Frau Holle

Frau Holle—also called Mother Holle, Mother Hulda, or Old Mother Frost—is a figure from German folklore and the subject of a fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in their 1812 *Children's and Household Tales* (KHM 24). The tale is classified as Aarne-Thompson type 480. The Grimms noted that belief in Frau Holle persisted in popular tradition well into the 19th century, and Jacob Grimm tried to argue that she was originally a Germanic goddess.

The name may be related to the Scandinavian creature known as the Hulder. Linguistically, it likely comes from the German word *huld* (meaning gracious, friendly, or sympathetic), with cognates in Middle High German, Old High German, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Middle English, and Old English, all tracing back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning favorable or loyal, and further to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to tend or incline.

Five Latin inscriptions from the lower Rhine, Münstereifel, and Beetgum in Frisia, dating from 197 to 235 AD, mention the name Hludana, which scholars have tried to connect to this figure.

In Germanic folklore, the names Hulda, Holda, Holle, and Holla all refer to the same being. This figure is also related to Perchta. Frau Holle is said to live at the bottom of a well, ride a wagon, and have taught the craft of making linen from flax. According to folklorist Erika Timm, Perchta emerged from a blend of Germanic and pre-Germanic Alpine traditions after the Migration Period in the Early Middle Ages.

Because of her connection to spinning and weaving—activities linked to the spirit world—Holda became associated with witchcraft in Catholic German folklore. She was thought to ride with witches on distaffs, which resemble the brooms witches are said to ride. Early church documents often identified her with Diana. By the beginning of the 11th century, she was known as the leader of women and female nocturnal spirits, called Hulden. These women were believed to leave their houses in spirit, passing through closed doors at night while their husbands slept, traveling vast distances through the sky to feasts or battles among the clouds.

The 9th-century *Canon Episcopi* condemned women who claimed to ride with a crowd of demons. A later version by Burchard of Worms expanded on this, asking if anyone believed in a female figure—called Holda by the vulgar—who, deceived by the devil, claimed to be required on fixed nights to ride certain beasts with a crowd of demons disguised as women. Later church documents equated her with Diana, Herodias, Bertha, Richella, and Abundia. Historian Carlo Ginzburg found similar beliefs across Europe for over a thousand years, in which men and women left their bodies in spirit to follow a goddess called Holda, Diana, Herodias, Signora Oriente, Richella, Arada, or Perchta. He also noted strong similarities with earlier goddesses like Hecate, Artemis, Artio, the Matres of Engyon, the Matronae, and Epona, as well as fairy-tale figures such as Cinderella.

A 16th-century fable by Erasmus Alberus mentions an army of women with sickles sent by Frau Hulda. In the 17th century, Thomas Reinesius wrote of Werra of the Voigtland and her crowd of maenads. Martin Luther, in 1522, used the image of Dame Hulde to personify the shortcomings of hostile reason in theological contexts.

Grimm based his theory of Holda on what he considered her earliest references: an 11th-century interpolation to the *Canon Episcopi* by Burchard of Worms, and pre-Christian Roman inscriptions to Hludana. Some scholars challenged the idea that she was a pagan goddess, since her earliest definite appearance links her with the Virgin Mary, called the Queen of Heaven. An early-13th-century text listing superstitions says that on the night of Christ’s Nativity, people set a table for the Queen of Heaven, whom they called Frau Holda, so that she might help them. Both Lotte Motz and Ginzburg concluded she is pre-Christian, based on comparisons with similar figures and rituals across Europe.

A pagan Holda appeared widely in catalogs of superstitions and sermons during the 15th century. In the 16th, Martin Luther used her image to personify the shortcomings of hostile reason.

A variant figure, Frau Gauden—also called Frau Gode, Frau Gaur, Fru Goden, Frau Wohl, and Mutter Gauerken—appears in Mecklenburg folklore. She is said to be cursed because she preferred to hunt eternally rather than go to Heaven, and her daughters, who shared that wish, were cursed as well.