For whom it might concern: I wrote a guest article on the Wild Hunt in Central European folklore - one that tries to be a bit more nuanced than "The Wild Huntsman is really Odin in disguise!".

EDIT: Gah, I thought I had included a link! It should be fixed now.

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[–] juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks for this information!

The way I see it, folk tales are basically a bundle of narrative tropes that can be switched out depending on the needs of the storyteller. So when the Wild Hunt narrative spread across Europe, people always tried to make it relevant to their local region. And in regions where there were still fragments of belief in Odin, it is not surprising that he appeared in one form or another - while in others, the Wild Hunt takes on rather stranger forms.

Ultimately, their main commonality is the strange noises you can hear in the countryside at night.

[–] stenAanden@feddit.dk 1 points 23 hours ago

I agree. There is a wide variety of stories just from Denmark and most clearly aren't Odin. One, King Volmer, is the Christian king Valdemar Atterdag, cursed to ride forever.

Also, if it wasn't clear, when I wrote that the article considered some stories to depict Odin, I meant specifically those from Sweden (Southern Sweden, specifically), Wojen and similar from Jutland and Wold from Northern-Germany.