Talymar’s ‘Ghost’ Army

Much of Chapter II, “The Sword of Kings,” is taken up by the appearance, victorious attack, and ultimate disappearance of a ghost army. The image of an unexpected rescue . . . a ‘cavalry’ riding over the hill at the most desperate moment of a battle . . . a force coming to the rescue of a righteous, but beleaguered group, is archetypal in the human psyche. We see it in many forms in novels and movies, and most particularly in westerns where it literally is the cavalry to the rescue. We also see it in intensely popular films like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings where that same archetypal imagery is purposely drawn upon. It is also not unique to find that this help is often otherworldly.

The ‘Wild Hunt’ or ‘Phantom Army’ is a phenomenon found throughout the legends and historical records of Western Europe. More thorough discussions can be found in Herbert (1994) in the chapter entitled “Woden’s Army” and Lecouteux (1999). The manifestations of the hunt or army can be grouped into three general forms: a benign hunt, a hunt for sinners or evildoers, and a ghostly army.

In what seems to be the purest form of the first two ‘hunting’ scenarios, Odin/Woden, or one of the other myriad names used as the hunt leader, leads a mounted party, up to twenty or thirty strong, through the night skies hunting a magnificent stag or beautiful doe. Not surprisingly, the group includes hunting dogs and loud blasts on hunting horns. In all three forms the riders are accompanied by raging winds, lightening, and thunder. The character Morganna gives a good description of this form of the hunt in Book II, Chapter 13. Other hunt leaders in England have been King Arthur, King Herla, Sir Francis Drake, Edric the Wild, Hereward the Wake, and Herne the Hunter. Herne is a later form of Cerne (pronounced with a breathy ‘k’ similar in sound to the ‘h’) which itself is a simplification of Cernunnos the Celtic stag-god found throughout Western Europe including Britain. In the case of Cerne, the stag-antlered god, he is the hunter and the hunted – an idea that will play out several times in the story.

The second version of the story – the hunt for sinners – appears to be a Christianized form of the first. Now, instead of one of the old gods, it is the devil leading the hunt. Instead of Woden gathering up the most valiant warriors and leading them off to Valhalla where they feast and fight until they ride forth at the end of days to protect mankind in the battle of Ragnarok, it is now Satan who chases the sinners, the greedy, the foresworn, and unbaptized children in order to carry them off to hell (Chaney, 1999 & Herbert, 1994). The hunting dogs are now black demon-dogs with glowing red eyes. Obviously, this form is designed to demonize the old gods and place the fear of sinning into the folks who were probably Christian but still clinging to many of their millennia old beliefs.

In the third form, a legendary, historical, or mythological figure leads a ghostly army to the rescue of their land, kingdom, and people, thereby fulfilling an oath given to past or future rulers. Perhaps the most famous iteration of this idea is King Arthur and the most modern manifestation comes from the Anglo-Saxon scholar J.R.R. Tolkien where we find in Return of the King that Aragon, the rightful king of Gondor, leads a ghost army to the dramatic rescue of his kingdom. However, the idea of such an army is very old. Britons believed that Arthur, the once and future king, would rise from his long sleep in Avalon and come at the time of Britain’s greatest need. So strong was this belief that two later Norman kings tried to put it to rest. Edward I claimed that the bones of Arthur and Guinevere were uncovered at Glastonbury Abby. He put them on display to show that Arthur was in fact just a man and dead (Sanford, 2009). Henry III was given and accepted the supposed crown of Arthur thus identifying himself as a true heir. Then the ancient king would have no need to rise against him (Davies, 2000).

In the north of England, Wild Edric, a Saxon noble, was said to lead an ethereal army against the transgressions of the Normans. Wild Edric lies sleeping in the mines of Shropshire ready to ride out when he is needed or as a portent of war (Walker, 1995). “Edric is said to appear whenever England is threatened with invasion and leads the Wild Hunt towards the foe.” He is said to have appeared on the eve of the Crimean War, WWI and WWII (Boxell, 2016b).

King Herle, also called Hereward in the Bruneswald [UK] area, may have been a folk memory of a more ancient Germanic tribe called the Harii by Tactus who blackened their bodies and armor then attacked their enemies at night having the appearance of an army of the dead. “No enemy is able to withstand this unaccustomed and seemingly hellish apparition, in every battle they are defeated at first sight” (Herbert, 1994, citing Tactus).

Boxell (2016a) citing Westwood (1985) relates a story first recoded in 1190 by Walter Map of the wild hunt lead by King Herla an ancient/mythological British King who came to the aid of his countrymen with his spectral army – the Herlethingus or ‘household troops.’ Boxell (2016b) also notes that Gervase of Tilbury, writing circa 1212 called the wild hunt the household troops of Arthur. Herla also appears to be one of the names given to Woden.

St. George was said to have lead an army of phantom archers that came to the rescue of British soldiers at the Battle of Mons in World War I. In this story, like Tolkien’s version, the ghosts actually killed the living.

Finally, two ghost armies have been reported in the very location discussed in Chapter II – Stamford and the old Roman Bridge in the water meadows.

The most famous of these reports comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, specifically the Laud or Peterborough Chronicle for the year 1127 where a ‘wild hunt’ or ghost army was seen over many days riding between Peterborough and Stamford – the exact path that Talymar’s ghost army would have taken. Herbert (1994) has alternately described the leader as either Edric or Hereward the Wake. In “Lincolnshire Unexplained” and “Haunted Battlefields and the Ghosts of Soldiers” (from the Paranormal Data Base) is found the recorded sighting of a ghost army traveling down Ermine Street in Stamford, UK towards the location of the old Roman bridge. This too would be the same place as the battle described in the text. It has, unfortunately, not been reported on multiple occasions.

Thus even the preternatural events of the ghost army, has a historic precedence.