MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

VOL. VII.

THE

WILD HUNTSMEN.

THIS is a translation, or rather an imitation, of the Wilde Jäger of the German poet Bürger. The tradition upon which it is founded bears, that formerly a Wildgrave, or keeper of a royal forest, named Falkenburgh, was so much addicted to the pleasures of the chase, and otherwise so extremely profligate and cruel, that he not only followed this unhallowed amusement on the Sabbath, and other days consecrated to religious duty, but accompanied it with the most unheard-of oppression upon the poor peasants, who were under his vassalage. When this second Nimrod died, the people adopted a superstition, founded probably on the many various uncouth sounds heard in the depth of a German forest, during the silence of the night. They conceived they

still heard the cry of the Wildgrave's hounds; and the
well-known cheer of the deceased hunter, the sounds of
his horses' feet, and the rustling of the branches before
the
game, the pack, and the sportsmen, are also dis-
tinctly discriminated; but the phantoms are rarely, if
ever, visible. Once, as a benighted Chasseur heard this
infernal chase pass by him, at the sound of the halloo,
with which the Spectre Huntsman cheered his hounds,
he could not refrain from crying, "Gluck zu, Falken-
burg!" (Good sport to ye, Falkenburg!) "Dost thou
wish me good sport?" answered a hoarse voice; "thou
shalt share the game;" and there was thrown at him
what seemed to be a huge piece of foul carrion. The
daring Chasseur lost two of his best horses soon after,
and never perfectly recovered the personal effects of this
ghostly greeting. This tale, though told with some va-
riations, is universally believed all over Germany.

The French had a similar tradition concerning an aërial hunter, who infested the forest of Fontainbleau. He was sometimes visible; when he appeared as a huntsman, surrounded with dogs, a tall grisly figure. Some account of him may be found in "Sully's Memoirs," who says he was called, Le Grand Veneur. At one time he chose to hunt so near the palace, that the attendants, and, if I mistake not, Sully himself, came out into the

court, supposing it was the sound of the king returning from the chace. This phantom is elsewhere called Saint Hubert.

The superstition seems to have been very general, as appears from the following fine poetical description of this phantom chace, as it was heard in the wilds of Ross-shire.

"Ere since, of old, the haughty Thanes of Ross,
So to the simple swain tradition tells,-
Were wont with clans, and ready vassals throng'd,
To wake the bounding stag, or guilty wolf,
There oft is heard, at midnight, or at noon,
Beginning faint, but rising still more loud,
And nearer, voice of hunters, and of hounds,
And horns, hoarse-winded, blowing far and keen :—
Forthwith the hubbub multiplies; the gale
Labours with wilder shrieks, and rifer din
Of hot pursuit; the broken cry of deer
Mangled by throttling dogs; the shouts of men,
And hoofs, thick beating on the hollow hill.
Sudden the grazing heifer in the vale

Starts at the noise, and both the herdsman's ears
Tingle with inward dread. Aghast, he eyes
The mountain's height, and all the ridges round,
Yet not one trace of living wight discerns;
Nor knows, o'eraw'd, and trembling as he stands,
To what, or whom, he owes his idle fear,
To ghost, to witch, to fairy, or to fiend;
But wonders, and no end of wondering finds."

Scottish Descriptive Poems, pp. 167, 168.