Chapter 13

Were it only for the kinship of the Norse traditions with our own, we should bid adieu to such a notion as that. True, the Eddic mythology has not a Holla answering to our Holda; but Snorri (Yngl. saga c. 16. 17) speaks of a wise woman (völva, seiðkona) named Huldr, and a later Icelandic saga composed in the 14^th century gives a circumstantial account of the enchantress Hulda, beloved of Oðinn, and mother of the well-known half-goddess Thorgerðr and Irpa. (48) Of still more weight perhaps are the Norwegian and Danish folk-tales about a wood or mountain wife Hulla, Huldra, Huldre, whom they set forth, now as young and lovely, then again as old and gloomy. In a blue garment and white veil she visits the pasture-grounds of herdsmen, and mingles in the dances of men; but her shape is disfigured by a tail, which she takes great pains to conceal. Some accounts make her beautiful in front and ugly behind. She loves music and song, her lay has a doleful melody and is called huldreslaat. In the forests you see Huldra as an old woman clothed in gray, marching at the head of her flock, milkpail in hand. She is said to carry off people's unchristened infants from them. Often she appears, not alone, but as mistress or queen of the mountain-sprites, who are called huldrefolk. (49) In Iceland too they know of this Huldufôlk, of the Huldumenn; and here we find another point of agreement with the popular faith of Germany, namely, that by the side of our dame Holde there are also holden, i.e., friendly spirits, a silent subterranean people, of whom dame Holde, so to speak, is the princess (see Suppl.). For this reason, if no other, it must be more correct to explain the Norse name Hulla, Huldra from the ON. hollr [[faithful, loyal]] (fidus, fidelis, propitius) which is huld in Dan. and Swed., and not from the ON. hulda [[cover, veil; secrecy, hiding]] (obscuritas) as referring to the subterranean abode of the mountain-sprites. In Swedish folk-songs I find 'huldmoder, hulda moder' said of one's real mother in the same sense as kära (dear) mother (Sv. vis. 1, 2, 9); so that huld must have quite the meaning of our German word. It is likely that the term huldufôlk was imported into the Icelandic tongue from the Danish or Norwegian. It is harder to explain the R inserted in the forms Huldra, Huldre; did it spring out of the plural form hulder (boni genii, hollar vættir)? or result from composition?

The German Holda presides over spinning and agriculture, the Norse Hulle over cattle-grazing and milking.

A being similar to Holda, or the same under another name, makes her appearance precisely in those Upper German regions where Holda leaves off, in Swabia, in Alsace, in Switzerland, in bavaria and Austria. (50) She is called frau Berchte, i.e., in OHG. Perahta, the bright, (51) luminous, glorious (as Holda produces the glittering snow): by the very meaning of the word a benign and gladdening influence, yet she is now rarely represented as such; as a rule, the awe-inspiring side is brought into prominence, and she appears as a grim bugbear to frighten children with. In the stories of dame Berchta the bad meaning predominates, as the good one does in those of dame Holda; that is to say, the popular christian view had degraded Berchta lower than Holda. But she too is evidently one with Herke, Freke, and some others (see Suppl.).

Where their identity comes out most plainly is in the fact that they all go their rounds at the same time, in the so-called 'twelfths' between Christmas and New-year. Berchta however has a particular day assigned her at the end of that period, which I never find named after Holda. And no less similar are their functions.

Berchta, like Holda, has the oversight of spinners; whatever spinning she finds unfinished the last day of the year, she spoils (Superst. 512). Her festival has to be kept with a certain traditional food, gruel and fish. Thôrr says he has had sîldr ok hafra (herrings and oats) for supper, Sæm. 75ª; our white lady has prescribed the country folk a dish of fish and oat-grits for evermore, and is angry whenever it is omitted (Deutsche sagen, no. 267). The Thuringians in the Saalfeld country wind up the last day of the year with dumplings and herrings. Fish and farinaceous food were considered by christians the proper thing for a fast. (52)

The revenge taken by the wrathful Berchta, when she misses the fish and dumplings, has a quaint and primitive sound: whoever has partaken of other food on her day, she cuts his belly open, fills it with chopped straw, and sews up the gash with a ploughshare for a needle and an iron chain by way of thread (Superst. 525). (53) And the same threat is held out in other districts also (see Suppl.).

Börner's Folk-tales of the Orlagau (between the Saale and the Orle) furnish abundant details. At p. 153: The night before Twelfthday, Perchtha always examines the spinning-rooms of the whole neighbourhood, she brings the spinners empty reels, with directions to spin them full within a brief time, and if all she demands cannot be delivered, she punishes them by tangling and befouling the flax. On the same occasion she cuts open any one's body, that has not eaten zemmede (54) that day, takes out any other food he has had, and fills the empty space with hay or straw wisps and bricks, and at last sews his body up again, using a ploughshare for a needle, and for thread a röhm chain.---P. 159: At Oppurg, the same night of the year, Perchtha found the spinning-room full of merrymaking guests, and in a towering rage she handed in through the window twelve empty reels, which were to be spun full to the rim within an hour, when she would come back; one quarter of an hour had passed after another in fearful expectation, when a saucy girl ran up to the garret, reached down a roll of tow, and wrapped it round the empty reels, then they spun two or three thicknesses of thread over the tow, so the reels looked full. Perchtha came, they handed over to her their finished work, and she walked off with it, shaking her head. (Conf. the similar story of the white manikin in Bader, p. 369).---P. 167: At Langendembach lived an old spinning-wife, who swiftly wound the thread all the winter through, and did not so much as leave off on Twelfth-eve, though son and daughter-in-law warned her: 'If Perchtha comes, it will go hard with you'. 'Heyday!' was her answer, 'Perchtha brings me no shirts, I must spin them myself.' After a while the window is pushed open, Perchtha looks into the room, and throws some empty spools to her, which she must have back, spun full, in an hour's time. The spinner took heart of grace, spun a few rounds on each spool for dear life, and threw them, one and all, into the brook that ran past the house (and by that, Perchtha seems to have been appeased).---P. 173: As a miner was returning from Bucha to Könitz on Perchtha's night, she came up to him at the cross-roads and demanded with threats, that he should put a wedge in her waggon. He took his knife, cut the wedge as well as he could, and fitted it into Perchtha's waggon, who made him a present of the fallen chips. He picked them up, and at home he drew gold out of every pocket in which he had put Perchtha's gifts.---P. 182: Two peasants of Jüdewein, after stopping at the alehouse in Köstriz till late on Perchtha's eve, had gone but a little way, when Perchtha came driving in a waggon, and called to them to put a peg in the pole of her waggon. One of the men had a knife, and Perchtha supplied him with wood, the peg was let in, and the handy man caried home several pieces of money in his shoe as a reward.---P. 113: Between Bucha and Wilhelmsdorf in the fruitful vale of the Saale, Perchtha queen of the heimchen had her dwelling of old; at her command the heimchen had to water the fields of men, while she worked underground with her plough. At last the people fell out with her, and she determined to quit the country; on Perchtha's eve the ferryman at Altar village received notice to be ready late in the night, and when he came to the Saale bank, his eyes beheld a tall stately dame surrounded by weeping children and demanding to be ferried over. She stept into the craft, the little ones dragged a plough and a number of other tools in, loudly lamenting that they had to leave that lovely region. Arrived at the other side, Perchtha bade the boatman cross once more and fetch the heimchen that had been left behind, which under compulsion he did. She in the meantime had been mending the plough, she pointed to the chips, and said to the ferryman, 'There, take that to reward thy trouble.' Grumbling, he pocketed three of the chips, and at home flung them on the window-shelf, and himself, ill at ease, into bed. In the morning, three gold-pieces lay where he had thrown the chips. The memory of Perchtha's passage is also reserved at Kaulsdorf on the Saale, and at Köstriz on the Elster, not far from Gera.---P. 126: Late one night, the master wheelwright at Colba was coming home from Opurg, where he had been to work; it was the eve of the Three-kings (Twelfthday), and on the bank of the rivulet Orla he came upon Perchtha, her broken plough surrounded by weeping heimchen. 'Hast thou a hatchet with thee, so help me mend!' she cried to the terrified traveller. He gave what help he could, but the fallen chips offered him for wages we would not touch: 'I have plenty of them at home,' says he. When he got home, he told what had happened to him, and while his people shook their heads incredulously, he pulled off one of his shoes, which something had got into, that hurt his foot, and out rolled a bright new gold-piece. A twelvemonth passed, and one of his men, who had heard him tell the tale, set out on Perchtha's night, and waited by the Orla, just where his master had met Perchtha; in a little while, on she came with her infant train: 'What seekest thou here at this hour?' she cried in anger, and when he stammered out an answer, she continued: 'I am better provided with tools this time, so take thou thy due!' and with those words she dug her hatchet into the fellow's shoulder. The same story is repeated near Kaulsdorf at a part of the brook which is called the water over the way, at Presswitz near the Saal-house, and on the sandhill between Pössneck and the forester's lodge of Reichenbach. Below the Gleitsch, a curiously shaped rock near Tischdorf, the story varies in so far, that there Perchthu along with the heimchen was driving a waggon, and had just broken the axle when she fell in with a countryman, who helped her out with a makeshift axle, and was paid in chips, which however he disdained, and only carried a piece home in his shoe.---P. 133: A spinning-girl walked over from the Neidenberg during that night, she had done every bit of her spinning, and was in high spirits, when Perchtha came marching up the hill towards her, with a great troop of the heimchen-folk, all children of one sort and size, one set of them toiling to push a heavy plough, another party loaded with farming-tools; they loudly complained that they had no longer a home. At this singular procession the spinner began to laugh out loud, Perchtha enraged stept up to the giddy thing, blew upon her, and struck her blind on the spot. The poor girl had a trouble to find her way into the village, she led a wretched life, could no longer work, but sat mournful by the wayside begging. When the year was past and Perchtha visited Altar again, the blind one, not knowing one from another, asked an alms of the high dame as she swept by; Perchtha spoke graciously: 'Here last year I blew a pair of lights out, this year I will blow them in again'. With these words she blew into the maid's eyes, which immediately began to see again. The same legend is found in the so-called Sorge, near Neustadt on the Orla. Touching stories of all weeping children, who tramp along in Perchtha's great troop, will be given when we come to treat minutely of the 'wütende heer'. (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

48. Müller's sagabibl. 1, 363-6. Back

49. Details to be found in Müller's sagab. 1, 367-8. Hallager p. 48. Faye pp. 39-43 and 10. 15. 25. 26. 36. Frigge, nytaarsgave for 1813, p. 85. Ström's Söndmör 1, 538-59. Vilses Spydeberg 2, 419. Villes Sillejord. p. 230. Asbiörnsen, passim. Back

50. A portion of Franconia and Thuringia knows both Berchta and Holda, there at all events is the boundary between the two. Matthesius, in his Expostion of the gospels for feastdays, p. 22, names dame Hulda and old Berchte side by side. Back

51. Among the celebrated maidens of Menglöð is a Biört (Sæm. 111ª), Menglöð herself is called 'sû in sôlbiarta' (111b), and the father of her betrothed Svipdagr Sôlbiartr (sun-bright, 112ª). A Menglöð in a later story appears to some one in a dream (Fornm. sög. 3, 222-3), and leaves him a marvellous pair of gloves. Back

52. The Braunschw. anz. 1760, p. 1392, says no leguminous plants are to be eaten when dame Holla is going round in the 'twelve-nights'. Either a mistake, or to be understood of particular kinds of pulse. Back

53. Almost the same is told in the Voigtland of the Werre or dame Holle. The Werre, on the holy eve of the high New-year, holds a strict inquiry whether all the distaffs are spun off; if they are not, she defiles the flax. And on that evening you must eat polse, a thick pap of flour and water prepared in a peculiar way; if any one omits it, she rips his body open, Jul. Schmidt, Reichenfels, p. 152. The name Werra (from her 'gewirrt,' tangled shaggy hair?) is found in Thom. Reinesius, Lect. var., Altenbg 1640, p. 579 (in the critical notes on Rhyakinus's , i.e. Andr. Rivinus or Bachmann's Liber Kiranidum Kirani, Lips. 1638): Nostrates hodieque petulantioribus et refractariis manducum aliquem cum ore hiante frendentem dentibus, aut furibundam silvescente coma, facie lurida, et cetero habitu terribilem cum comitatu maenadum Werram interminantur. Reinesius (1587-1667) came from Gotha, but lived at Hof in the Voigtland. A werre is also a noisome chirping insect of the cricket kind (Popowitsch. 620). In MHG.: 'sæjet diu Werre (Discordia) ir sâmen dar,' sows her seed, Ms. 2, 251b, conf. Troj. 385 (see Suppl.); and in Selphartes regel (Wackernagel's lb. 903), there is exhibited, together with bruoder Zornli and bruoder Ergerli, a bruoder Werra, 'der sîn herze mit weltlichen dingen also beworren hat (has so entangled his heart with wordly things), daz da niht mê in mag'. And that notion of tangled thread and hair, which prevails about Bertha and Holda, may after all be akin to this. On L. Zurich she is called de Chlungere, because she puts chlungel (knots, lumps) in the unfinished yarn of slothful maidens, Alb. Schott, Deutsche colonien in Piedmont, p. 282. In Bavaria and German Bohemia, Berhta is often represented by St. Lucia, though her day comes on Dec. 13. Frau Lutz cuts the belly open, Schmeller 2, 532. Jos. Rank, Böhmerwald, p. 137. Conf. the Lusse in Sweden, Wieselgren. 386-7. Back

54. Made of flour and milk or water, and baked in a pan: fasting fare, evidently. Back