Frau Perchta, The Belly-Slitting Half-Demon Christmas Witch
Frau Perchta is another terrifying Christmas legend from the Alpine region of Europe, a Pagan goddess who creeps through the snow-covered forests of Austria and Germany during the 12 Days of Christmas.
Though she is malevolent, Perchta’s goal is a simple one: to ensure the locals are upholding their customs — and to kill those who aren’t.
Philipp Guelland/Getty ImagesA group dressed as Perchten, the mythical entourage of Perchta, a goddess in ancient southern alpine pagan tradition, to chase away evil spirits. The tradition dates back to at least the 16th century.
When Perchta learns that someone has misbehaved during the year, legend says she enters their home as they sleep, rips open their stomach, and disembowels them.
In the empty stomach, she stuffs straw, rocks, and garbage before stitching her victim back up and moving onto the next.
“Perchta is a sinister figure,” wrote folklorist John B. Smith, “who punishes the slovenly, the idle, the greedy, the inquisitive.”
She deals out punishment for crimes as insignificant as weaving on a day deemed sacred or feasting with too little enthusiasm. In one story, Perchta attends a wedding to which she had not been invited, cursing the bride, groom, and all in attendance to live the rest of their days as wolves.
In another, she curses a young farmhand who had spied on her to become blind.
TwitterAn illustration depicting Christmas legend Frau Perchta holding the entrails of a person.
However, another folklore scholar and named Rebecca Beyer expressed to Vice that Perchta also has a unique duality about her.
“She is one of the many dual-faced goddesses, both fair and ugly, dark and light,” Beyer said. Frau Perchta’s name, it turns out, means “bright one,” referring to versions of the legend that refer to Perchta as Grandmother Winter, a youthful and white-as-snow goddess who brings the snowfall each winter.
Today, the legend of Frau Perchta lives on in the Perchtenlauf, which Beyer called “a masked procession full of noise-making, fireworks and people, generally men, dressed as terrible beasts with large horns. These perchent, or followers of Perchta, serve to frighten away the cold, evil spirits of winter by out ugly-ing them.”
Many of these Christmas legends had their roots in Paganism — but so does Christmas itself. Learn all about the Yule Festival and how it influenced modern Christmas celebrations. Then, learn about the origins of the Christmas tree.
