Wild man

For other uses, see Wild man (disambiguation).

The wild man (German: Wilder Mann, der Wilde Mann), wild man of the woods, woodwose or wodewose is a mythical figure and motif that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to Silvanus, the Roman god of the woodlands.

Wild men support coats of arms in the side panels of a portrait by Albrecht Dürer, 1499 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).

The defining characteristic of the figure is its "wildness"; from the 12th century, it was consistently depicted as being covered with hair. The image of the wild man survived to appear as supporter for heraldic coats-of-arms, especially in Germany, well into the 16th century. Renaissance engravers in Germany and Italy were particularly fond of wild men, wild women, and wild families, with examples from Martin Schongauer (died 1491) and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) among others.

Terminology

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

In wild man is attested Middle High German as wilde man in the 13th century romance Wigamur [de] (v. 203),^[1] and in the same work the "wild wife" occurs as wildez wîp (vv. 112, 200, 227ff.)^[2] In the epic Laurin the wild man is referred to as waltmann.^[3]

The wild man (referred to as waltluoder) in Wolfdietrich,^[a][3] and in the same work, the title hero must deal with the advances of Rauhe Else [de] ("Shaggy Else"), classified as a wild woman (cf. § German epic below).

In Old High German, the term wildaz wip ("wild wife, wild woman") appears in a gloss to lamia^[b] and holzmoia^[c] (or holzmuojia, "wood maiden" [?]) in a 10th century glossary from Mondsee in Austria, which explains it to mean "she who wails or moos in the forest".^[7][8][5] Other synonyms in OHG are wildaz wip and wildaz wip.^[8]

Another old example is the mention of "ad domum wildero wîbo" ("house of the wild women"), a piece of landmark or toponymy somewhere in Hessen,^[10] mentioned either in Codex Eberhardi [de] (c. 1150) by the monk Eberhard of Fulda or a text close to it.^{[15][16][17][d]}

In MHG there is also the synonym holz-wîp.^[19][20]

Aliases

Folklore in Tyrol and German-speaking Switzerland into the 20th century speaks of a wild woman called Fänge (Faengge, Fankke),^[21] which is a post-medieval neologism deriving from the Latin fauna, the feminine form of faun.^[6] The wild women of the Alpine region is "identical to or closely related to" the Fänggen or the Salige (Salige Frauen).^[22]

The wild man is called a Bilmon (corruption of "wild man") Salvadegh, or Salvanel in Wälsch-Tirol (present-day Trento Province),^[23] which may be spelt Salvan or Salvang with usage extending to Lombardy.^[6] The wild man is called l'om salvadegh by the Ladin language speakers of in Folgrait (Folgaria) and Trambileno; this is readily recognizable as equivalent to French l'homme sauvage, where Old French salvage derives from Latin silvāticus "sylvan, pertaining to forest".^[23] Hence these names are related to Silvanus, the Roman tutelary god of gardens and the countryside.^[6] The (medieval Latin) term silvaticus was in fact used in the sense of "wild woman" by Burchard of Worms in the 10th century,^[24] and it has been suggested he was referring to beings who would have been called Selvang in dialect according to modern-day folklore.^[25]

The local name Frauberte or Frau Berta was supposedly current either in Ronchi near Ala, or the aforementioned Folgrait and Trambileno areas.^[23][26][e]

For many years people in the Tyrol region of Austria called the wild man Orke, Lorke, or Noerglein, while in parts of Italy he was the orco or huorco.^[27][f]

English terms

In Old English/Anglo-Saxon there is recorded wude-wāsa meaning "satyr" or "faun",^[31] a compound of wude "woodland, forest" and wasa of uncertain etymology,^[32][33]though perhaps meaning "forest dweller".^[34] perhaps *wāsa "being", from the verb wesan, wosan "to be, to be alive".^[35]

From it has derived Middle English woodwose, wodewose, woodehouse also used to the present day,^[g] "Wild man" and its cognates is the common term for the creature in most modern languages;^[6] it appears in German as wilder Mann, in French as homme sauvage and in Italian as uomo selvatico "forest man".^[36] (with variant spelling such as wodewese, etc.,^[32]) understood perhaps as variously singular or plural.^[h][32][6] The form wodwos^[i] occurs in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (c. 1390).^[37][32]

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,^[38][j] but as a surname it is found as early as 1251, of one Robert de Wudewuse.^[33][k]

Medieval literature

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

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

Verbal descriptions of the wild folk in medieval literature will be mainly discussed here. Visual depictions during the medieval period will be discussed under § Iconography.

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.^[41] Other characteristics developed or transmuted in different contexts. From the earliest times, sources associated wild men with hairiness; by the 12th century they were almost invariably described as 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.^[42]

German epic

In Wigamur there is the wildez wîp (wild woman) who dwells in a hole in a rock.^[2]

In the Arthurian epic Wigalois, the dwarf named Karriôz is explicitly stated to have a wildez wîp as his mother.^[3] 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.^[43]

The character Rauhe Else [de] ("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 truns him into a madman roaming the woods. God commands her to reverse the spell, and Wolfdietrich agrees to marry her, after baptism. Fortunately, when she dips into a spring she sheds her furry skin and transforms into a beautiful maiden, now calling herself Sigeminne.^{[44][45][46][47][l]}) in Wolfdietrich B.^[48][49]}}^[m]

French epic

A "black and hairy" forest-dwelling outcast is mentioned in the tale of Renaud de Montauban, written in the late 12th century.^[50]

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. § Celtic mythology under §Parallels below.

Modern recorded folklore

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.^[51] 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.^[52] This is noted as paralleling the capture of Silenus already described by Xenophon (d. 354 BC),^[52] Silenus being described as a satyr which Midas caught by getting him drunk with wine.^[53][n]

Legend also has it that humans were able to capture it once by getting it drunk, thereby learning the manufacture of cheese.^[o][23]

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,^[p] and received half a human corpse at his doorstep, subsequently taking pains to have the hunter take it back.^[54][23] There are also variant versions with different rhymes from Ritten and Barbian.^[56][q] However, in a cognate tale from Vallarsa, the wild hunter is not specified as a "wild man".^[57] 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" (Halb Part) of foul-smelling game or human part, reciting a couplet that if you join in the hunt, you must help out with the chewing.^[59]

Alpine wild woman

See also: Fänggen and Salige Frau

Meanwhile, the Tyrolian and Swiss Fängge (Faengge, Fankke)^[21] as well as the Austrian Salige Frau are (subtypes or aliases of the) wild woman.^[60]

The wild woman, the Fängge, and the Salige Frau are all associated with protecting alpine game, especially the chamois^[r][61][62] The legendary protectress called Kaiserfrau of Nachtberg (a peak situated between Thiersee and Brandenberg, Austria) is not explicitly called a wild woman in the original telling,^[63] but is classified as such.^[64] In the tail, 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.^[63]

Iconography

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

"Wild Man", c. 1521/22, bronze by Paulus Vischer

The wild man was used as a symbol of mining in late medieval and Renaissance Germany. It appears in this context in the coats of arms of Naila and of Wildemann. 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.

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. 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.

For use as heraldic devices, cf. § Heraldry below.

Medieval iconography

Some of the earliest evidence for the wild-man tradition appears in the above-mentioned 9th- or 10th-century Spanish penitential.^[30] This book describes a dance in which participants donned the guise of the figures Orcus, Maia, and Pela, and ascribes a minor penance for those who participate with what was apparently a resurgence of an older pagan custom.^[30][s]

Images of wild men appear in the carved and painted roof bosses where intersecting ogee vaults meet in Canterbury Cathedral, in positions where one is also likely to encounter the vegetal Green Man.

Wild people, in the margins of a late 14th-century Book of Hours

In art the hair more often covers the same areas that a chemise or dress would, except for the female's breasts; male knees are also often hairless. As with the feather tights of angels, this is probably influenced by the costumes of popular drama. The female depiction also follows Mary Magdalene's hair suit in art; in medieval legend this miraculously appeared when she retreated to the desert after Christ's death, and her clothes fell apart.^[66]

There is a giantess room series among the Runkelstein Castle 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). However, the fresco has this giantess holding Nagelring [de] (Dietrich von Bern's sword) thus some confounding of names is involved.^[67]

Martin Schongauer's Wild Men

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

Martin Schongauer depicted wild people several times, including on four heraldic shield engravings of the 1480s which depict wild men holding the coat of arms of the print's patrons. Each image is confined within an approximately 78 mm circular composition which is not new to Schongauer's oeuvre.

In Wild Man Holding a Shield with a Hare and a Shield with a Moor's Head, the wild man holds two parallel shields, which seem to project from the groin of the central figure. The wild man supports the weight of the shields on two cliffs. The hair on the apex of the wild man's head is adorned with twigs which project outward; as if to make a halo. The wild man does not look directly at the viewer; in fact, he looks down somberly toward the bottom right region of his circular frame. His somber look is reminiscent of that an animal trapped in a zoo as if to suggest that he is upset to have been tamed.

There is a stark contrast between the first print and Shield with a Greyhound, held by a Wild Man as this figure stands much more confidently. Holding a bludgeon, he looks past the shield and off into the distance while wearing a crown of vines. In Schongauer's third print, Shield with Stag Held by Wild Man, the figure grasps his bludgeon like a walking stick and steps in the same direction as the stag. He too wears a crown of vines, which trail behind into the wind toward a jagged mountaintop.

In his fourth print, Wild Woman Holding a Shield with a Lion's Head, Schongauer depicts a different kind of scene. This scene is more intimate. The image depicts a wild woman sitting on a stump with her suckling offspring at her breast. While the woman's body is covered in hair her face is left bare. She also wears a crown of vines. Then, compared to the other wild men, the wild woman is noticeably disproportionate.

Finally, each print is visually strong enough to stand alone as individual scenes, but when lined up it seems as if they were stamped out of a continuous scene with a circular die.

Gallery of medieval art

• 
  Knight saving a woman from a wild man, ivory coffer, 14th century
• 
  Classicized Wild Man design for a stained-glass window, studio of Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1525–1528 (British Museum)
• 
  Tapestry: Wild Men and Moors, c. 1440 (Museum of Fine Arts Boston)^[68]
• 
  Gargoyle, Moulins Cathedral
• 
  Wild family, miniature by Jean Bourdichon, from a set showing The Four States of Society

Heraldry

• 
  An early example of the wild man acting as an heraldic supporter appears in the seal of Christian I of Denmark (1450)
• 
  Wild-man supporter from 1589 (arms of the Holzhausen family)
• 
  The city of Antwerp introduced supporters for its coat of arms during 1881, with a "wild woman" and a wild man^[69]
• 
  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
• 
  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
• 
  Wild man, blazoned "demi-savage", on crest of Scottish clan Murray

Numismatics

See also: Gnome § Bergmönch of Harz and mine light

Henry the Younger's wild man taler, 1549 mintage.^[70]

The so-called Wildemannstaler [de] 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,^[71][72] with the silver mined from the Upper Harz mountains.^[73] Thus, much of this wild man is really part of silver-mining folklore. The standing wild man on the early coin (and some heraldic illustrations) depicts a wild man holding a club (uprooted tree^[74]) and a clump of burning flame in the other hand (cf. photo right).^[71] 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 Gerhard Heilfurth [de] and Ina-Maria Greverus (1967).^[75] Heilfurth regards the wild man in this context to be a type of Berggeist or "mountain spirit" (which is really a generic term or class used by modern folklorists), better known as Bergmönch 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.^[76]

The folklore is attested in 16th century writing 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 Daemon Metallicus or mountain devil, whom the miners call the "mountain manikin" (Bergmanlein, 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.

— Hardanus Hake, parish priest of Wildemann, in Bergchronik (1583)^[77]

There is also the political and polemical interpretation of the wild man and the flame insinuating threat of violence in Henry the Younger's coin.^[71][78] When Henry's less quarrelsome son Julius succeeded as duke, the flame on the coin was replaced by a lit candle or taper, and these coins are known as the Lichttaler or "Light talers" among numismatists. Later, Julius added other objects, the skull, the hourglass, and eyeglasses to the composition.^[79][80]

In dance

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 (CPG 142, fol. 122r, c. 1475).

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. They were "in costumes of linen cloth sewn onto their bodies and soaked in resinous wax or pitch to hold a covering of frazzled hemp, so that they appeared shaggy & hairy from head to foot".^[81] In the midst of the festivities, a stray spark from a torch set their flammable costumes ablaze, burning several courtiers to death; the king's own life was saved through quick action by his aunt, Joann, who covered him with her dress.

The Burgundian court celebrated a pas d'armes known as the Pas de la Dame Sauvage ("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.

Origin hypotheses

Further information: Silvanus (mythology), Satyr, Dusios, and Faun

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.^[82][83]

The insanity of Nebuchadnezzar II in the Book of Daniel (2nd century BC) may have greatly influenced the medieval European concepts.^[84] Daniel 4 depicts God humbling the Babylonian king for his boastfulness; stricken mad and ejected from human society, he grows hair on his body and lives like a beast. This image was popular in medieval depictions of Nebuchadnezzar. Late medieval legends of Saint John Chrysostom (died 407) describe the saint's asceticism as making him so isolated and feral that hunters who capture him cannot tell if he is man or beast.^[50]

The medieval wild man is comparable to a number of classical woodland divinities. 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.^[85] The centaur is more likely to hold a club, though this creature is of course, half horse.^[85]

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.^[85] Conversely, Medieval myth and art 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 type^[t] or more outlandishly as a tailed monster with clawed feet.^[u][86]

Besides mythological influences, Medieval wild man lore also drew on the learned writings of ancient historians, though likely to a lesser degree.^[87] These ancient wild men are naked and sometimes covered with hair, though importantly the texts generally localize them in some faraway land,^[87] distinguishing them from the medieval wild man who was thought to exist just at the boundaries of civilization. The first historian to describe such beings, Herodotus (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC), places them in western Libya alongside the headless men with eyes in their chest and dog-faced creatures.^[88] After the appearance of the former Persian court physician Ctesias's book Indika (concerning India), which recorded Persian beliefs about the Indian subcontinent, and the conquests of Alexander the Great, India became the primary home of fantastic creatures in the Western imagination, and wild men were frequently described as living there.^[88] Megasthenes, Seleucus I Nicator's ambassador to Chandragupta Maurya, 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.^[89] Both Quintus Curtius Rufus and Arrian refer to Alexander himself meeting with a tribe of fish-eating savages while on his Indian campaign.^[90]

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.^[89] 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.^[89][91] Similarly, the Greek historian Agatharchides describes what may have been chimpanzees as tribes of agile, promiscuous "seed-eaters" and "wood-eaters" living in Ethiopia.^[92]

One of the historical precedents which could have inspired the wild man representation could be the Grazers; a group of monks in Eastern Christianity which lived alone, without eating meat, and often completely naked.^[93] They were viewed as saints in Byzantine society, and the hagiographical accounts about their lives were spread in all of Christianity, possibly influencing later authors.^[93][94][95]

Parallels

Old High German had the terms schrat, scrato or scrazo, which appear in glosses of Latin works as translations for fauni, silvestres, or pilosi, identifying the creatures as hairy woodland beings.^[6] Some of the local names suggest associations with characters from ancient mythology. Slavic has leshy "forest man".

Celtic mythology

There are medieval Welsh,^[96][97] Irish,^[98][97] and Scottish mythical narratives about men going mad and living in the wilderness, considered as part of the Celtic Wildman tradition according to scholars.^[97]

The Welsh tradition regarding Myrddin Wyllt ("mad Merlin")^[v] is that he went mad after the Battle of Arfderydd which took place in 573 AD in the wake of the battle death of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio who was the king he served, according to the annals,^[99] then Myrddin fled to the forest, living life as man of the woods, according to Giraldus Cambrensis (12th century).^[100] The battleground (Arfderydd) became identified as a place near the Scottish border, making plausible the legend that Merlin's flight to Caledonian Forest in Scotland.^[99] Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts the Myrddin Wyllt legend in his Latin Vita Merlini of about 1150,^[101] and the attachment of the madness motif may or may not have been Geoffrey's invention.^[96]

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,^[97] 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,^[96] namely the Lailoken fragment^[97] or more precisely the Latin fragmentary The Life of Saint Kentigern.^[96] There is also a geographical proximity of the battlegrounds involved,^[102] pinpointable as present-day Arthuret in Cumbria, England.^[99][96]

The Irish analogue^[103][99] is the legend of Suibhne Geilt ("mad Sweeny"), a king ^[w] of the Dál nAraidi who himself went mad during the combat of the Battle of Mag Rath of 637 AD^[99][104] The legend is accounted for in Buile Shuibhne (The Frenzy of Sweeney, 9th century^[105]).^[99][107]

It is commented by James George O'Keeffe (1913) the Welsh and Irish versions exhibit the dispersed Wild Man (of the Woods) tradition.^[98]

King's mirror

The notion of the Irish geilt. gelt (madness) is discussed in the Old Norse Konungs skuggsjá (Speculum Regale or "the King's Mirror", written in Norway about 1250),^[109] which points to the Northmen having learned about the Suibhne legend from Ireland.^[110]

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.^[112][113] Meyer thought this may have been a version of the "half-ox man" related by Giraldus^[111] (cf. Gir. II.21^[114]) William Sayers (1985) thought it may be connected to the Irish water horse (each uisge) despite lack of connection with water,^[x]

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.^[116]

Slavic mythology

Wild woman with unicorn, tapestry c. 1500–1510 (Basel Historical Museum). As with most Renaissance wild women, she is hairy over the areas a dress would cover, except for the breasts and knees.

Wild (divi) people are the characters of the Slavic folk demonology, mythical forest creatures.^[117] 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 lesní muž (pl. lesní mužove, lit. 'forest man'), who abducts a girl to forcibly make her his married wife.^[118] 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,^[y] but if the dancing partner is a boy, the wood woman tickles him to death.^[9] The female Bohemian wild woman is called divý žena or divá žena (pl. divé ženy).^[119]

In the East Slavic sources referred: Saratov dikar, dikiy, dikoy, dikenkiy muzhichok – 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.^[117] 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.^[117]

In modern fiction

Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (1611), the dance of twelve "Satyrs" conflates wild men and satyrs.^[120] The dance is held at the rustic sheep-shearing (IV.iv), described by a servant:

Masters, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair, they call themselves Saltiers,^[z] and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufrey^[aa] of gambols...^[ab]

Pedro Gonzalez. Anon, c. 1580

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.^{[non-primary source needed]}

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.^[121][122]

British poet Ted Hughes used the form wodwo as the title of a poem and a 1967 volume of his collected works.^[123]

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.^[82]

See also

• Am Fear Liath Mòr
• Animal (Muppet)
• Basajaun
• Bigfoot
• Bugbear
• Caveman
• Enkidu
• Fangga
• Green Man
• Hamadryad
• Human zoo
• Krampus
• Leshy
• List of hominid cryptids
• Moss people
• Nittaewo
• Noble savage
• Straw bear
• Tengu
• Valentine and Orson
• Yeren
• Yeti
• Tarzanesque

Explanatory notes

1. MHG luoder is glossed as mod. German Luder meaning "bait, enticement" or "hussy"^[4]
2. Actually lamia, a female monster, and ulula= screech owl}. This is given in Lexer's definition as either a wood specter (Gespenst) or wood owl (Eule).^[5]
3. Bernheimer explains that lamia derives ultimately from Maia, a Greco-Roman earth and fertility goddess who is identified elsewhere with Fauna and who exerted a wide influence on medieval wild-man lore.^[6]
4. Rushing (2016), endnote 54 to Chapter 1, considers this mention of the wilde Weib to be one of the oldest references, relying Mannhardt's dating of 11th century.
5. It is not clear if Ronchi near Ala refers to Ronchital=Valle dei Ronchi that lies further east than Ala, Folgrait (Folgaria), or Trambileno.
6. The Italian orco is cognate to French ogre,^[27] as is modern literary orcs,^[28] and is related to Orcus, a Roman and Italic god of death.^[29][6] Importantly to Bernheimer, Orcus is associated with Maia in a dance celebrated late enough to be condemned in a 9th- or 10th-century Spanish penitential.^[30]
7. The term has been displaced in modern usage by "wild man", but it survives in the form of the surname Wodehouse or Woodhouse (see Wodehouse family).
8. OED: "sometimes taken for or construed as pl."
9. Perhaps understood as a plural in wodwos and other wylde bestes, and as singular in Wod wose that woned in the knarrez.
10. The latinized term diasprez perhaps should be read as "diapered" meaning "embroidered" according to Warton, Thomas (1840) The history of English poetry; Wharton here also gives provides quoted Latin text, naming the source as Ex comp. J. Coke clerici, Provisor. Magn. Garderob. ab ann. xxi. Edw. III. de 23 membranis, ad ann. xxiii. memb. x.
11. The term is found during the 1380s, in Wycliffe's Bible, translating שעיר (LXX δαιμόνια, Latin pilosi meaning "hairy") in Isaiah 13:21.^[39] The occurrences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight date to soon after Wycliffe's Bible, to c. 1390.^[40]
12. There is further complication of different recensions. The shaggy Else appears in Wolfdietrich B, whereas her counterpart is a water spirit or mermaid ({lang
13. Else is also mentioned in the Anhang zum Heldenbuch^[49] (as "rauch Elss").
14. The works of Ovid, Pausanias, and Claudius Aelianus also writes of the motif of shepherds who caught a forest being (Faunus, etc.) in the same manner and for the same purpose.^[52]
15. And if they were able to detain him longer, would have learned how to make wax from milk. This motif of getting the wild man drunk to extract knowledge was seen above in the lore of the Grisons, with the Silenus parallel noted.
16. „Wilder Mann, Glück und Hual, / Pring mir auch mein Thual!" where Hual should be read as Heil ("hail, health") and Thual as Teil ("part, portion").
17. Zingerele's tale No. 124 is cited by Schneller for comparison.
18. Cf. Fänggen § General description and Salige Frau § Guardians of the chamois.
19. The identity of Pela is unknown, but the earth goddess Maia appears as the wild woman (Holz-maia in the later German glossaries), and names related to Orcus were associated with the wild man through the Middle Ages, indicating that this dance was an early version of the wild-man festivities celebrated through the Middle Ages and surviving in parts of Europe through modern times.^[30]
20. The marginal drollery of a manuscript containing poems by Robert de Blois (fl. second third of the 13th century).
21. 14th century illuminated manuscript of Seneca's Hercules Furens.
22. Cf. also name glossary on Myrdding Gwyllt in: Bromwich, Rachel (2014) [1961]. Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain (4 ed.). Cardiff: University Of Wales Press. pp. 458–459. ISBN 9781783161461. Cf. also notes to Triad #61, Tri Thar6 Ellyl (Three Bull-Spectres) of Britain.
23. Not a historically recorded king, thus he was no more than lord.
24. Sayers in turn offers comparisons with the Germanic analogues, i.e. nix, English nicker, Swedish bäckahästen. [sv] and hints at reminiscence to the "Wild Man of the Woods motif".^[115]
25. A motif seen with the moss woman, as Mannhardt points out. Cf. also the legend of the Salk under Salige Frau.
26. Sault, "leap".
27. Gallimaufrey, "jumble, medley".
28. The account Shakespeare may have been inspired by the episode of Ben Jonson's masque Oberon, the Faery Prince (performed 1 January 1611), where the satyrs have "tawnie wrists" and "shaggy thighs"; they "run leaping and making antique action".^[120]