Heide/Holde

[Nitefalle]

Anyone got any info on a Northern goddess known as either Heide or Holde? I've heard she's an aspect of Frigg and I've read that she's a separate goddess. A winter-ish crone figure.

[Meadhbh]

At the turning of the winter sun, with her spouse Wodan, would she hold a procession through the land, which began as a blessing, turning later into a wild hunt. In the Ukermark, under the names of Frick or Frau Harke, even today, she still haunts Christmas nights as a hunting cloud flying through the skies with a number of howling hounds. Also, she goes from place to place so as to check if the servants have spun all their flax. If she finds a spindle that is still full, she punishes the lazy worker by completely dirtying her spinning. In the Priegnitz and the Mecklenburg, she takes the name of Fru Gode or Frau Gode and she appears particularly between Holy Christmas night and Three Kings day, in the form of the driver of a wild hunt with yapping and howling hounds. Doors are then kept shut, and nobody goes out in the evenings in order to avoid meeting her. She is often seen as a large and magnificent lady, driven in a car pulled by dogs and it is often said: "if a wheel happens to break, she gives the broken parts to the servant who fixes it, and they become pure gold after a few days." In Lower Saxony, Frau Holle is a grey-haired old lady with long teeth, who dirties the spindle of the lazy weaver, hides a gift under the compartment of the spindle of the active ones [this piece of equipment is called wockenbreif in the local speech, in place of German Rockenbrief], brings new white shirts to children aged six, and who, in places where she used to be held in reverence, goes through with a car full of New Year gifts each new year's eve, between 9 and 10 p.m.. If she would crack her whip, only the devotees would hear it and go out to receive their gifts. In the Hesse and the Thuringia, Frau Holle, Holde or Hulda, is described as a beautiful white shining woman with long golden hair of whom it is said, when it snows hard: "Frau Holle is shaking out the feathers of her bed". As the mother of all small creatures, or of the incarnated souls of dead non-baptized, but remembered, children, called "Heimchen" (small home) in Franconia, together with those souls, she takes care of the fertility of the fields that she plows with a golden plow, and she asks the "Heimchen" to irrigate those fields. It is said that she had her old home in the Saalthal, between Bucha and Wilhemsdorf, but that she left this land due to the lack of gratitude of the citizens of Gosdorf? and Rödern. On a dark evening of the Kings day, she went to a river with her little people and asked for a ride. The driver was afraid at first of the high veiled shape that was surrounded by so many wailing children, but he did as he was asked at last. After three crossings, he found Frau Holla or Perchtha on the beach, busy at repairing her plough that the Heimchen were supposed to carry further. He was then told that his reward would be the shavings left behind. He took this with bad will, unhappy of a such a miserable reward. At home, he threw three pieces of shavings on the windowsill. In the morning he found three lumps of gold in place of the shavings. This is how Frau Perchtha rewarded all the help she received, and often she can still be seen, with her plow, on Three Kings' day, or Perchtenabend (Perchta's evening). Three Kings' day, when these manifestations took place, was especially dedicated to her, as well as in Austria, Tyrol and Bavaria, under the names Perchtag or Prechtag (day of Perch or Prech) (earlier, in Zürich: Brechtentag), and in Swabia it was named Oberstag or …berst. New converts to christianity, trying to shed horror on heathenism, described the formerly honored goddesses as bad spirits, and even Frau Perchtha or Holle, the sweetest and most beneficial goddesses, were made to become aggressive and punishing characters. Frau Berch or Perch, in Higher Austria and near Salzburg [has been named Salisbury in English], started to kidnap children that were not quiet during the year, and, in order to please them, the little girls had to keep their games well ordered, and servants had to weave their whole spindle before Christmas night, and to hide it under the roof. If she found a spindle with some flax still on it, she would shout angrily:As much hairs, As much bad years! In the Voigtland, on her feast's eve, fish and rolls have to be eaten. If not, Perchtha will come and cut the body of the disobedient one, fill him with chaff and sew him again with a ploughshare and an iron chain. Carinthia is not any less mistreated, where often even the adults she met were kidnapped. She haunts places, like Frick or Frau Gode, heading a wild army, and in the morning she brings back the unfortunate she took with her, as soulless corpses, holding strange foreign flowers between their fingers and toes. This is why Frau Holle is burnt each year at Eisfeld in Turingia. The Sunday of Epiphany, after the divine afternoon service, young and old go to the marketplace, playing music. There, they sing a consecrated song, and they shout, by way of joke: "Frau Holle will be burnt". I found this in a friends book called, "Aberglaube-Sitten-Feste Germanischer Völker, das festliche Jahr" by Otto Freiher von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, if you want to try and find it.

[Agaliha]

Here are some sites that may help:

Depending on the pantheon and area she is known as: Holle, Frau Holle, Holde, Holda, Hulda...they all seem to refer to the same or similar Goddess.

Holda (http://www.thorshof.org/holda.htm)
Mother Holle, Queen of the Nether Regions (http://www.dutchie.org/Tracy/dg.html#mother)-- "Holle (also known as Holda or Hulda) is known throughout northern Europe"
Holle (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/holle.html)
Holda info (http://www.geocities.com/reginheim/erda.html)---
Part of the site:
Proto-Germanic: Erþo ("Earth")
Northern Germanic: Frigg ("Lover"), Frigga, Frija, Saga, Jord(?)
Western Germanic: Erda ("Earth"), Holda ("Well-disposed One"/"Merciful One"), Frau Holle, Holle, Holde, Holla, Hulda, Holl, Wolle, Wolke, Herke, Harke, Fricka, Frick, Freek, Freke, Frîa, Berchta ("Light One"/"Shining One"), Berchte, Berta, Brecht, Perchta, Perahta, Fru Gauden, Waud, Wode, Gwode
Anglo-Saxon: Erce ("Earth"), Frige

The Christmas Hag (http://myths.allinfoabout.com/feature25.html)

Mentions her (http://www.earth-dancing.com/jul_yule.htm)

Sumerdæg was another spring festival for the anceint Heathens. Wælburges Night was thought the night when witches ride by many anceint Heathens and this may reveal a link to the German goddess Holde (who may indeed be Frigga). Holde was considered the goddess of witches by medieval Germans. Many areas saw this as the time when witches and other wights rode thru the air, and thus a time when the gods needed to be invoked. On this night prayers were said for the cattle, sheep, and goats, with special reference to keeping ettins away. And in many areas it was the time for a great feast as well as bonfires. Many of the celebrations took place atop mountians and hills (which in Germany were conected to Holde and witches).
From: http://www.ealdriht.org/mayrites.htm

Winter Goddess (http://des.users.netlink.co.uk/winter.htm)

Short Holda summary (http://realmagick.com/articles/80/180.html)

Discusses Holda and Frigga (http://www.ealdriht.org/frige.html)-- their connection

Frau Holda (http://www.christmas-treasures.com/duncan_royale/Collection/SantaII/FrauHolda.htm)

Heide: Witch-Goddess of the North (http://www.hrafnar.org/goddesses/heide.html)


For more possible info you could try searching yahoo/google under her other names too.

:)