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The legend of The Wild Hunt is as old as mankind. Every race has its version of The Hunt - the "raging host" of poachers' gangs who drove their quarry by night in defiance of ferociously strict game laws: the penalty for killing a deer was hanging. Disguised in the skins of beasts, they spread terror through the countryside, especially as they hunted not only animals but other humans, especially when stimulated by drink and drugs, tore to pieces and devoured living creatures. As late of the 20th century, terrorists in the Congo and Kenya disguised themselves in panther and leopard pelts, the claws reinforced with steel to lacerate victims. The most common disguise was a wolf-hide, particularly in northern Europe, creating the werewolf superstition. It was clearly addictive behaviour, and some of its patterns can be discovered in modern gang activities. Could a Wild Hunt survive into our time? In a remote area, seldom visited by outsiders, a secret werewolf cult might still be pursuing and devouring its victims. The Wild Hunt tells of a young university woman who inherits a long-abandoned farmhouse which she plans to restore for a summer retreat, only to learn (too late) that it has become the headquarters of a Wild Hunt surviving among the men of a degenerate village. The anthropological soundness lends a terrifying plausibility which heightens the suspense more acutely than would the fear of supernatural, shape-shifting werewolves.
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