Holda: The Goddess of Yule
Lily Gardner ©2000
Llewellyn's 2001 Magical Almanac
At Yule, the Wheel of the Year seems to halt and darkness reigns. At this time we honor the Teutonic goddess, Holda, who ruled for centuries as a kindly sky goddess until Christianity turned her from saint to temptress and hag. Though nearly unknown in the United States, she is still burned in effigy in some rural areas of Germany.
As a sky goddess, Holda combed her golden hair to make the sunshine; when she washed her linens, it rained; smoke from her fire made fog; and when she shook her feather quilts, it snowed. As the divine mother goddess, Holda taught her people to spin and weave cloth.
It was the worship of Holda that inspired the Saint Ursula legend of the Middle Ages. Saint Ursula, a virgin princess sailing the Rhine with her eleven thousand maiden attendants, was struck down by a band of marauding Huns. She was said to have been martyred on October 21, A. D. 237--this despite the fact that the Huns who killed her weren't in force for another two hundred years. Nevertheless, because of her great modesty and piety, the Church made Ursula a saint, and at the same time it encouraged a celebratory custom of rolling a decorated ship mounted on wheels through the German villages on her feast day. In times past, Holda was known to sail a silver boat (the Moon) through the night skies and disappear into the mountains at dawn. By inventing Saint Ursula, the Catholic clergy transformed Pagan Moon worship into a religious practice honoring their new saint.
Even today, Mt. Horselberg is still called "Dame Holda's Court" by locals in Eisenach, Germany. This is the site where Holda was said to have seduced Tannhauser in the thirteenth-century legend of "Venus and Tannhauser," a tale later made famous by Swinburne, the poet, and Richard Wagner, the composer. Legend has it that the poet knight, Tannhauser, caught a glimpse of the magnificent goddess as he rode past the mountain. She beckoned to him and he followed her into the caverns of Horselberg, where they lived for seven years. Eventually, Tannhauser left Holda and asked for forgiveness from his local priest, who passed him to another bishop, and so on, from priest to priest to bishop till eventually he sat before Pope Urban. The pope declared that his own scepter would sprout green leaves before Tannhauser could hope to be
forgiven for such debauchery. In despair, Tannhauser returned to Holda and was never seen again by mortals. Three days later, Pope Urban's scepter sprouted leaves, and Tannhauser was summoned but never found.
Tannhauser's manservant, Trusty Eckhart, figures in another Holda legend. It is said that Trusty Eckhart sits by the side of the road during the season of Yule to warn travelers to find shelter from the Wild Hunt. The Wild Hunt is a train of demons and hellhounds that scream and howl through stormy weather. In this legend, the train is led by Holda, who, along with her train of demons, kidnaps Eckhart and forces him to ride the storms in the Wild Hunt until the end of time. Any person found outdoors during a storm can be swept up into the train. Holda's reputation for kidnapping travelers, and also unbaptized babies, according to another legend, is the reason why she is burnt in effigy in Eisfeld, Germany.
Hans Christian Andersen used Holda as the basis for the Snow Queen, from the tale of the same name. The Snow Queen, the personification of the frozen, dangerous, Danish winter, was very beautiful but her kisses were freezing. Her soldiers, her servants, and her clothing was made of snowflakes, and her throne rested on a frozen lake. The Snow Queen was neither good nor evil, but she was deadly.
Holda became the crone figure in the Grimm's nineteenth-century fairy tale, "Mother Holle." In the story, a virtuous young woman fell down a well trying to retrieve her spinning reel. Instead of treading water at the bottom of the well, the girl found herself in a rural landscape much like her home. Here she encountered Mother Holle, an old woman with matted gray hair and large, ugly teeth. The girl worked diligently for the old woman and was rewarded. When the hardworking girl returned home, she was covered with gold. Her lazy sister tried her luck with Frau Holle, but because she was lazy and selfish, she was punished and returned home covered with pitch that would not wash off.
These legends contain two common threads: Holda's influence over the weather and her interest in domestic arts. The spinning wheel is Holda's symbol, and spinning and weaving her special province. To honor Holda during the season of Yule, no wheels were used. Or as the old saying put it: "From Yule till New Year's Day, neither wheel nor windlass must go round." The idea being, too, that as the Sun seems to stand still at Yule, so we cease the movement of our wheels. Once the Wheel of the Year turns anew on New Year's Day, so we begin again. Yule is Holda's feast day. Honor her by quieting the motion of your life for this one day when the "Sun stands still."
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