Неміс ертегісі: Frau Holle және оның тарихы

German legendary creature and fairy tale

"Frau Holle" (,/f//r//aʊ// /'/h//ɒ//l/ HOL'; also known as "Mother Holle", "Mother Hulda" or "Old Mother Frost") is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in Children's and Household Tales in 1812 (KHM 24). It is of Aarne Thompson type 480. Frau Holle (also known in various regions as Holla, Holda, Perchta, Berchta, Berta, or Bertha) was initially a pre Christian female legendary figure who survived in popular belief well into the 19th century. Jacob Grimm made an attempt to establish her as a Germanic goddess.

The name is thought to originate from German huld ("gracious, friendly, sympathetic, grateful" found in hold sein, huldigen), Middle High German hulde, Old High German huldī ("friendliness"). Cognate with Danish and Swedish huld ("fair, kindly, gracious") or 'hyld' ("secret, hidden"), Icelandic hollur ("faithful, dedicated, loyal"), Middle English hold, holde, Old English hold ("gracious, friendly, kind, favorable, true, faithful, loyal, devout, acceptable, pleasant"), from Proto Germanic hulþaz ("favourable, gracious, loyal"), from Proto Indo European *kel ("to tend, incline, bend, tip"). The name Hludana is found in five Latin inscriptions: three from the lower Rhine (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum XIII 8611, 8723, 8661), one from Münstereifel and one from Beetgum, Frisia all dating from 197 AD 235 AD. Many attempts have been made to interpret this name.

As Christianity slowly replaced Germanic paganism during the Early Middle Ages, many of the old customs were gradually lost or assimilated into Christian tradition. By the end of the High Middle Ages, Germanic paganism was almost completely marginalized and blended into rural folklore, in which the character of Frau Hulda eventually survived. In Germanic pre Christian folklore, Hulda, Holda, Holle, and Holla were all names to denote a single being. Hulda is also related to the Germanic figure of Perchta. She dwells at the bottom of a well, rides a wagon, and first taught the craft of making linen from flax. According to Erika Timm, Perchta emerged from an amalgamation of Germanic and pre Germanic, probably Celtic, traditions of the Alpine regions after the Migration Period in the Early Middle Ages. Holle is the goddess to whom children who died as infants go, and alternatively known as both the Dunkle Großmutter (Dark Grandmother) and the Weisse Frau (White Lady), elements which are more typically associated with the Grimms' fairy tale as well. Frau Holle's festival is in the middle of winter, the time when humans retreat indoors from the cold. It may be of significance that the Twelve Days of Christmas were originally the Zwölften ("the Twelve"), which like the same period in the Celtic calendar were an intercalary period during which the dead were thought to roam abroad. Holda's connection to the spirit world through the magic of spinning and weaving has associated her with witchcraft in Catholic German folklore. She was considered to ride with witches on distaffs, which closely resemble the brooms that witches are thought to ride. Likewise, Holda was often identified with Diana in old church documents. As early as the beginning of the 11th century she appears to have been known as the leader of women, and of female nocturnal spirits, which "in common parlance are called Hulden from Holda". These women would leave their houses in spirit, going "out through closed doors in the silence of the night, leaving their sleeping husbands behind". They would travel vast distances through the sky, to great feasts, or to battles amongst the clouds. The 9th century Canon Episcopi censures women who claim to have ridden with a "crowd of demons". Burchard's later recension of the same text expands on this in a section titled "De arte magica":

Have you believed there is some female, whom the stupid vulgar call Holda [in manuscript Cod. Vat. 4772, strigam Holdam, the witch Holda], who is able to do a certain thing, such that those deceived by the devil affirm themselves by necessity and by command to be required to do, that is, with a crowd of demons transformed into the likeness of women, on fixed nights to be required to ride upon certain beasts, and to themselves be numbered in their company? If you have performed participation in this unbelief, you are required to do penance for one year on designated fast days. Later canonical and church documents make her synonymous with Diana, Herodias, Bertha, Richella, and Abundia. Ginzburg has identified similar beliefs existing throughout Europe for over 1,000 years, whereby men and women were thought to leave their bodies in spirit and follow a goddess variously called Holda, Diana, Herodias, Signora Oriente, Richella, Arada, and Perchta. He also identifies strong morphological similarities with the earlier goddesses Hecate / Artemis, Artio, the Matres of Engyon, the Matronae, and Epona, as well as figures from fairy tales, such as Cinderella. A 16th century fable recorded by Erasmus Alberus speaks of "an army of women" with sickles in hand sent by Frau Hulda. Thomas Reinesius in the 17th century speaks of Werra of the Voigtland and her "crowd of maenads." Frau Holle figures in some pre Christian Alpine traditions that have survived to modern times. During the Christmas period in the alpine regions of Germany, Austria and northern Switzerland, wild masked processions are still held in a number of towns, impersonating Holda, Perchta, or related beings, and the wild hunt. Vivid visual descriptions of her may allude to a popular costumed portrayal, perhaps as part of a seasonal festival or holiday drama. Here cometh up Dame Hulde with the snout, to wit, nature, and goeth about to gainstay her God and give him the lie, hangeth her old ragfair about her, the straw harness; then falls to work and scrapes it featly on her fiddle. — M. Luther (1522)

Grimm based his theory of Holda on what he took to be the earliest references to her: An 11th century interpolation to the Canon Episcopi by Burchard of Worms, and pre Christian Roman inscriptions to Hludana that he tentatively linked to the same divinity. There were early challenges to connecting this figure with a pagan goddess, since her earliest definite appearance links her with the Virgin Mary, commonly called the "Queen of Heaven": An early 13th century text listing superstitions states that "In the night of Christ's Nativity they set the table for the Queen of Heaven, whom the people call Frau Holda, that she might help them". Lotte Motz

Frau Gauden, also known as Frau Gode, Frau Gaur, Fru Goden, Frau Wohl, and Mutter Gauerken, is a being from the folklore of Mecklenburg. She is said to be cursed because she expressed to prefer eternally hunt rather than go to Heaven, and her daughters, who expressed the same desire, were transformed into small dogs who either pull her wagon or sled, or serve as hunting dogs. She visits the homes of humans during the Twelve Nights of Christmas and punishes the lazy while sometimes rewarding the virtuous or those who help her.

The Grimms say Perchta or Berchta was known "precisely in those Upper German regions where Holda leaves off, in Swabia, in Alsace, in Switzerland, in Bavaria and Austria." According to Jacob Grimm (1882), Perchta was spoken of in Old High German in the 10th century as Frau Berchta and thought to be a white robed female spirit. She was known as a goddess who oversaw spinning and weaving, like myths of Holda in Continental German regions. He believes she was the feminine equivalent of Berchtold, and she was sometimes the leader of the wild hunt. According to Erika Timm, Perchta emerged from an amalgamation of Germanic and pre Germanic, probably Celtic, traditions of the Alpine regions after the Migration Period in the Early Middle Ages. Spillahole, Spillahôle, Spiellahole; Standard German: Spindelholle; A similar being is found in folktales of formerly German speaking Bohemia. The Spillaholle is a Silesian variant of female German legendary creatures such as Hulda (Frau Holle) or Perchta. The Spindelholle is a sallow notes that Thunar (Thor) makes rain in a similar fashion, implying for Frau Holle a very high rank in the pantheon. Though not unique in this respect, the Frau Holle story is also notable for the absence of class related motifs such as palaces, halls to which one may or may not be invited, and the rise to the status of the nobility through marriage. According to the Aarne and Thompson classification system of fairy tales, Mother Hulda is a story of type 480, The Kind and the Unkind Girls. Others of this type include Shita kiri Suzume, Diamonds and Toads, The Three Heads in the Well, Father Frost, The Three Little Men in the Wood, The Enchanted Wreath, The Old Witch, and The Two Caskets. Literary variants include The Three Fairies and Aurore and Aimée.