One thing I find especially gripping is the appearance of the same myth in American folklore, in the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky". Written by Stan Jones and published with the subtitle "A Cowboy Legend", Jones says that it recounts a tale told to him as a boy by an old cowboy. I haven't been able to find anything strongly resembling the ghost riders in cowboy folklore, other than a passing similarity to a tale of a particularly grim cattle stampede.
What it does strongly resemble, of course, is the Wild Hunt. I am by no means the first to make this connection, as there are quite a few elements present that strongly connect it to the traditional myth:
- a storm on a "dark and windy day"
- a "bolt" of fear, as cattle "thundered" through the sky
- ghostly men chasing an equally spectral quarry
- the notion that the hunt continues "forever"
- the threat that he might be forced to join the hunt
I haven't found anything to specifically indicate that Jones had an interest in folklore. But I think that this is the sort of thing that doesn't have to be consciously developed. Even thousands of years later in a new land thousands of miles away, there are European men still herding the uruz, still experiencing the Wild Hunt, and still singing songs about it as a warning to anyone who might encounter it. It is something that is part of the European psyche and it would be more surprising if it hadn't appeared in American folk music.
Here's a rendition by the Highwaymen, featuring Johnny Cash covered in what resembles a lot of glittering zierscheiben.