And The witcher right, there’s a lot of unexplained Wild Hunt backstory. But if The witcher season 2 finale shows, they’re about to get a lot more relevant. As their ability to move between worlds diminishes and the Wild Hunt now sets its sights on a specific prize: in pursuit of Elder Blood’s.