Wodwo
The wild man (German: Wilder Mann, der Wilde Mann), or wild man of the woods, 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 (Middle High German: wilde man) is attested in Middle High German literature, particularly German heroic epics, while the female Wilde Weib (wildez wîp) 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.
In the folklore of German-speaking areas collected mainly in the 19th century, there are especially the Alpine wild men and wild women. These beings could be man-hunters or otherwise be sinister, but could also endow luck or bounty, exhibiting aspects of woodland spirits.
The folklore that had developed in the mining areas around Harz or Ore Mountains by the 16th century regarded the wild man of the mines (also known as "mountain monk") as potentially both dangerous and beneficent, guiding humans to the discovery of ore deposits. The house of the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (Brunswick-Lüneburg), which controlled one of the silver mines, minted silver thaler ('dollar') coinage with the wild man in their coat-of-arms, starting 1539.
These wild man had already frequently appeared in European family heraldic devices since the latter half of the 15th century. It also became commonplace to depict the wild man as shield-bearers of the family coat of arms (e.g., within a portrait painting by Albrecht Dürer, cf. image right). This period also roughly coincides with the popularization of the concept of the "noble wild man" or "noble savage" as can already be seen in Hans Sachs's "Lament of the Wild Men" (1530), and also reflected in artistic depictions of the wild folk from this period onward.
The wild man or wild woman in folklore was believed to be the protector of the (sustainability of) wild game, especially the chamois (German: Gemse), and stories tell of the hunter 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 loses sanity and live in the wild (Merlin, Ywain) also came to be associated with wild men.
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