The Bewitched Midwinter Night
Peter Nicolai Arbo, "The wild Hunt of Odin", 1872.
Photo: Nasjonalmuseet / Jacques Lathion
The participants in the wild hunt of Odin were ghosts and the restless souls of the dead. The long midwinter nights were filled with supernatural creatures and danger.
Text by Senior Curator Learning Ellen Lerberg
Peter Nicolai Arbo based his monumental painting The Wild Hunt of Odin on Norse mythology, archaeological excavations and the National Romantic poetry of the day. A major inspiration was Johan Sebastian Welhaven’s eponymous poem, whose opening line is
Through the nightly air stampedes a train of frothing black horses
(from Nyere Digte [Newer Poems], 1844)