Harlequin (sometimes spelt Herlequin, Harlequin, Hellequin or Hillikin), was refered as the leader in France and Italy. It will become later the driver of the masquerade in the carnival tradition and one of the characters (a trickster) of the Italian Comedia Dell’Arte. The origins of the name are uncertain: some say it comes from Dante's Commedia (Inferno, XXI, 118) where one of the devils is called Alichino. Others say it could come from Harlenkoenig, a Scandinavian hero.

In another hypothesis it comes from Harlay, an English gentleman of the court of Henri III, who had protected an Italian actor. Folk etymology makes "Charles quint" into "Hellekin," as in the 14th-century "Exposition de la doctrine chretienne"; Last but not least, it would be derived from Herle or Herla.

The expression Map uses to describe the Wild Hunt, the 'familia Herletbingi' appears to contain the word 'thing' in its Old English sense of 'troop and would mean 'the troop of Herle'.

Ordericus Vitalis (writing in 1123)the 'familia Herlechini', - the household of Herlechinus, just as later in some parts of France it was la Mesnie Herlequin (whence eventually the sixteenth century figure of Harlequin, who first appeared on the Paris stage towards the end of 1135-1204). Peter of Blois, archdeacon of Bath and London calls it milites Herlewini, 'the troop of Herlewin', while in the fourteenth-century poem 'Mum and the Sothsegger' an unruly rabble is called 'Hurlewaynis kynne', - the kindred of Hurlewain.

Walter Map, writing around 1190, tells the story of King Herla, whom he knew as its leader, and later adds:

"The nocturnal companies and squadrons, too, which were called of Herlethingus, were sufficiently well-known appearances in England down to the time of Henry II, our present lord. They were troops engaged in endless wandering, in an aimless round, keeping an awe struck silence, and in them many persons were seen alive who were known to have died. This household of Herlethingus was last seen in the marches of Wales and Hereford in the first year of the reign of Henry II, about noonday: they travelled as we do, with carts and sumpter horses, pack-saddles and panniers, hawks and hounds, and a concourse of men and women. Those who saw them first raised the whole country against them with horns and shouts, and . . . because they were unable to wring a word from them by addressing them, made ready to extort an answer with their weapons. They, however, rose up into the air and vanished on a sudden."