I would love to know more about specific German witchlore, if you know something or have any good sources. I really love your blog.
.:: Germanic Witchcraft and Folklore ::.
The main Goddesses/female Major Spirits in Germany are Perchta (in the South) and Holda (in the North).The last one appears for the first time in Burchardâs Decretum (XI century). I quote from it:âDo you believe that there exists any woman who can do what certain women, duped by the devil, claim that they do out of necessity and by order? that is, that the witch/vampire (striga) whom common stupidity calls HoIda must ride on fixed nights with a horde of demons transformed into the likeness of women on the backs of beasts, and that she is numbered among their Company. If you were a participant in this false belief, you must do penance for one year on the appointed days.âI quote now from Bernadette Filotasâ âPagan Survivals, Superstition and Popular Cultures in Early Medieval Pastoral Literatureâ:
âJacob Grimm recognized in this passage the first appearance of a goddess or spirit of abundance and fertility, whose name is found in various forrns (Holda, Holle, Hulle, Frau Holl, Huldr) in Germanic rnyths and folklore throughout the continent, Scandinavia and Iceland. Nevertheless, some of Burchardâs readers understood Holda not as a proper noun but as the epithet âgenerous,â âpropitiousâ or âlovely,â for the copyists of two recensions replaced it with unholda, no doubt feeling that holda was inappropriate as epithet for the baby-eating, man-eating striga. In another version, however, striga becomes friga, so that the goddessâ name is given as Frigaholda (or, perhaps, Friga Holda, âthe generous Frigaâ). The similarity between the term striga and the name of the âgoddess of fertilityâ makes confusion natural, particularly in view of Friga and Holdaâs shared role as givers of abundance.â
In the 16th centuryâs Austria Perchta was called Perchten, and took two forms: Some are beautiful and bright, known as the SchĂśnperchten (âbeautiful Perchtenâ). These come during the Twelve Nights (from 25th of december to the 6th of january) and festivals to bring luck and wealth to the people. The other form is the Schiachperchten (âugly Perchtenâ) who have fangs, tusks and horse tails which are used to drive out demons and ghosts. Men dressed as the ugly Perchten during the 16th century and went from house to house driving out bad spirits. In the Tyrol the two Perchten battled one against the other in the Perchtenlaufen, using wooden canes and sticks. This tradition remembers the Benandanti of Friuli and the Taltos of Hungary that fought in Night Battles.
In fact, Burchard wrote also against the belief of witches (probably German witches) who fought in sky one against the other. I quote:
âHave you believed, as certain women are accustomed to believe, to wit that by virtue of other limbs provided you by the devil you have crossed in the silence of the quiet night through closed doors to fly into the clouds where you have waged battle on others, both inflicting and receiving wounds"
(Source:Â Claude Lecouteuxâs âPhantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undeadâ)
According to Jacob Grimmâs âTeutonic Mythologyâ, Holda/Perchta was called in other places of Germany or Germanic-speaking areas Frau Gauden or Gode, Harke or Herke, Luzia or Luzie, Freke, Freen, Frie, Frien, Frick or Fuik, Pudelmutter, Spampa, Rupfa or Berchta.Â
In the South of Germany she is also called Wilde Bertha or Eisenbertha and in Germany the night of the Epiphany was called Perchtennacht, or Bergnacht, i.e. âthe night of the Berchtenâ, which means the night of the apparition on Earth of spirits who are led by their queen Berchta or Perchta.
(Source: Claudia & Luigi Mancioccoâs âL'incanto e l'arcano. Per una antropologia della Befanaâ)
Near the river Main, Holda is called Frau Hulli, while in Rhineland her name becomes SpĂśrkelfrau, probably because of the christian sermons against pagan rituals, which were defined âspurcaliaâ (i.e. âfestivals of the dirtâ).
A legend from north Germany talks about a midwife which was brought in the mounts from the âWidowsâ. In the mountains she anointed herself with a little bit of elvesâ ointment under her eyes, which made her able to see the hell even after her return to the world of humans.
(Source: Hans Peter Duerrâs âDreamtime: Concerning the Boundary Between Wilderness and Civilization")
Grimm also reports that in 15th century peasants of the Rhine Palatinate believed that a female spirit called âHeraâ roamed during the Twelve Days between Xmas and Epiphany and brought abundance.
Ginzburg instead reports that in 1630 in Hesse a magician, Diel Breull, claimed that 4 times a year, during the Ember Days, he went to the Mount of Venus (Venusberg), where Fraw Holt showed him the dead and their destiny after they died. He also discovered to be a member of the phantom army, a ânachtfahrâ.
In Austria (I know I know itâs not Germany, but even in this case the Lady ask her followers to watch in the water to see the dead), in 1525 Wyprat Musin, a woman from Burseberg, declared to having seen, during a night of the Ember Days, a multitude of people led by a woman, Fraw Selga which was sister of Fraw Venus. The days in which she went with the procession with her were the nights of thursday, of the saturday and during the Ember Days.
Now that we talked about the female Spirits, letâs talk about the male ones:
According to Karl Meisenâs âDie Sagen vom wĂźttenden Heer und wilden Jägerâ and Grimm:- in central Germany a poet, Michel Wyssenherre, reported the belief in the army of WĂśden, appeared to the prince of Brunswick;- in 1593 in Rostock, Nicholaus Gryse reveals that peasants invoke Wode during the period of the harvest;- during 16th century, in Mecklenburg peasants believed that Wode was a hunter and was associated with the devil;- in 1832 professor FlĂśrke reports that in Mecklenburg the Wild Hunt is called âde Wohlâ, with Wohl as a corruption of Wodan. Another variation of Wotan in Mecklenburg was Waur and another one was Wod;- Wode was present in the north of Germany;- the Wild Hunter was called Hackelbärend, Hackelbernd, Hackelberg or Hackelblock in Lower Saxony and in Westphalia.
In the XIII-XIV century, the southern Germanic âMitteldeutsche BeschwĂśrungsformelâ talked about the procession of the âblack ones and the white onesâ, called the âGood onesâ, who gather on the mountains of the Brochelsberg; of Wotan and his army; and of elves.
Probably itâs the same procession of the dead that is attested in Lucerne (Switzerland) by Renward Cysat with similar names, such as âSäligen LĂźttâ (the âblissful peopleâ) . Â
Another Germanic case is that of Chonrad Stoeckhlin: he was both the first accuser of a witch and one of the first two people executed as a witch in a major late-sixteenth-century witch-hunt in the village of Oberstdorf in southwestern Germany. A horse herder, Stoeckhlin had a reputation as a cunning man and magical healer based on his association with the âphantoms of the nightâ (Nachtschar), a group of spirits who supposedly flew through the area at night, accompanied by Stoeckhlin. This case is approached in âShaman of Oberstdorf: Chonrad Stoeckhlin and the Phantoms of the Nightâ by Wolfgang Behringer.
Another reference to such phenomena in a judicial process in the northern half of the Alpine zone comes from Interlaken, far to the west, in 1572, when the local Bernese governor reported a woman who claimed to travel with the âNachtvolkâ (âPeople of the Nightâ).
A character similar to Oberon (and which probably begat it) is Alberich (from alb-, âelfâ and -rĂŽh- âkingâ), the Germanic King of the Elves, which appears in the franco-merovingian sagas of the V-VIII centuries and from the poem âThe Song of the Nibelungsâ.
In the legends of Hanover and Westphalia, Herodias becomes a male spirit, Herodes or Herodis-RĂśds, a Wild Hunter which appears between Xmas and Epiphany.
Moreover, in German folklore, the WeiĂe Frauen (meaning White Women) are elven-like spirits that may have derived from Germanic paganism in the form of legends of light elves.
The house spirit is called Kobold, and people usually make offerings to him with a daily meal of biscuits and milk.Â
For the Plant Familiar Spirits, I quote from James George Frazerâs âJacob and the Mandrakesâ:
âIn Germanfolk-lore the mandrake root is treated as a familiar spirit, who bringstreasures both of wisdom and of wealth to his fortunate owner. This mysticalaspect of the plant is expressed by its ordinary German name of alraun, which, derived from a wordidentical with our word âruneâ, means âthe all-wise oneâ, with the connotationof 'witchâ or 'wizardâ. In some parts of North Germany the name (alrun) is appliedto a helpful elf or goblin; hence of a rich man they will say that he possessessuch an elf, and of a lucky gamester that he has one of them in his pocket. Awoman in Nordmohr has been heard to say that the goblin is a little man about afoot high, who must be kept in a cupboard and fed on milk and biscuit; on thatdiet he grows so strong that he can bring a whole wagon-load of rye in hismouth to his owner. Dr. Faust and all wizards were supposed to possess such afamiliar spirit. Hence in trials for witchcraft the Inquisition used to inquirewhether the alleged culprit owned a familiar of this sort; and many a woman issaid to have been burnt as a witch because she kept a puppet carved out of aroot (alrĂźncken) and laid it under her pillow at night to dream upon. In 1603the wife of a Moor was hanged as a witch at Romorantin, near Orleans, becauseshe kept and daily fed a mandrake-goblin in the likeness of a female ape.â
As we saw, Ember Days were common dates for the gatherings of witches and spirits, however Goetheâs Faust reveals that even the Walpurgisnacht was an important day.
