Wild man

Lore & Background

The wild man is a mythical figure and motif resembling a hairy human that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe. Generally they are considered a large-statured race of humans who are hairy all over their body, and live 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 Wilde Mann is attested in Middle High German literature, particularly German heroic epics, while the female Wilde Weib figures in the Arthurian works, typically appear as adversaries. These beings are also called by names meaning 'wood men' and in older forms of the language, 'wood maiden', 'wood wife', or 'wood woman'. In Middle English a corresponding term for the wild man is woodwose or wodewose.

Reader's Guide

The wild man figure held significance in medieval European culture as a symbol of untamed nature, appearing in heraldry, literature, and folklore. By the latter half of the 15th century, wild men frequently appeared in European family heraldic devices, and it became commonplace to depict the wild man as shield-bearers of the family coat of arms, as seen in a portrait painting by Albrecht Dürer. This period also roughly coincides with the popularization of the concept of the 'noble wild man' or 'noble savage', reflected in artistic depictions from this period onward. In folklore, the wild man or wild woman was believed to be the protector of wild game, especially the chamois, with stories telling of hunters who breached the taboo being knocked off a precipice or turned into stone. 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, biblical or other humans afflicted with madness came to be conventionally depicted with hairiness, and subsequently, literary figures who temporarily lose sanity and live in the wild (Merlin, Ywain) also came to be associated with wild men.

Did You Know?

• The wild man is attested in Middle High German as wilde man in the 13th century, in a poem by a poet known as 'Der wilde Mann', not specifically tied to the Sigenot story.
• The house of the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, which controlled one of the silver mines, minted silver thaler coinage with the wild man in their coat-of-arms, starting 1544.
• In Old High German, the term wildaz wîp (wild wife, wild woman) together with holzmuoja, holzmoia (wood maiden) occurs in a glossary under the heading of the Latin term lamia (female monster).