Frau Perchta
In my previous posts I have gathered a lot of info taken directly from the internet. This special post is my own writing taken from my upcoming book and I share some of it with you now as a sort of sneak preview.
"Ya know the old saying, “behind every great man, there is a great woman”? Well, the same is true of Krampus lore so before we get into his history, we must dive into HER-STORY. Everyone’s got a mom, even monsters. ESPECIALLY MONSTERS! We can look back to our earliest written work of Beowulf to see that. For those like me who love tracing things back to their origins, you are gonna love Frau Perchta!
Some say witch, others say fae folk, and some say Goddess but here’s what we know…
Frau Perchta or Berta as she is sometimes known, is a crone-like German/Austrian folk character that begins to crop up in written texts between 1050 and 1350 AD. Depending on what region we are focusing on, we might find her listed under the name Frau Holle, and indeed, it is highly suspected that these figures are two sides of the same coin. The character is seen to be some form of goddess or one of the fae who lives under ground, that truly represents the duality of mothers everywhere. In her Holle guise, she is a beautiful flaxen haired woman who looks after children and rewards them for helpful, steadfast, and cleanly behavior. This can be seen in the classic folktale of Golden Marie, a tale about a youngster who tumbles through a watering well and finds herself in a magical castle on the other side, being greeted by Holle. The girl is of course rewarded with gold when she returns home because she was willing to help Frau Holle with many of the domestic chores in her castle. I will let you discover for yourself what happens to her recalcitrant sister who refuses the same work.
When this entity sheds her maternal guise and takes on the mantel of Perchta, she transforms into a menacing witch woman who visits on twelfth night or Epiphany and punishes those lacking in domestic order. Cue clapping from all the neat freaks reading this.
And so quite simply, the Holle-Pertcha character is a Germanic Goddess who represents a kindly caretaker of children as well as a fearsome and strict disciplinarian and punisher of the lazy and disobedient. Yep. Sounds like mom to me.
Like most mothers, this is one multifaceted lady, but she has a few specific focal points in her stories. Frau Perchta’s primary concentration seems to be focused not just on children, but young girls and women specifically. I suppose, being female herself, she would naturally be concerned with women’s issues of the day. And much like it’s always been with women who live in a patriarchal society, the work surrounding the household laundry looms in this lady’s mind, especially… the spinning. It seems here we have an entire Goddess dedicated to housework! If the spinning was not complete or the house was not clean (with appropriate offerings to her set out) by Epiphany (Jan. 6th), there was hell to pay from this one.
The other large focal point in her stories is that of collecting the spirits of the dead. She is very specifically charged with being the receiver and protector of the Heimchen, a rather sweet nickname (meaning cricket) given to the spirits of unbaptized German children. This is also where the term (and the creature) Perchten comes from. The Perchten would be the spirits who accompany and attend Frau Perchta and they resemble more of what we know of as the horned Krampus figure today. Given the large difference between innocent children and snarling, horned beasts, I like to think that she receives them young and the more time they spend in her presence, the fiercer and more devilish the spirits become.
There is a further connection with this entire group to The Wild Hunt, which is rudimentarily defined as a phantom procession or hunt, taking place in either the sky or the forest, depending on which culture we are speaking.
The look of Perchta and her spirit attendees has varied over time and from region to region. She has some specific characteristics that do not change, however. She is a hag-like crone said to have an “Iron beak” that is the proto-typical hard, long and warty nose given to witches, as well as iron hands and feet. She is often depicted with one larger “spinning foot” for stamping on little children as a form of punishment. In certain regions she is known to children as
“The Schetmpa” for this very reason. This appendage also often presents like a goose foot. The more we investigate all kinds of folklore the more we see this theme with feet. The asymmetrical nature of one animal foot and one human foot was a kind of calling card for that which was otherworldly or demonic and is also present in the later Krampus lore. In both early classic and some contemporary art, she is often depicted with her instruments of punishment, the broom, a knife, scissors, a bucket of starch, or even sickles. Her animal associations are dogs, particularly black ones, geese, and other birds. Given her connection to geese and the work of weaving and spinning, there are some that even link her to the mother goose character, but there isn’t a lot to suggest that Perchta or Holle was any kind of a storyteller figure."
