As Kris Kershaw has exhaustively documented (Kershaw 2001), the ritual reenactment of the Wild Hunt was a cultural phenomenon documented among many Gaulish and Germanic peoples. In its Germanic manifestations the Harii painted themselves black to attack their enemies in the darkness. The Heruli, nomadic, ecstatic wolf-warriors, dedicated themselves to Wodan. Later the berserkers, brutal warriors that believed to be transformed into animals by rage, are most commonly associated with the cult of Odin from ninth century Norway onward.

Odin's name is derived from the Old Norse Odhr which means "Fury, ecstasy, inspiration", Woden is similarly derived from the related Indo-European word - the Saxon Wod. Apart from thus showing why the Hunt is "Wild", and supporting ideas of ecstatic trance and spirit flight, this clue may lead us to a possible origin of the Wild Hunt. By donning animal skins or believing themselves transformed into animals by their rage, Berserkers can easily be seen as the hounds of Odin's Wild Hunt.

Witness Snorri's description:
"[Odin's] own men went without byrnies, and were as
mad as dogs or wolves, and bit on their shields, and
were as strong as bears or bulls; menfolk they slew,
and neither fire nor steel would deal with them: and
this is what is called Bareserks-gang."15
The comparison of Berzerkers with wolves (they are referred to as "wolf-coats" in Hrafnsmal) makes them symbolically dead - wolves are synonymous in Old English with outlaws and criminals, who are considered socially 'dead' – so the Wild Hunt of the dead could be derived from their exploits.
The death-dealing chaos of the Berzerks in action relates to the dark, wild side of nature, and particularly the privations of winter.
Thus the myth of the Wild Hunt seems to be a part of the drama of the turning year, re-enacted by the Berzerks as part of an Odinic cult.
 

Attempts have also been made to interpret the legends as based on natural phenomena. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Wild Hunt was often compared to the storm winds of winter. A more plausible explanation was offered by the Danish scholar H. F. Feilberg: in "Hvorledes Opstar Sagn i Vore Dage" (Dania II, 198294, p. 121) he describes how, one evening near Odense, he heard a great rustling and hound-barking in the air over his head, and how he thought at once of the Odinsjaeger, but "Next day I asked the teacher of natural history at Latin school which migratory birds it was that I had heard." Hylten-Cavallius (Wärend och Wirdarne vol. I, p. 216) cites the Wärend expressions, "that is Oden's hunt, those are Oden's hounds that can be heard in the air" for the passing of the wild geese, and in eastern Hinterpommern, the Wild Hunt comes in the spring and fall, when the migratory birds come and go. It cannot be denied that the eerie barking voices and rustling of a flock of geese passing overhead is very likely to have contributed to the longevity of the belief in the Wild Hunt; however, it does not explain the legend. Wild geese, after all, do not visit the northern countries around Yuletime, when the Wild Hunt most often rides.

Otto Höfler, in his Verwandlungskulte, Volkssagen, und Mythen, has strongly put forth the idea that many of the medieval records of the Wild Hunt were actually descriptions of a ritual folk-procession. The fact that the host appears by both day and night, coming into the city streets as well as terrifying lonely travellers in the dark wood, may support this theory, as does Vulpius' 16th-century description of the Nürnberg Fastnacht train as "the wild host, very strange figures, horned, beaked, tailed ... roaring and shouting ... behind, on a black, wild steed, Frau Holda, the Wild Huntress, blowing into the hunting horn, swinging the cracking whip, her head-hair shaking about wildly like a true wonder-outrage." Vulpius also calls this procession "das wuthende Heer" (Meissen, p. 124). Similar living trains appear in the Tirol, such as the Perchtenlauf described by J.V. v. Zingerle in 1857:

"The Perchtenlauf was earlier usual on the last Fasching-evening. It was a kind of masked procession. The masked ones were called Perchten. They were divided into beautiful and ugly.... The beautiful Perchten often distributed gifts. So went it loudly and joyfully, if the wild Perchte herself did not come among them. If this spirit mixed among them, the game was dangerous. One could recognize the presence of the wild Perchte when the Perchten raged all wild and furious and sprang over the well-stock. In this case the Perchten ran swiftly away from each other in fear and tried to reach the nearest, best house. For as soon as one was under a roof, the Wild One could not have them any longer. Otherwise she would tear apart anyone, who she could get possession of. Even today, one can see places where the Perchten torn apart by the wild Perchte lie buried"
(Sitten, Bräuuche, und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes, in Höfler, p. 59).

This idea of a Yule/masking game becoming terrifyingly real also appears in a Danish folk-tale, where a young woman dances with the Yule-buck, which then comes to life as the Devil himself and batters her to death against the barn walls (Simpson, Jacqueline. Scandinavian Folktales, pp. 80-1). Christine N.F. Eike, in her article "Oskoreia og ekstaseriter" extends Höfler's investigation to the Norwegian materials, concluding that there may well be an original relationship between the living bands of young men that travel about during the Yule season riding horses, drinking beer, and so forth, and the tales about the bands of the dead who do the same.

Overall, the legends of the "Furious Host" or "Wild Hunt" seem to have maintained a remarkable degree of consistency through their wide range of time and space a consistency which can, perhaps, be best explained by the essential reality of the underlying belief to those who held it, from the heathen period through the time of our own grandparents. So when you go out into the night this wintertime, listen carefully for the barking of dogs and the cry "Midden in dem Weg!" Do not mock at the horde that sweeps past, but be ready to carry home whatever Woden or Holda should give you, for the lowliest of gifts from the Hunt's leader may be found to turn to true gold like the very folk-stories themselves, whose quaint dialects and humble words cloak the gold of our forebears' souls.