6. The King of the Wild Hunt in The Witcher, Eredin is based on the Slavic folklore tradition of an immortal warrior and raider known as Koschei
The King of the Wild Hunt, Eredin Bréacc Glas is one of the foremost antagonists of The Witcher universe. Murdering his own king to usurp power, Eredin traverses the many worlds abducting individuals to serve his cause and advance his goal of acquiring greater strength. Stemming from Slavic folklore, the ominous horseman is based heavily upon the legendary figure of Koschei, commonly known as “the Immortal” or “the Deathless“. An archetypal evil villain appearing in a range of stories, Koschei is capable of evading death by hiding his soul inside an object, frequently a nested egg.
Typically seeking to abduct the protagonist’s lover or companion, as is the case in The Witcher – first with Yennefer of Vengerberg and subsequently with Geralt’s adopted daughter Cirilla – Koschei serves as an allegorical personification of an evil that never is truly defeated and always seeks to return once more. Originating from an unknown source, it is likely the concept of a marauding warrior seeking to abduct a hero’s wife developed in Eastern Europe after the growth in armed encounters with the Cumans during the Middle Ages. A nomadic Turkic people, the Cumans were forced from their ancestral lands by the advance of the Mongol Empire, settling the fringes of Europe thereafter.