The Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt has always been an enigmatic group throughout all of it's appearances and tales. Many tales and stories contradict one another about origin, motives, and purpose of the Wild Hunt, but there are some consistencies throughout its tales. The Wild Hunt first appeared at roughly 1200 BDR on the Moontide Isles. Most stories of their appearance revolve around a transgression of the humanfolk to the Fey of the isles. In one version, human hunters killed a favored stag of the Fey and the Hunt was called to hunt the hunters for their crimes. In another version, stories are that a human prince had journeyed into the Feylands to meet with the Fey King when humans first landed on the isle. After their meeting, the Fey King warned him not to step down from his horse until the greyhound he carried jumped down first. On their return, they had discovered that over a century had passed and the first of his men to dismount their horses aged and crumbled to dust. So now, the prince of old still rides with his riders since the greyhound has yet to jump down from the horse. In yet another version, a cruel nobleman who hunted for sport rather than for meat and hide lead his hunting party out for sport. Along their hunt, they passed a fey Eladrin who was disguised as a poor blinded huntsman. The huntsman asked the hunting party for meat from their quarry, but the nobleman scoffed and refused. Then while on the hunt, the nobleman was slain by a boar's tusk. He rose as the leader of the Hunt and he and his hunting party were cursed to hunt forever without yield of reward.
Most depictions of the Wild Hunt include a Leader of the Hunt and anywhere from twenty to thirty riders behind them. All of the huntsmen ride black horses, though the riders themselves vary in tellings from sylvan Fey, to human huntsmen, to spectral or undead riders. The Hunt is often preceded by hunting dogs, leading the chase for quarry. The Wild Hunt is said to leave tracks of the score of horses and hunting dogs that appear out of nowhere and similarly disappear into nothingness. In many variations of the stories, the riders and the hunting dogs ride through the sky, never setting foot on the ground.
Whatever the origins, the histories of the Daoine mark the first arrival of the Wild Hunt as tumultuous as they rode into a human village and left none behind. Some say that the villagers were compelled to join the hunt, while others claim that they were either slain or stolen away and taken to the Feywilds. In Daoine legends, the Wild Hunt has been a story of intiations into the wild, untamed, and chaotic forces of nature and its darker aspects, often dealing with the Fey or the dead, if not both. In Daoine culture, the Wild Hunt was used to keep children from straying too far from their family's lands and often an explanation for someone gone missing in the wilds--that they've been caught up in the hunt and centuries from now may cease their hunting.
The Northlanders have had fewer significant interactions with the Wild Hunt, though it still has its part in their culture. For the Northlanders, the leader of the Hunt is usually depicted as the god Tempest and he rides with fallen warriors joining him for hunt. The Hunt to them is signified by hearing Tempest's hunting dog's barking in the distance, then a second dog's answering bark. This is a signal that Tempest is hunting and with it comes weather change. Some Northlander traditions involve carrying a piece of steel and a piece of bread with them when traveling through the wilderness. If one encounters the Wild Hunt and sees Tempest first, they are to toss the steel before him as an offering. If they see the hunting dogs first, they toss the bread to them. The Northlanders refer to the Wild Hunt as the Jarljakt, or "the Chief's Hunt."
The Elves of the Moontide Isles believe the Wild Hunt is a force of nature and chaos with no explanation for motive, much like the Fey who are responsible for it. They believe that ultimately the Wild Hunt is a protector of the Isles, but a protector whose actions are difficult to explain. The Elves' name for the Hunt is I Roven Faroth, which is simply "the Wild Hunt."
In 255 DR, the Wild Hunt returned after being little more of a legend for so many years. The Daoine druid Lugh Dunaid was said to have lead the Wild Hunt, riding as its leader into the Oleander colony on Ilfor, destroying and devastating all of the Oleander peoples there as the Oleander Throne was attempting a full conquest of the Moontide Isles. This act garnered the respect of the Northlanders who believed that if Tempest allowed Dunaid to lead the Hunt, then Tempest approved of his might. It was the act that allowed the Northlanders submit to Lugh Dunaid's rule as the High King.

Spread

The Wild Hunt has mostly been a legend that has remained in the Moontide Isles. The stories of the Oleander colony's devastation and destruction by the Wild Hunt has reached the Oleander Throne, but they have been primarily dismissed as non-supernatural events and merely a Daoine cavalry that destroyed their settlements on Ilfor.

Variations & Mutation

The Daoine refer to it as the Wild Hunt, or sometimes the Wyld Hunt, or simply the Hunt. The Northlanders have named it the Jarljakt and the Elven name for it is the same as the Daoine, but is I Roven Faroth in their tongue.

In Art

In Caer Ceredig, there is a grand painting spanning an entire wall of the throne room depicting High King Lugh Dunaid leading the Wild Hunt for battle. There are tapestries and paintings of the Daoine that depict the Wild Hunt predating King Lugh's ride, but they tend to lean heavily into the mysticism and supernatural of the riders. There are few Fey artistic depictions left behind, though the few that do exist tend to depict the Leader of the Hunt with stag antlers, either from a helm or sprouting from the rider's head. There are little physical depictions of the Hunt from the Northlanders, though a few rhymes to remind wilderness travels to bring a piece of steel and a piece of bread as offering should they encounter the Hunt exist.

Names: The Wild Hunt, The Wyld Hunt, The Hunt, Jarljakt, I Roven Faroth