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Holiday Name (Poll)
🕑 Added 2020-06-01 23:36:14 +0000 UTC
So I'm starting to finalize the major holidays of the Blest calendar year, both for a codex document and for some other secret things... And there's a summer holiday that I'm planning on incorporating (with spooky pagan roots/Midsommar vibes), but I can't for the life of me decide on its name! So I'm leaving it up to you to decide!
Here's a rough draft of the holiday's description in the codex:
The Wild Ride/Wild Hunt is a holiday that takes place every year on the summer equinox: one of the two times in the year that day and night are exactly the same amount of time. The holiday's roots are based in the Old Faith, but many different interpretations and practices have sprouted from its base, making the original meaning of the holiday hard to delineate clearly.
In general, worshipers believe that on this momentous day--the day when neither day or night can overpower the other--the barrier between worlds wears thin, and space and time can become haphazard. In some teachings of the Old Faith, this is when the gods allow the dead who have earned the right into the lands of Westrion, the realm of the gods. In some versions, this land is another world, apart from Blest yet connected to it, as with Hael. In other versions, Westrion is in the mythical landmass said to lie across the Dyer Oth sea, a strange sea with incredibly-turbulent weather, strange vortexes, and terrifying supernatural phenomena. Because no one has ever managed to cross that sea alive--or set food on that foreign continent--some theorize that this is where the gods lay, protected by a barrier that keeps the unworthy from entering their lands.
On the day of the Wild Hunt/Wild Ride, the gates of Westrion are said to open for the dead who have earned the right to enter it. Either past champions or the gods themselves lead a long procession of spirits--deceased heroes, virtuous saints, and other worthy souls--towards Westrion in a great and stately calvacade. As the night draws on and the gates being to close, the procession kicks up into a great soul-raving chase, often said to have one evil mythological figure or shape being pursued by the host of ghostly or supernatural hunters, the heroes and gods riding in wild pursuit. It is said that they are intent on hunting down and slaying the evil before they return to Westrion to rest.
The hunters in the Wild Ride/Wild Hunt are always gods, the spirits of the dead, and occasionally other fey folk, such as faeries and asteriae, or mythological helpers of the gods, sometimes referred to as angels. The hunted is often an unidentified wicked soul, an embodiment of the coming year's evils and ill luck, or occasionally an Endarkened or the phantom visage of Tapyt himself.
Myths about this "wild hunt/wild ride" and the reasons for it vary, but all agree that it is crucial to allow the hunt to be held, undisturbed, in order to ensure the protection of Blest and peace and prosperity for the year. The sound of ethereal hoofbeats is said to be heard on the holiday, growing louder and louder as midnight approaches. In some versions of the myth, people who see or encounter the Wild Hunt/Wild Ride risk disturbing it, causing the evil to go unhunted and bringing catastrophe and destruction unto the year. In other versions, the sight of the procession itself causes death for the witness, abduction of their soul, or eternal damnation for their hubris.
In all versions, believers insist that everyone must sleep on the night of the Wild Ride/Wild Hunt, going indoors and closing their windows before midnight and ignoring the hoofbeats and the temptation to look outside. To give in to the desire and look is to bring calamity on the rest of the world... or at best, to have your soul claimed early by a procession of the gods and the dead.
(There's also other stuff, like bonfires and actual fun rituals, but I haven't gotten around to writing that part yet.) But I leave it up to you to decide the actual name of this holiday! The Wild Hunt is a real thing in European folklore, so it might be nice to pay homage to that, but the Wild Ride is also nice-sounding!
What do you think should be the holiday's name?
