Berchta is an interesting, complex, and all too often forgotten deity. She is likely synonymous with Holda, being similar in function and existing in regions where Holda does not. Despite having no written record on the scale of other continental or cross-cultural deities, she appears across Germanic cultures and left behind a rich tapestry woven of festivals, footnotes, and fairy tales.

I would like to put forward that Berchta is a dualistic deity- on one hand, she spins flax and watches over the children, and on the other she is a monstrous maiden of the forest. She is a unique mix of “hearth and hell”. This much is evidenced by the Perchtenlauf festival of Austria. Here, two groups of people dress as opposing races of spirits- the Schonperchten and the Schiachperchten, or beautiful and ugly perchten, respectively. These two groups then have a mock battle with sticks as part of the festivities. Here, we have two seemingly contradictory sets of entities taking their name from Berchta (Perchta). This festival is likely a recreation of myth, representing the struggle between Good and Evil or some similar concept, and we have our goddess presiding over both sides.

The Perchtenlauf festival is not alone in it’s association of Berchta with both beautiful and ugly creatures. In Scandinavian tales, we find the Huldra, a name possibly connected to Holda (It’s worth noting that “Holda” means something along the lines of “Kindly” whereas Huldra means “Hidden”). Here, the beautiful and the ugly are divided by gender, with the beautiful Huldrafolk being female and the ugly male. These are entities closely associated with forests and underground places, with the females being generally kind to humans.

Grimm gives an absolute treasure trove Perchta/Holda’s grisly nature; he describes her as one of the leaders of the wild hunt, with one foot like a swan’s, and having the form of both a young maiden and an old hag. He suggests that she was once a goddess of very high standing. Later Christians associated her with Diana, Herodias, and Abundia, in this case associating her with witchcraft and the Fair Folk. But despite the grisly, chaotic nature of Berchta, she was also a goddesses of rewards, punishment, and prosperity. As “The Bellyslitter”, she would gut children who misbehaved, but she would also leave silver coins for good children. As Frau Holle, she sees that the good daughter is rewarded handsomely while the bad daughter receives a rather nasty burn. In Bavaria, Thomas Ebendorfer denounces the practice of leaving Perchta food offerings in hopes of receiving blessings. In the Rhineland, we can find three devotional stones raised to one “Hludana”, possibly Holda (But also, perhaps some iteration of Eorthe after the Norse “Hlodyn”). Even the names suggest beneficence: Holda roughly means “Kindly” whereas Perchta is “Bright”.

Berchta/Holda is an adequately two sided goddess, representing at her most cruel a dealer of harsh punishments and leader of evil spirits, who takes the souls of stillborns and guts bad kids, but at the same time a beautiful goddess of bounty who rewards kindness and hard work. She is as closely associated with the forest and witchcraft as she is the home and spinning. While I think we still have a long way to go in terms of understanding this goddess, I would definitely like to remain on her good side.

As a little aside, Perchta’s worship picked up during winter. She associated with the twelve days between Christmas and the Epiphany, and even the Epiphany itself, likely as a holdover of earlier festivals and feasts. During these days, people would leave behind bowls of food for the goddess. Additionally, the Perchtenlauf in the Tyrol occurs around the Christmas season. In Slovenia, at least, she was associated with the Ember Days, or three days of significance each season in the Catholic church, possibly a holdover from Roman agricultural customs.