Wild man

File:ADurerWoodwoses1499.jpg

Wild men support coats of arms in the side panels in Portrait of Oswald Krell (1499) by Albrecht Dürer

—Alte Pinakothek museum, Munich.

The wild man (Template:Langx), wild man of the woods is a mythical figure and motif resembling a hairy human that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe. Generally considered large-statured race of humans who are hairy all over its body, living in the wilderness or woodlands. They are often thought to be covered with moss, or wear green or vegetative clothing, and iconically wield a club or hold an uprooted tree as a staff. They also occur in female versions as wild women.

The (Template:Langx) is attested in Middle High German literature, particularly German heroic epicsTemplate:Efn while the female () figures in the Arthurian works,Template:Efn typically appear as adversaries. These beings are also called by names meaning "wood men"Template:Efn and in older forms of the language, "wood maiden",Template:Efn "wood wife",Template:Efn or "wood woman".Template:Efn In Middle English a corresponding term for the wild man is or .

In the folklore of German-speaking areas collected mainly in the 19th century, there are especially the Alpine wild man and wild women. These beings could be man-hunters or otherwise be sinister, but could also endow luck or bounty, exhibiting aspects of woodland spirits.

The folklore that had developed in the mining areas around Harz or Ore Mountains by the 16th century regarded the wild man of the mines (also known as "mountain monk"Template:Efn) as potentially both dangerous and beneficent, guiding humans to the discovery of ore deposits. The house of the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Brunswick-Lüneburg), which controlled one of the silver mines, minting silver thaler ("dollar") coinage with the wild man in their coat-of-arms, starting 1539.

These wild man had already frequently appeared in European family heraldic devices since the latter half of the 15th century.Template:Efn It also became commonplace to depict the wild man as shield-bearers of the family coat of arms (e.g., within a portrait painting by Albrecht Dürer, cf. image right).Template:Efn This period also roughly coincides with the popularization of the concept of the "noble wild man" or "noble savage" as can already be seen in Hans Sachs's "Lament of the Wild Men" (1530), and also reflected in artistic depictions of the wild folk from this period onward.

The defining characteristic of the figure is its "wildness"; iconography from the 12th century onward has consistently depicted the wild man as being covered with hair. Around the same transition period, biblicalTemplate:Efn or other humans afflicted with madness came to be conventionally depicted with hairiness, and subsequently, literary figures who temporarily loses sanity and live in the wild (Merlin, Ywain) also came to be associated with wild men.

Terminology

File:Tugendreiche Dame zähmt Wildmann.png

Late 15th century tapestry from Basel, showing a wild man being tamed by a virtuous lady

"Wild man" is a technical term in use since the Middle Ages, applied to a hairy human-like creature with certain animal-like traits but which has not quite descended to the level of ape; it may have hairless spots around the face, palms, feet, sometimes elbows and knees, and around the breasts in case of the female "wild woman". If the creature exhibits additional animal-like traits, it may not be a wild man in question, but rather the satyr, faun, or the devil (Bernheimer's definition).

"Wild man" and its cognates in some languages are the common terms for the creature in most modern languages;Template:Sfnp it appears in German as , in French as . But in Italian "forest man" is often used.Template:Sfnp

The German wild man () also occurs in a more modern folklore tradition, localized in a region spanning from Switzerland to Carinthia, Austria (and often Hesse in Germany) according to the Template:Illm (HdA),Template:Sfnp registered under such names as ,Template:Sfnp ,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp , , , . Plural forms are: ,Template:Sfnp or Template:Sfnp or . Females are also called (pl. ).Template:Sfnp

The "wild man" is attested in Middle High German as in the 13th century, once in a lyrical poemTemplate:Efn alluding to the story of the giant Sigenot, i.e., an epic featuring both giant and wild man, from the Dietrich von Bern cycle.Template:Efn Another attestation occurs in the Arthurian romance Template:Illm which gives (v. 203),Template:Sfnmp as well as the female form (vv. 112, 200, 227ff.)Template:Sfnmp (For additional examples in MHG literature cf. Template:Section link below).

In Old High German, the term (Template:Lit) together with (Template:Lit)Template:Efn occurs in a glossary under the heading of the Latin term lamia (female monster).Template:Efn The same glossary under the heading of Latin (Template:Lit but here understood to be equivalent to strix of mythology) gives the gloss .Template:EfnTemplate:SfnmpTemplate:Sfnp There are also the forms (holzwîbTemplate:Sfnp),Template:RefnTemplate:EfnTemplate:Efn as well as Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp and numerous others.Template:Sfnp

Another old example is the mention of " " ("house of the wild women"), a piece of landmark or toponymy somewhere in Hessen,Template:Refn mentioned in Template:Illm (c. 1150) by the monk Eberhard of Fulda or a text close to it.Template:RefnTemplate:SfnmpTemplate:SfnmpTemplate:Efn

Wood-folk type synonyms

The wild man is referred to as in Wolfdietrich,Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnmp and in the same work, the title hero must deal with the advances of Template:Illm ("Shaggy Else"), classified as a wild woman (cf. Template:Section link below).

In the epic Laurin the wild man is referred to as a (Template:Lit).Template:Sfnmp The same term is used in Iwein to characterize the herdsman as a wild man, and he is also described as being as hairy as a (Template:Lit) (Cf. Iwein discussed below under Template:Section link).

A group of OHG glosses for wild woman (lamia, etc.) was already discussed above. In MHG, an attested synonym for wild woman is (Template:Lit).Template:Refn

In modern regional folklore, the creatures with sylvan (wood-related) names that correspond to the Alpine wild folk are the or (wood- or moss people) of Central Germany, Franconia, and Bavaria;Template:Sfnp aka , of the Bohemian Forest and the Upper Palatinate;Template:Sfnp the Waldweiblein and (Template:Lit) of the Harz mountains region;Template:Sfnp the (Template:Lit; {{pl.|) of Halle further east in Saxony;Template:Sfnp and the (Template:Lit) of Westphalia.Template:Sfnp Usage of names such as Lohjungfer, Holzfräulein, extends further south in Saxon Vogtland.

is synonymous to ,Template:Refn which is an exception, since and its extensions (cf. Fänge below) generally refer to females. The variant form is also given in commentary.Template:Sfnp As for ("goatherd") or ("cowherd"), the wild man may be designated by the name of his profession in a narrative where he is engaged in the herding of livestock.Template:Refn

Other aliases

Folklore in Tyrol and German-speaking Switzerland into the 20th century refers to the wild woman called (var. , ), commented as being equivalent to Selige Fräulein (Salige Frau)Template:Sfnp This name is thought to be post-medieval neologism deriving from the Latin fauna, the feminine form of faun.Template:Sfnp The wild women of the Alpine region are "identical to or closely related to" the Fänggen or the Salige (Salige Frauen).Template:Sfnp The extended form is considered a male noun (ein Wild-fang), but Wild-fang (var. ) is still applied to a female.Template:Efn2

The wild man is called a (corruption of "wild man") , or in Wälsch-Tirol (present-day Trento Province),Template:Sfnp which may be spelt or ,Template:Refn with usage extending to Lombardy.Template:Sfnp The wild man is called by Ladin language-speakers in Folgrait (Folgaria) and Trambileno; this is readily recognizable as equivalent to French , where Old French derives from Latin "sylvan, pertaining to forest".Template:Sfnp Hence the names in this grouping are related to Silvanus, the Roman tutelary god of gardens and the countryside.Template:Sfnp The (medieval Latin) term was in fact used in the sense of "wild woman" by Burchard of Worms in the 10th century,Template:Refn and it has been suggested he was referring to beings who would have been called in dialect according to modern-day folklore.

The local name or was supposedly current either in Ronchi near Ala, or the aforementioned Folgrait and Trambileno areas.Template:SfnpTemplate:Efn Likewise there are a sort of wild women known as or (diminutive: ) in Carinthia.Template:Efn

It is contended that the Template:Refn or Orke or ;Template:Efn Template:Refn or ;Template:EfnTemplate:Efn or ,Template:Efn , in folklore from parts of the Alps, particularly Tyrol, also may correspond to the wild man,Template:Refn with the proviso that these (especially diminutives) are names for "wild dwarf people".Template:Refn This appears to be connected to Italian (Template:Langx, Template:Pl.) in the sense of "subterraneans"Template:Efn (≈dwarfs or gnomes), or perhaps rather a "harmless wild folk" version of the orco such as appears in the literary fairy tales of the Pentamerone. The Italian orco is cognate to French ogre,Template:Sfnp as is modern literary orcs, and is related to Orcus, a Roman and Italic god of death.Template:SfnmpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Efn

The (Template:Lit; Template:Pl.Template:Efn) of the Giant Mountains is also considered another regional fabulous being corresponding to the wild woman of the Alpine Region.Template:Sfnp

English terms

In Old English/Anglo-Saxon there is recorded meaning "satyr" or "faun", a compound of "woodland, forest" and of uncertain etymology, though perhaps meaning "forest dweller"; or else it may perhaps be a compound formed from *wāsa "being", from the verb wesan, wosan "to be, to be alive".

From it has derived Middle English Template:Sfnp Variant spellings include , etc. The ME term wodehose was ambiguously singular or plural.Template:RefnTemplate:Refn

As for examples of usage, Wycliffe's Bible (after 1382 [to 1395]), in Isaiah 13:21, used (Template:Pl.Template:RefnTemplate:Efn rather than the King James Version's "satyr" to translate the original Hebrew (pronounced Template:Translit, meaning "hairy [one]"). Latin translation gave , and LXX rendered as (daimon).

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1390), Gawain is said to have fought with a worms (dragons) as well as a "wodwos" that lived in the craggy rocks;{{Refn|Gawain vv. 720–721 "Sumwhyle wyth wormez he werrez.. /Sumwhyle wyth wodwos þat woned in þe knarrez". ("[warred] with dragons.. [and] wild men who dwelt among the crags") this wild man (woodwose) has no relation to the Green Knight, but is just another enemy whom Sir Gawain happens to encounter in journey.

The Middle English word is first attested for the 1340s in the context of decorative piece of art depicting a wild man, namely a piece of tapestry of the Great Wardrobe of Edward III,Template:RefnTemplate:Efn but as a surname it is found as early as 1251, of one Robert de Wudewuse. The Middle English term meaning "wild man" is found embedded in the Anglo-Norman caption to a painting in the Taymouth Hours (15th century)Template:Refn (cf. Template:Section link)

There has been continued use in modern English for "woodwose, woodhouse", though now obsolete, displaced in modern usage by "wild man". The surnames Wodehouse or Woodhouse may derive straightforwardly from "house in the woods", or as a corruption of woodwose.

Medieval literature

File:The Fight in the Forest (Hans Burgkmair d. Ä.).jpg

The Fight in the Forest, drawing by Hans Burgkmair, possibly of a scene from the Middle High German poem Sigenot, about Dietrich von Bern

File:Karlsruhe BLB CodDon71 125r-Wigalois&Ruel.jpg

The fearsome Rûel (considered a wild woman) carrying off Wigalois

Verbal descriptions of the wild folk in medieval literature will be mainly discussed here. Visual depictions during the medieval period will be discussed under Template:Section link.

German epic

That the German epic Sigenot (cf. image right) featured both the giant named Sigenot and the wild man was certainly known in the 13th century, as the minnesinger Heinrich Frauenlob sings " (Where came the giant Sigenot and the Wild Man, with Parzival?)", but the actual so-called elder Sigenot (13th century) is lost except in a fragmentary state, so the attestations come from the Younger SigenotTemplate:Sfnp (15th century mss. and printed editions) as ".

The female character Template:Illm ("Shaggy Else") in Wolfdietrich is also considered a wild woman example. She is a hairy woman crawling on all fours trying to get Wolfdietrich to marry her, but when he does not comply, casts a spell that turns him into a madman roaming the woods. God commands her to reverse the spell, and Wolfdietrich is now willing to marry her ("so long as the wild woman gets baptized"). Fortunately, when she dips into a spring she sheds her furry skin and transforms into a beautiful maiden, now calling herself Sigeminne.Template:SfnpTemplate:SfnpTemplate:SfnmpTemplate:RefnTemplate:Efn She (, christened Sygemin) is also mentioned as being the first wife of Wolfdietrich in the Anhang zum Heldenbuch.

In the Arthurian Wigamur there is the wildez wîp (wild woman) who dwells in a hole in a rock.Template:Sfnmp In another Arthurian epic Wigalois, the dwarf named Karriôz is explicitly stated to have a wildez wîp as his mother.Template:Sfnmp In Wigalois there also appears a monstrous female of the woods named Rûel (cf. image right) as an adversary to the title hero, and though she is also described as a "wild woman" by modern commentators, she is not to be confused with Karriôz's mother.

French epic

A "black and hairy" forest-dwelling outcast is mentioned in the tale of Renaud de Montauban, written in the late 12th century.Template:Sfnp

Although the romance of Valentine and Orson can be discussed as an example of a wild man narrative,Template:Sfnp this is rather recognizable as a fictional treatment of the feral child.

Welsh and Irish literature

For the Myrddin Wyllt (mad Merlin) Suibhne Geilt (Mad Sweeney) driven to live in the wilderness and interpreted by some modern commentators as exhibiting the Wild Man of the Woods motif, cf. Template:Section link (under §Medieval parallels) below.

Medieval to Renaissance transition

Template:Also As the name implies, the main characteristic of the wild man is his wildness. Civilized people regarded wild men as beings of the wilderness, the antithesis of civilization. Such had been the medieval view through the High Middle Ages. That is to say, the wild man had been something that civilized people strove to reject..

The regard for the wild man as such an abominable fearsome character began to blunt, and by the 14th century in the example of the Bal des Sauvages held by King Charles VI of France (cf. Template:Section link) the wild man was being employed in costume, not so much as embodiment of evil and savagery, but as a toything of court nobles.Template:Sfnp

The paradigm had reversed and the Wild Man became the Noble Savage by the time of Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590, 1596)Template:Efn and Hans Sachs's Klag der wilden holtzleut uber die ungetrewen welt ("Lament of the Wild Men about the Unfaithful World", 1530) and it became an iconic model.Template:EfnTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Bernheimer analyzes this as a backlash reaction by the nobility of having to live within the constraints of aristocratic conventions and chivalric code.

Although emergence of the concept of the "Noble Savage" (Template:Langx) had occurred post-discovery of the Americas, according to one observer not inconsistent with the foregoing 16th century examples, much of the scholarship on the Noble Savage pertains to thinking of the Enlightenment Period (18th century). The coinage of the term "noble savage" itself has often been (falsely) attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Template:Sfnp though refuted;Template:Sfnp as Rousseau never actually used that term himself, even though the philosopher did profusely use the construct of "savage" to critique various aspects of civilized society.Template:Sfnp

Modern folklore

The purported nature of these wild folk or wood people in folklore, like the lore of demons in general, is highly ambiguous, unpredictable and mutable.Template:Sfnp

When the wild men appear in solitary fashion, they are similar to giants and ogres, while the women tend to be more goddess-like.Template:Sfnp

Physical characteristics

Giants or dwarfs

The wild people can be dwarfish or be gigantic in size.Template:Sfnp And this may not necessarily be regional variations: the wild folk of Bernhardswald (in Schlüchtern Hesse) are purported to be giants or dwarfs depending on the season.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp

They can be of different temperaments, but may exact vengeance on those who are frightened by them,Template:Refn or mock them Template:Refn In that case, the smaller wild folk are more easily appeased, while the giant types will tear their tormentors apartTemplate:Refn or curse them with "seven times seven generations of curses and woe"29)

Friedrich Ranke argues that the legends concerning the wild people in Central Germany became less frightening, because the forests themselves shed much of their eeriness due to development and deforestation, so that only the low rolling hills remained. Thus in this regions, the folklore concerned the wild little folk of "harmless good nature",Template:Efn

Attire

The wild man stereotypically carries an uprooted fir tree,Template:RefnTemplate:Refn or an iron clubTemplate:Refn or an iron pole,Template:Refn etc.

Alpine wild man

There are also the Alpine wild man recorded by modern folklorists, whose lore is generally found in the lore of Alps (mountainous Italian Tyrol and Italian and German-speaking parts of Grisons, Switzerland). The wild man of the Alps had the reputation of abducting women and devouring humans, particularly children. In Grisons it is also accused of depositing its changeling child, swapping it with a human baby.Template:Sfnp Allegedly peasants in the Grisons tried to capture the wild man by getting him drunk and tying him up in hopes that he would give them his wisdom in exchange for freedom.Template:Sfnp This is noted as paralleling the capture of Silenus already described by Xenophon (d. 354 BC),Template:Sfnp with Silenus being described as a satyr which Midas caught by getting him drunk with wine.Template:Efn

Legend also has it that humans were able to capture it once by getting it drunk, thereby learning the manufacture of cheese.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp

A legend from Folgrait (Folgaria) has it that a certain man heard the noise of the wild man hunting, and called out to him in rhymed couplet to give him a share,Template:Efn and received half a human corpse at his doorstep, subsequently having to take the trouble to have the hunter take back the unwanted gift.Template:Sfnp There are also variant versions with different rhymes from Ritten and Barbian.Template:RefnTemplate:Efn However, in a cognate tale from Vallarsa, the wild hunter is not specified as a "wild man". It is comparable to a similar wild hunter myth from Northern Germany, that if anyone calls out to heckle the hunt, hunter forces a "half portion" () of foul-smelling game or human part, reciting a couplet that if you join in the hunt, you must help out with the chewing.Template:Refn

A legend held that Wildmannli dwelled in the Gross Windgällen mountain in the canton of Uri, Switzerland that disapproved of humans hunting on Sundays, and a hunter who breached the taboo and shot a chamois was turned to stone.Template:Refn

Alpine wild woman

File:Zaunert1921-p072a.jpg

Wilde Frauen/Fräulein of the woods.

—Woodcut by Maria Braun (1921)Template:Sfnp

Template:Also Meanwhile, the Tyrolian and Swiss Fängge ()Template:Sfnp as well as the Austrian Salige Frau are (subtypes or aliases of the) wild woman.Template:Refn

The wild woman basically matches the female version of the wild man in appearance, and notably has drooping breastsTemplate:RefnTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp (for which the Tyrolean wild woman has earned the nickname Template:Sfnp however, she may appear in the form of beautiful women.

The wild woman, the Fängge, and the Salige Frau are all associated with protecting alpine game, especially the chamoisTemplate:EfnTemplate:Sfnp The legendary protectress called of Nachtberg (a peak situated between Thiersee and Brandenberg, Austria) is not explicitly called a wild woman in the original telling,Template:Refn but is classified as such.Template:Sfnp In the tale, the tall woman dressed in green robe commands a shepherd to kill all poachers, otherwise she will destroy his entire flock. He obliges, and due to the reputation the Kaiserfrau harms hunters, the stock of game in the forest rebounds.Template:Refn

The wild women of Styria, Austria were said to reside mostly on Mt. Schöckl. They have a hollow or troughTemplate:Efn-like back (hence comparable to the skogsnuva of Sweden), so they can pretend to be old tree trunks instantly by turning their backs, even when a hiker senses the presence of the beautiful wild woman. The wild women of Schöckl are said to be hunted by the Wild Hunt that travels on flying sleds carrying demons.Template:SfnpTemplate:Efn

Iconography

File:Wildweibchen mit Einhorn.jpg

Wild woman with unicorn, tapestry c. Template:Trim–1510 (Basel Historical Museum).Template:Efn

In art the hair more often covers the same areas that a chemise or dress would, except for the female's breasts (cf. fig. right); male knees are also often hairless. As with the feather tights of angels, this is probably influenced by the costumes of popular drama.

By the 12th century the wild folk were almost invariably came to be described as hairy all over,Template:Sfnp having a coat of hair covering their entire bodies except for their hands, feet, faces above their long beards, and the breasts and chins of the females.Template:Sfnp

Around the same 12th century, the conventions of hairiness came to be extended to certain legendary personages in mentally altered states.Template:SfnpTemplate:Efn A prime example was the biblical Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon who went mad was no longer depicted as a smooth-bodied human, but a hairy creature. Other examples were ascetic saintsTemplate:Efn (cf. Template:Section link) or literary hermits such as the Merlin of the Welsh (cf. Template:Section link) or Arthurian Ywain who were overcome by a spell of madness or lovelorn dementia (cf. Template:Section link).Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Bernheimer asserts that medieval paintings of Nebuchadnezzar came to be conventionally depicted as a wild man in crouching positions as according to contemporary ideas, even though that image contradicted the verbal biblical description in Daniel 4 (Book of Daniel, 2nd century BC), which ascribed feather-like growths of hair like eagles, and bird-like claws.

The wild man was used as a symbol of mining in late medieval and Renaissance Germany. The town of Wildemann in the Upper Harz was founded during 1529 by miners who, according to legend, met a wild man and wife when they ventured into the wilds of the Harz mountain range. For use as heraldic devices in the German mining area and elsewhere, cf. Template:Section link below.

File:Wilden-Fünf (Meister der Spielkarten).png

The Five of Wild Men, by the Master of the Playing Cards, before 1460

Some early sets of playing cards have a suit of Wild Men, including a pack engraved by the Master of the Playing Cards (active in the Rhineland c. 1430–1450), some of the earliest European engravings.Template:Sfnp A set of four miniatures on the estates of society by Jean Bourdichon of about 1500 includes a wild family, along with "poor", "artisan" and "rich" ones.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Medieval iconography

Manuscript illuminations

File:Manuscript 7 104v picture.jpg

Wild people, in the margins of Book of Hours (ca. 1510-1520)

—Syracuse University Library ms. Latin, f.104v

The wild folk are featured in the marginal paintings (drollery) in a number of illuminated manuscripts. There are wild men and women painted in the narrative border around the miniature of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Book of Hours held at the Syracuse University Library (cf. fig. left).

In the Taymouth Hours (15th century), there are a series of miniatures ( illustrations) recounting a story of a wild man abducting a maiden. Though the captions in this work are written in Anglo-Norman French, the wild man is called , which is a Middle English term.Template:RefnTemplate:Sfnp

There is also the drollery of a wild man being baited by three dogs, in the Queen Mary Psalter (14th century).Template:RefnTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

Mural art

The wild herdsman in Iwein

The wild herdsman in Iwein

The herdsman character who is only a in Chrétien 's Old French Yvain, the Knight of the Lion (though described as a "wild man" in modern scholarship) is literally a wild man (, "man of the woods") in Hartmann's Middle High German Iwein. The wild herdsman is depicted as a club-carrying wild man on one of the fresco murals of the Iwein cycle at Template:Illm (Castello di Rodengo) in South Tyrol (cf. image right). The wild man is similarly painted on the mural at Schmalkalden Castle (Wilhelmsburg Castle). The man wears a skin with two paws attached to it, perhaps the influence of the Greek hero Hercules (wearing the lion skin).Template:Sfnp

There is a giantess room series among the Runkelstein Castle (Castel Roncolo) fresco murals, and the label "Fraw Riel" suggests identification with the female Rûel of Wigalois (mentioned above as being categorized as wild woman by some modern commentators).Template:Efn The Runkelstein frescos are themed on a triads of heroes, giantesses, and giants, etc. The giant Schrutan is one of them, who figures in the epic Rosengarten zu Worms as one of the single combat participants.Template:Efn Although clad in knightly armor, he holds an uprooted tree, and the Schrutan in this painting is "encoded as a giant-wild man hybrid" according to one art critic.

Engravings

File:Wild Man, design for a Stained Glass Window by Hans Holbein the Younger.jpg

Classicized Wild Man design for a stained-glass window, studio of Hans Holbein the Younger, c. Template:Trim–1528 (British Museum)

Albrecht Dürer depicts the wild man pursuing the maiden in his "Coat of Arms of Death" (1503), of which it is commented that the wild man springs to life from the conventional immobile role as shield-bearer of heraldic device (cf. also another of his work discussed under Template:Section link below).Template:Sfnp

English examples

Carved image of a group of wild men (woodwoses) engaged in battle with a beast form a roof boss in Canterbury Cathedral, and is grouped among a number of Green Man bosses present in the cathedral.Template:Efn There is also a furry wild man depicted in the crypt of the Canterbury Cathedral.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp The visual artistic depictions of the English wild man (woodwose) and the green man merged during the Middle Ages to form a single type.

Classical influences

There are instances where medieval depiction of satyr or faunus lose their beastly traits (hooves and horns), turning into creatures not so far apart from wild men.Template:Sfnp

Medieval myth and art also adopted a convention of depicting the Greek hero Heracles, clad in lion skin and carrying a club as a wild man, sometimes of a more conventional typeTemplate:Efn or more outlandishly as a tailed monster with clawed feet.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp (e.g. painting at Schmalkalden, described above)

Gallery of artwork

• Knight saving a woman from a wild man, ivory coffer, 14th century
  Knight saving a woman from a wild man, ivory coffer, 14th century
• "Wild Man", c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters"./22, bronze by Paulus Vischer
  "Wild Man", c. Template:Trim/22, bronze by Paulus Vischer
• Tapestry: Wild Men and Moors, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". (Museum of Fine Arts Boston)[71]
  Tapestry: Wild Men and Moors, c. Template:Trim (Museum of Fine Arts Boston)
• Gargoyle, Moulins Cathedral
  Gargoyle, Moulins Cathedral
• Wild family, miniature by Jean Bourdichon, from a set showing The Four States of Society
  Wild family, miniature by Jean Bourdichon, from a set showing The Four States of Society

Heraldry

Wild Men as shield-bearer

File:Christian den Førstes sekret 1449.png

An early example of the wild man acting as an heraldic supporter appears in the seal of Christian I of Denmark (1449)

File:Sammlung Ludwig - Artefakt und Naturwunder-Schongauer-Wilder Mann80410.jpg

Martin Schongauer engraving, Shield with a Greyhound, 1480s.

File:Wilder Mann mit Wappen 1589.jpg

Wild-man supporter from 1589 (arms of the Holzhausen family)

By the second half of the fifteen century, it became widely conventional to have engravings made of a wild man holding up a shield (escutcheon) bearing the family's coat of arms (cf. images left).Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Particular examples include the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (cf. also Template:Section link below) and later by the royals of Brandenburg–Prussia.Template:Sfnp

To avail themselves to this needs, the engravers came up with the idea of having a prototype or template at hand of a wild man holding up a blank shield, so that the proper emblem can be filled in to cater to the particular patron. Martin Schongauer was one such engraver, four heraldic shield engravings of the 1480s which depict wild men holding heraldic shield (emblems of moor, greyhound, stag, and lion).Template:Efn

Dürer in his Portrait of Oswald Krell (1499) drew two wild men supporting family heraldic shields. The one on the left wears a green garment made of moss, the one on the right is hairy all over (see image at top of page).

The wild man appears in the coats of arms of e.g. Naila and of Wildemann.

• The city of Antwerp introduced supporters for its coat of arms during 1881, with a "wild woman" and a wild man[75]
  The city of Antwerp introduced supporters for its coat of arms during 1881, with a "wild woman" and a wild man
• Arms of Kostelec nad Černými lesy, Central Bohemia
  Arms of Kostelec nad Černými lesy, Central Bohemia
• Canting coat of arms of the city of Lappeenranta, Finland: the Swedish name of the city is Villmanstrand, originally spelled as Viltmanstrand
  Canting coat of arms of the city of Lappeenranta, Finland: the Swedish name of the city is Villmanstrand, originally spelled as Viltmanstrand
• The German Glücksburg dynasty used Heracles as a Hellenic version of a wild man when they became the royal family of Greece
  The German Glücksburg dynasty used Heracles as a Hellenic version of a wild man when they became the royal family of Greece
• Coat of arms of the Dutch municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch (den Bosch), capital of the province of North Brabant
  Coat of arms of the Dutch municipality of 's-Hertogenbosch (den Bosch), capital of the province of North Brabant
• Wild man, blazoned "demi-savage", on crest of Scottish clan Murray
  Wild man, blazoned "demi-savage", on crest of Scottish clan Murray

Numismatics

File:Wildermannmünze 1.jpg

Henry the Younger's wild man taler, 1549 mintage.

The so-called Template:Illm was a type of taler (thaler, "dollar") denomination coins featuring a standing wild man on the reverse, first struck by Duke Henry the Younger of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1539,Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp using the silver mined from the Upper Harz mountains.Template:Sfnp Thus, much of this wild man is really part of silver-mining folklore, rather than alpine or forest region folklore. The standing wild man on the early coin (and some heraldic illustrations) depicts a wild man holding a club (uprooted treeTemplate:Sfnp) and a clump of burning flame in the other hand (cf. photo right).Template:Sfnp The folkloric explanation of the flame is that it represents a light source or beacon of light to guide humans through the dark mine tunnels to the ore source or silver vein, as clarified by the work of Template:Illm and Ina-Maria Greverus (1967). Heilfurth regards the wild man in this context to be a type of or "mountain spirit" (which is really a generic term or class used by modern folklorists), better known as or "mountain monk" in the folklore of the Harz mountains. The explanation of the "monk" name comes from the historical fact that the neighboring Walkenried Monastery held control of the workings of the Harz mining operation at one time.Template:Sfnp

The lore of the mining spirit type wild man (or the Template:Sfnp) was localized mainly in the Harz and the Ore Mountains.Template:Sfnp The folklore is attested in the following piece of 16th century writing, which stated that in the community of Wildemann (town named after "wild man"):

helt man dafür, daß daß Closter von Walckenred sonderlichen den Wildemanner Zog inne gehabt, beleget vnd gebawet hat, weil sich der Daemon Metallicus, der Bergteuffel, den die Bergleut daß Berg Mänlein nennen, in einer gestalt eines großen Mönchs hat sehen laßen, fürnemlich auff der Zechen Wildemann, da viel guter leute denselbigen gesehen, auch offtmals großen schaden gethan vnd angericht.
(It is believed that the Walkenried Monastery held, occupied, and built upon the Wildemann mine in particular, since the or mountain devil, whom the miners call the "mountain manikin" (, i.e. gnome), appeared in the form of a large monk, especially at the Wildemann mine, where many good people saw him, and he often caused great damage and destruction.

— Template:Comma separated entries

There is also the political and polemical interpretation of the wild man and flame emblem, namely, Henry the Younger was insinuating threat of violence, even the burning down of townships.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp When Henry's less quarrelsome son Julius succeeded as duke, the flame on the coin was replaced by a candle or taper, and these coins are known as the or "Light taler" among numismatists. Later, Julius added other objects, the skull, the hourglass, and eyeglasses to the composition.

In dance and festival

Aspects of German folk traditions about the wild man was preserved in performances of ("wild man play") and (dance), which tended to be held during Shrovetide/Carnival season.Template:Sfnp

In the of the Carnival of Basel a wild man would take the first dance alongside other masked figures; this wild man held an uprooted tree in hand, and was entwined with leaves around the head and loins. There is a 1435 account of the wild man dance in Basel featuring 23 such wild men ().Template:Sfnp

In the 15th century Fastnachtspiel (carnival play) "Ein spil von holzmennern", two men of the woods quibble over the female (holzweip) of their kind.Template:Sfnp In Etschland (Etschtal),Template:Efn Ulten,Template:Efn and Vinschgau in South Tyrol,Template:Refn. An example given of the Wildemannspiel conducted at Marling in South Tyrol: a youth and two younger boys are dressed up in beard moss hair, with a jangling chain of snail shells, holding a young tree as staff, and he waited in a cave towards St. Felix and dressed up schoolgirls were tasked to enter the forest and find the three of them.Template:Refn

More examples come from civic celebrations or processions. At the Schembart Carnival of Nuremberg there were participants (Template:Langx Template:Lit, or called "mummers") dressed up as a wild man (Holtzmendlein) holding up a dwarf (on a stick) as captive, together with a wild woman (Holtzfrewlein), likely a man in "drag" (as the breast portion is laid bare) (cf. image right).Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp

In Swiss locales of Vitznau, Weggis, Gersau, Küssnacht there is the or representing the wild man, with the local folk dressing up as them using moss, bark, leaves, etc., and holding a whole tree as staff.

Outside of German-speaking regions, the , a large-scale Pentecostal play about the wild man was put on in Padua in the year 1208, and 1224; not much is known about these except it featured giants (gigantibus). Another ludus was held in Aargau, Switzerland in 1399.Template:Sfnp

File:Pontius und Sidona cpg142 122r.png

Pontus and his train disguised as wild men at the wedding of Genelet and Sidonia. Illustration of a manuscript of a German version of Pontus and Sidonia (1400, manuscript CPG 142, fol. 122r, c. 1475).

File:Fire carles6-dancers.jpg

Dancers dressed up as wild men who caught fire. Detail of Bal des Ardents by the Master of Anthony of Burgundy (c. 1470s),

It also became fashionable at one time for participants in the carousels at court festivals to dress up as club-carrying wild men (cf. image right).

King Charles VI of France and five of his courtiers were dressed as wild men and chained together for a masquerade at the tragic Bal des Sauvages which occurred in Paris at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, 28 January 1393 (cf. image lef). They were suited up "six quilts of fabric coated with pitch then stuck with flax (linen) fibers in the form and shape of hair", making themselves out to be ", covered in hair from head right up to the soles of their feet".Template:RefnTemplate:Sfnp A careless torch set the costumers aflame, and all but one of the courtiers died; the king's own life saved by his aunt the Duchess of Berry, who covered him with her dress. There exist paintings of this scene in copies of Froissart's Chroniques (as green men; compare similar image right).Template:Refn It is supposed that "dyed tufted flax" was usedTemplate:Sfnp to simulate the hair.

England's Henry VIII held a wild man dance on the Twelfthnight at the Great Hall of Greenwich in 1515

The Burgundian court celebrated a known as the ("Passage of arms of the Wild Lady") in Ghent in 1470. A knight held a series of jousts with an allegoric meaning in which the conquest of the wild lady symbolized the feats the knight must do to merit a lady.

Medieval parallels

Old High German had the terms , or , which appear in glosses of Latin works as translations for , , or , identifying the creatures as hairy woodland beings.Template:Sfnp Some of the local names suggest associations with characters from ancient mythology. Slavic has leshy "forest man".

Scandinavian folklore

The wild women of Styria, Austria were said to reside mostly on Mt. Schöckl. They have a hollow or troughTemplate:Efn-like back (hence comparable to the skogsnuva of Sweden

Celtic mythology

Template:Further information There are medieval Welsh,Template:Sfnp Irish,Template:Sfnp and Scottish mythical narratives about men going mad and living in the wilderness, considered as part of the Celtic Wildman tradition according to scholars.Template:Sfnp

The Welsh tradition regarding Myrddin Wyllt ("mad Merlin")Template:Efn is that he went mad after the Battle of Arfderydd which took place in 573 AD in the wake of the battle that resulted in the death of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio who was the king he served. It is recorded as suchin the annals, though it may not be historically accurate.Template:Sfnp Myrddin then fled to the forest, living life as man of the woods, according to Giraldus Cambrensis (12th century).Template:Sfnp The battleground (Arfderydd) became identified as a place near the Scottish border, making plausible the legend that Merlin's flight took him to the Caledonian Forest in Scotland.Template:Sfnp Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts the Myrddin Wyllt legend in his Latin Vita Merlini of about 1150,Template:Refn and the attachment of the madness motif may or may not have been Geoffrey's invention.

The legend of the Scottish Lailoken who lost his wits in battle is so similar in background to the Myrddin legend, it is considered a version of the same myth,Template:Sfnp and in fact, there is an aside comment that Lailoken might have been Merlin of Britain though that cannot be ascertained in the source itself, namely the Lailoken fragmentTemplate:Sfnp or more precisely the Latin fragmentary The Life of Saint Kentigern. There is also a geographical proximity of the battlegrounds involved, pinpointable as present-day Arthuret in Cumbria, England.Template:Sfnp

The Irish analogueTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp is the legend of Suibhne Geilt ("mad Sweeny"), a king Template:Efn of the Dál nAraidi who himself went mad during the combat of the Battle of Mag Rath of 637 ADTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp The legend is accounted for in Buile Shuibhne (The Frenzy of Sweeney, 9th centuryTemplate:Sfnp).Template:SfnpTemplate:Refn

It is commented by James George O'Keeffe (1913) the Welsh and Irish versions exhibit the dispersed Wild Man (of the Woods) tradition.

In Chrétien's Arthurian Romance Yvain, the episode when the title hero estranged from his lover Laudine lose his wits and lives in the wilderness, this has been characterized as a wild man episode by modern commentators. Bernheimer lists Yvain, Lancelot, and Tristan among the Arthurian knights who chose to live as wild men in the aftermath of mental anguish having earned the disfavor of their beloved lady.Template:Sfnp

The fragmentary 16th-century Breton text An Dialog Etre Arzur Roe D'an Bretounet Ha Guynglaff (Dialog Between Arthur and Guynglaff) tells of a meeting between King Arthur and Guynglaff ("a sort of wild man of the woods"), who predicts events which will occur as late as the 16th century.

King's mirror

The notion of the Irish (madness), which Grimm's notes glosses as equivalent to wilder mann or waldmann,Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnmp is discussed in the Old Norse Konungs skuggsjá ( or "the King's Mirror", written in Norway about 1250),Template:Refn which points to the Northmen having learned about the Suibhne legend from Ireland.

There is also another item of Irish Mirabilia considered possibly relevant, namely, a sort of beast-man with a horse-like mane, which stooped when walking, and could not surely demonstrate the ability to comprehend speech.Template:Refn Meyer thought this may have been a version of the "half-ox man" related by GiraldusTemplate:Sfnmp (cf. Gir. II.21) William Sayers (1985) thought it may be connected to the Irish water horse (each uisge) despite lack of connection with water,Template:Efn

Slavic mythology

Wild (divi) people are the characters of the Slavic folk demonology, mythical forest creatures. Names go back to two related Slavic roots *dik- and *div-, combining the meaning of "wild" and "amazing, strange".

Among the Bohemian populace, the wild man is known as (pl. , Template:Lit), who abducts a girl to forcibly make her his married wife.Template:Sfnp The Bohemian wood woman has the reputation of forcing a girl to dance the night, but to undertake the yarn-spreading chore the girl missed, in fact endowing her an inexhaustible supply of yarn,Template:Efn but if the dancing partner is a boy, the wood woman tickles him to death.Template:Sfnp The female Bohemian wild woman is called or (pl. ).Template:Sfnp

In the East Slavic sources referred: Saratov – leshy; a short man with a big beard and tail; Ukrainian lisovi lyudi – old men with overgrown hair who give silver to those who rub their nose; Kostroma dikiy chort; Vyatka dikonkiy unclean spirit, sending paralysis; Ukrainian lihiy div – marsh spirit, sending fever; Ukrainian Carpathian dika baba – an attractive woman in seven-league boots, sacrifices children and drinks their blood, seduces men. There are similarities between the East Slavic reports about wild people and book legends about diviy peoples (unusual people from the medieval novel "Alexandria") and mythical representations of miraculous peoples. For example, Russians from Ural believe that divnye lyudi are short, beautiful, have a pleasant voice, live in caves in the mountains, can predict the future; among the Belarusians of Vawkavysk uyezd, the dzikie lyudzi – one-eyed cannibals living overseas, also drink lamb blood; among the Belarusians of Sokółka uyezd, the overseas dzikij narod have grown wool, they have a long tail and ears like an ox; they do not speak, but only squeal.

Ancient parallels

Figures similar to the European wild man occur worldwide from very early times. The earliest recorded example of the type is the character Enkidu of the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh.Template:Sfnp

Classical parallels

Classical wild races

"Classical antiquity like the Middle Ages, had its wild men", according to Bernheimer.Template:Sfnp This included savage races of (sometimes hairyTemplate:Sfnp) humans supposedly found in exotic places. Herodotus (c. Template:Trim – c. 425 BC),'s wild men and wild women supposedly lived in western Ancient Lybia (a vast region west of the Nile, not just the present-day nation) where there also lived marvels such as men with eyes in their chest (headless men) and dog-faced humanoids (cynocephaly).Template:Sfnp CtesiasTemplate:Efn (Template:Fl.)'s Indika and Alexander the Great (d. 323 BC)'s conquest influenced Europeans into thinking that such wild men (and the marvelous prodigies tooTemplate:Efn) lived rather in the East, in the Indian subcontinent.Template:Sfnp

MegasthenesTemplate:Efn (died c. Template:Trim), wrote of two kinds of men to be found in India whom he explicitly describes as wild: first, a creature brought to court whose toes faced backwards; second, a tribe of forest people who had no mouths and who sustained themselves with smells.Template:Sfnp Both Quintus Curtius Rufus and Arrian (1st and 2nd centuries AD) refer to Alexander himself meeting with a tribe of fish-eating savages while on his Indian campaign.Template:Sfnp

The wild man races described by the learned writings of ancient historians may have had influence on the Medieval wild man folklore but establishing the degree would be difficult given the separation in time. But one can catalogue which ancient pieces of writing were accessible to medieval men.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnp

Distorted accounts of apes may have contributed to both the ancient and medieval conception of the wild man. In his Natural History Pliny the Elder describes a race of silvestres, wild creatures in India who had humanoid bodies but a coat of fur, fangs, and no capacity to speak – a description that fits gibbons indigenous to the area.Template:Sfnp The ancient Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator (fl. 500 BC) reported an encounter with a tribe of savage men and hairy women in what may have been Sierra Leone; their interpreters called them "Gorillae," a story which much later originated the name of the gorilla species and could indeed have related to a great ape.Template:Sfnp Similarly, the Greek historian Agatharchides describes what may have been chimpanzees as tribes of agile, promiscuous "seed-eaters" and "wood-eaters" living in Ethiopia.Template:Sfnp

Silvanus

The medieval wild man lends itself to easy comparison with a number of classical woodland divinities. However, the aforementioned definition laid out by Bernheimer clearly distinguishes the faun and satyr from the wild man. Grimm states that the German shaggy wood-sprite schrat answers to the classical faun, satyr, and perhaps even Silvanus.Template:Sfnmp Old High or Middle High German glossaries equating forms of the word schrat with faunus or sylvestri hominus.Template:Sfnmp Grimm speculate on the possibility schrat might have been a being of larger stature in olden times.Template:Sfnmp

The medieval wild man typically depicted holding an uprooted tree may have derived form the classical Silvanus who is lord of the gardens and uprooter of trees, though the latter is more prone to be holding a cypress sapling he is about to transplant.Template:Sfnp The centaur is more likely to hold a club, though this creature is of course, half horse.Template:Sfnp

Christian parallels

Early Christian writings on Desert Fathers as found in the Apophthegmata Patrum ("Sayings of the Desert Fathers") are similar, but less outlandish: typically their head of hair has grown long enough to cover their naked bodies. A general term to describe such ascetics living in the wilderness was Grazers (Template:Langx) coined among the Greek or Eastern Christians.Template:Efn There is the hypothesis that notion of the "noble wild man" that emerged in the 15th century (after the European discovery of the Americas) may have been influenced by the notion of these "grazers".

Although not authentically the stuff of antiquity, regarding the Christian Saint John Chrysostom (died 407),Template:Sfnp there developed an apocryphal legend in the Late medieval period (15th century) that he began as a soul of a child in purgatory taken into tutelage by the Pope, but considering himself unworthy went to live a life of austerity in the wilderness. Later, in a fateful meeting with the emperor's daughter who had gone astray, he succumbs to temptation and not only has carnal knowledge with her but pushes her off a ravine in the aftermath, for the penance of this sin and crime, he lives life on all fours, eventually developing body hair (with vegetation growing about his body as well), when he is captured in order to perform a baptism for the Imperial prince, upon which the accumulated hair, etc. drops off.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp Accompanying illustrations may contradict the text and show a smooth, naked man on all fours, e.g., the Günther Zainer edition of Leben der Heiligen, vol. II (1471). Whereas Anton Koberger's edition of Leben der Heiligen (1488) depicts the crawling saint as a hairy man.

In modern fiction

Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (1611), the dance of twelve "Satyrs" conflates wild men and satyrs. The dance is held at the rustic sheep-shearing (IV.iv), described by a servant: Template:Quote

File:PetrusGonsalvus.jpg

Pedro Gonzalez. Anon, c. Template:Trim

Petrus Gonsalvus (born 1537) was referred to by Ulisse Aldrovandi as "the man of the woods" due to his condition, hypertrichosis, and it is believed that his marriage to the lady Catherine inspired the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.Template:Primary source inline

The term wood-woses or simply Woses is used by J. R. R. Tolkien to describe a fictional race of wild men, the Drúedain, in his books on Middle-earth. According to Tolkien's legendarium, other men, including the Rohirrim, mistook the Drúedain for goblins or other wood-creatures and referred to them as Púkel-men (Goblin-men). He allows the fictional possibility that his Drúedain were the "actual" origin of the wild men of later traditional folklore.

British poet Ted Hughes used the form wodwo as the title of a poem and a 1967 volume of his collected works.

The fictional character Tarzan from Edgar Rice Burroughs' 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes has been described as a modern version of the wild man archetype.Template:Sfnp

See also

• Am Fear Liath Mòr
• Animal (Muppet)
• Basajaun
• Bigfoot
• Bugbear
• Caveman
• Enkidu
• Fangga
• Green Man
• Hamadryad
• Human zoo
• Jean de l'Ours
• Krampus
• Leshy
• List of hominid cryptids
• Template:Illm
• Moss people
• Nittaewo
• Noble savage
• Straw bear
• Tengu
• Valentine and Orson
• Wild Hunt
• Yamawaro
• Yeren
• Yeti
• Tarzanesque

References

Bibliography

• ; Reprint: New York : Octagon books, 1979, Template:ISBN

• (alt url@books.google).

• (reprint: Elibron Classics, 2005, Template:ISBN)

• (digitized @ U. Heidelberg)

• (reprint: Paderborn: Salzwasser Verlag 2012, Template:ISBN)

Further reading

• Bergholm, Anna Aune Alexandra. "King, Poet, Seer: Aspects of the Celtic Wild Man Legend in Medieval Literature". In: FF Network. 2013; Vol. 43. pp. 4-9.
• Martin, Rebecca. Wild Men and Moors in the Castle of Love: The Castle-Siege Tapestries in Nuremberg, Vienna, and Boston, Thesis (Ph.D.), Chapel Hill/N. C., 1983