Frau Holle Quotes

When the people came to America they brought us with them. They brought me, and Loki and Thor, Anansi and the Lion-God, Leprechauns and Cluracans and Banshees, Kubera and Frau Holle and Ashtaroth, and they brought you. We rode here in their minds, and we took root. We travelled with the settlers to the new lands across the oceans.

The Blessed Host corresponds to the troop of Dame Abundia; Bensozia; Bonae res; Percht; and, in Italy, Madonna Horiente, who, around 1380–1390, the Milanese Inquisitor Fra Beltramino de Cernuscullo identified as Diana and Herodias or the bona domina Richella whom Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) notes was one with Dame Fortune (Richella quasi Fortuna) and with Hulda, the Frau Holle of German traditions.

As an interesting cross-cultural side observation, in traditional Inuit cultures that lived by the sea, a cult devoted to a powerful entity called "The Sea Mother" grew up in later centuries. The Sea Mother, in some places, absorbed all of the attributes of the earlier Earth-Mother, and even sometimes absorbed the powers of the weather-controlling Wind-Indweller, becoming something of a nearly supreme being to those Inuit. When the Sea Mother was angry with humans, she stopped them from being able to successfully hunt sea creatures. Angagkuk (shamans) among the Inuit had to visit the Sea Mother to rectify the situation. The Sea Mother only became angry when humans were violating taboos, strict rules for how humans were supposed to spiritually and lawfully live in the world, and among other beings. Human taboo violations had an impact on the Sea Mother in her undersea realm: they dirtied her hair, made it full of filth and mess. The shamans had to descend to that realm and apologize, and work to clean her hair. When that was done, she would relent. In the story of Frau Holle, we also see an ancient tale of taboo violation. I think there is a spiritual law- call it a taboo if you want- that is binding upon all to be helpful, and to move and live in such a manner (symbolized by the chores of the girls) that we aid the order of the world thereby, and not hinder it. The pitch that falls over the lazy sister is, to my way of seeing, a manifestation of the same symbolic filth that dirties the hair of the Sea Mother in Inuit lore.

I believe that Frau Holle's "reward," to both our heroine and to her less likeable step-sister, is based on something more than mere demonstration of "industriousness." Our heroine's hard work in Frau Holle's house helped to maintain the order of the world in an important sense: by doing her "chores", the snows came on time, and in the right amount, and goodness knows what else. Her sister, however, probably helped to put the world sideways through her lack of fulfilling her duties. For a brief time, these sisters cease to be human girls and become Grey Women- the Fayerie or Otherworldly female assistants or serving Daimons/spirit-helpers to the Earth Indweller, whose many tasks uphold the Fateful flow of the world's power. For a brief (or perhaps timeless) time, the two human girls become Fates.

This is one reason why the Aarne-Thompson Classification system of fairy tales exists. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a system that catalogues various international fairy tale types. In the context of the Russian Baba Yaga and German Frau Holle, for example, it is known that both of these figures appear in Aarne-Thompson Type 480: The Spinning Woman by the Spring.

The Mordvinic material on this Goddess speaks for itself and requires very little analysis that hasn’t been done already. Ange Patyai completes and reinforces this chapter’s topics perfectly. The Slavic Mokosh / Paraskevi can be inferred to be a close relative of the Mordvin Ange Patyai, and perhaps more distantly to Frau Holle and the Cailleach. She was a Goddess of fertility, birth, and of the guardian spirits assigned at birth (which could share many qualities with her). She had a major winter festival in November or December, but was probably celebrated prominently during the warm half of the year as well - thus casting doubt on any simplistic generalizations about her seasonal nature.