ing of the name Hollekreisch is the calling of the baby by a shem h·ol, why did
the participants yell out “Holle, Holle”? How did yelling “Holle, Holle” help
give the infant a name? At the end of the nineteenth century, two Jewish schol-
ars hinted at what they saw as a solution to this question, and I will follow in
their footsteps. Moritz Güdemann and Joseph Perles suggested in passing, that
the cry “Holle, Holle” did not derive from the word h·ol, but rather from the
name of a Germanic goddesslike figure by the name of Frau Holle.^15 This sug-
gestion was greeted with dismay by some traditional Jewish scholars.^16
In fact, folkloristic studies concerning the figure of Frau Holle strengthen
the assumption that the Holle who is called upon is in fact this Germanic fig-
ure. Frau Holle was well known throughout northern Europe and was called
by a number of different names such as Freyja, Stampa, Frau Rose, Perchta,
and Befania, but principally as Frau Holle or Holda.^17 All these figures shared
a number of common features and were closely associated with women. They
were goddesses of the house and were held responsible for burnt baked goods
as well as for improperly woven garments.^18 Most important, Frau Holle and
her cohorts were closely connected with babies and fertility. Frau Holle was
believed to wander the forests leading a group of babies whom she had
snatched, especially during the winter months.^19 These kidnapped babies were
susceptible to Frau Holle’s machinations because they were as yet unbaptised.
The children in her entourage were all tied to one another, and the last one,
according to the legends, held a jug filled with tears, the tears belonging to his
mother. One of the ways in which children could allegedly be released from
Frau Holle’s clutches or protected from her was by giving them a Christian
name, as she did not kidnap baptized children.^20
Frau Holle is mentioned in a number of medieval sources as part of a female
religious practice that the church sought to abolish. The first source in which
Frau Holle is mentioned is Burchard of Worms’s Decretum. In the nineteenth
chapter of this book, entitled Corrector et medicus, Burchard discusses the
penance for women who followed Frau Holle. He warns of women who, “with
a throng of demons transformed into the likenesses of women (she whom com-
mon folly calls the witch Hulda) ride on certain beasts on special nights and
be numbered among their company.”^21
References to Frau Holle can be found in later sources as well. One
thirteenth-century author laments the fact that some women pray to her daily,
more than they do to the Virgin Mary herself.^22 As the folklorist Waschnitius
demonstrated in the sources he collected on Frau Holle, her nightly travels
were common knowledge. As mentioned, the principal strategy used to protect
children from Frau Holle was baptism. However, in cases in which children
had not yet been baptized, they were taken to church by women and picked
up three times, while those present called out “Holle, Holle, Holle,” and gave
the child a name.^23 Of course, once midwives and laypeople were given the
authority to baptize babies in case of emergency (as was declared in a variety
rick simeone
(Rick Simeone)
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