Fairy tales are a much ignored source of heathen lore which is a shame because much of Frigg’s worship survives in this form. The folk names for plants and star constellations and stories such as The Gift of Flax tell us as much about the goddess as the Eddas do. Here are three tales from Northern Europe crammed with enchantment, magical worlds, hostile and benevolent spirits. These three stories have much in common, they are told by women for women, the heroine of each tale is a spinner, a role every housewife and maiden could once relate to. Spinning is strongly associated with magic in Europe as these tales show, pick up a spindle, and you had better be wise in the ways of spirits.
The other element all these stories share is the magical well, as a portal to a supernatural world, but let the tales speak for themselves:
There was once a woman who lived alone with her lazy daughter and her kind and beautiful stepdaughter. The stepdaughter was treated harshly and made to do all the work about the house. When the housework was done she was expected to sit by the well outside the cottage and spin.
One day she was spinning so long that her hand started to bleed and the spindle was stained with blood. She dipped the spindle into the well to clean it but she lost her grip and the spindle dropped into the water. The girl went to her stepmother and explained what had happened, and she was told to get the spindle out again. The poor stepdaughter was at a loss and jumped into the well. Instead of water she found herself in an unfamiliar landscape. After a short walk she came to a bread oven. The bread cried out to her ‘Let me out let me out, I shall burn!’ The stepdaughter took the bread out of the oven and soon came to an apple tree. ‘Shake me, shake me!’ cried the tree ‘My apples are ripe! Shake me!’ The stepdaughter shook the tree and gathered up all the apples into a pile. Then she came to a small cottage occupied by an old, large toothed women. The woman introduced herself as Frau Holda and asked if she would do her housework in exchanged for food and lodgings. The stepdaughter agreed and worked hard for Frau Holda and shook her feather bed every day until the feathers flew.
She stayed with Frau Holda for many days until she was overcome by a great tiredness and realised that she was homesick. When Frau Holda learnt that she wanted to leave she took the girl to a door in the cottage, when she opened it a golden shower fell and the pieces of gold stuck to the stepdaughter. ‘That is your reward for your hard work’ said Frau Holda and handed her the spindle that she had dropped in the well.
The girl found herself back home and the cockerel cried ‘Cock a doodle doo, your golden child’s come back to you.’ She was well received by her stepmother and stepsister on account of the small fortune of gold that she carried. She told them everything that had happened and her stepmother was eager for her own daughter to be so blessed. The lazy daughter took the spindle to the well. She pricked her finger on a thorn, stained the spindle with blood and dropped it into the water. When she jumped into the water she found herself next to the bread oven. But she would not listen to the bread’s pleas, ‘I will only get my hands dirty.’ she said. She passed the apple tree and again the pleas were ignored, ‘I won’t shake you, an apple might fall on my head!’ the lazy girl exclaimed.
When she reached Frau Holda’s cottage she immediately offered her services and the old woman took her on. For the first day she forced herself to do the housework. The second day she did little and the third day she did none. Soon she even refused to leave her bed. Frau Holda gave the lazy child her notice and lead her to the door. As it opened soot rained down on the lazy daughter. In her mother’s village the cockerel cried ‘Cock a doodle doo, your sooty child’s come back to you.’ and the soot never came off.
A mother had two daughters, one was idle and spoilt while the other was hardworking and despised. During the summer the two girls span outside by the well and one day they decided to have a spinning contest. The winner would be the sister who could spin for longest without breaking her thread, while the loser would be forced to climb down the well as a forfeit.
The girls’ mother always gave the best tow to her favourite daughter, so it was inevitable that she would win the contest. Despite the sisters skill at spinning her thread broke and she was forced to climb down the well. However this was no ordinary well and when she stopped climbing she found herself on an unfamiliar mountainside. The girl decided to explore, as she walked a hedge cried out ‘Please pass carefully, don’t damage my foliage!’. The girl was surprised but obeyed the request and passed the hedge with care. The hedge was glad of her thoughtfulness and promised to help her in the future.
Next the girl approached a cow who pleaded to be milked. The girl was happy to help and milked her. The grateful cow offered her a drink so the girl drank some of the milk to ease her thirst. Further on the girl met a sheep weighed down with a heavy fleece. ‘Please shear me.’ begged the sheep, ‘My coat is too heavy.’ A pair of shears hung from the sheep’s horn and the girl lifted them off. She sheared the sheep and replaced the shears. The girl walked further and found an apple tree heavy with fruit with a pole leaning against it. ‘Please knock off the apples’ cried the tree ‘they are ripe and heavy on my branches. The girl took the pole and gently knocked the apples from the tree. The tree was greatly relieved and offered her some fruit to eat. The girl took a couple of apples and walked on.
Then the girl approached a farm house which was home to a ferocious troll wife. The girl asked if she could work for her keep and was set three impossible tasks, and told that if she failed she would met a dire fate. She had to fetch water in a sieve, clean out a byre as big as a meadow and wash a black fleece white. The birds of the land took pity on the girl and told her how to complete the work. The sieve was filled with mud to carry water, the byre was cleaned with a magic broom and the fleece was dipped in enchanted water. The trollwife grudging admitted that she deserved a reward for her hard work. The girl was allowed to choose one of three chests, the girl choose the plainest one and left for home.
The trollwife came after her, determined to reclaim her property, but the girl was helped all along the way. The tree hid her in its branches, the cow and the sheep obscured her and she hid below the hedge as the trollwife searched in vain. The girl found the well and climbed up to her home clutching her box. She rushed to her room and opened it, it was full of gold, silver and precious fabrics. Her mother and sister were flabbergasted at the wealth the girl had obtained. The sister was jealous at climbed down the well to find her own treasure.
The sister did not fare so well in the enchanted world. She pushed her way through the hedge ignoring its complaints, she drank all of the cows milk, cut the sheep when she sheared it and battered the appletree with the pole. At the farmhouse she asked for work and was given the same three tasks as her sister. But when the birds tried to help her she threw stones at them. She failed to complete any of the tasks and the trollwife grew tire of her and offered her one of three chests if she would leave. The sister choose the largest chest and the trollwife let her go freely.
The sister took the huge chest home and proudly presented it to her mother. They opened it but it was not full of treasure. Out of the box wiggled snakes, bats, frogs and all manner of reptiles. From that day on whenever the sister opened her mouth a frog fell out and no one could bear the sight of her.
There was once a wealthy women who was accustomed to sit up late and spin while the family was asleep. One evening when she was carding wool there was a knock at the door and a voice called ‘Let me in. I am the witch of the one horn.’ Mistaking the witch for her neighbour the lady let the woman in. She had a large horn growing out of her forehead and held a pair of wool combs. The witch sat down by the fire and began to comb wool with great haste. Another woman knocked at the door crying ‘Let me in! I am the witch of the two horns.’ The lady felt strangely obliged to obey and let in the second witch. She had two horns growing out of her head and carried a spinning wheel. She sat down and started to spin as quick as lightning. The witches kept arriving until they numbered twelve, all with a different number of horns. They worked at speed at the lady’s carding, spinning, reeling and weaving. By now the lady was truly frightened, the witched were working with unnatural speed and singing, but the lady was unable to move. One of the witches cried out ‘Get us a cake, woman!’ The lady searched the for a vessel to get water from the well for baking but she could find none. ‘Use the sieve!’ cried the witches so she took the sieve to the well and tried to fill it with water but of course it ran straight through.
The lady sat down and wept but she held a voice speaking from the well ‘Plaster the sieve with mud and it will hold water.’ The lady did as she was bidden by the well and the sieve did hold water. The voice came again ‘You must go to the door and cry “The mountain of the Fenian Women is on fire!” three times.’ The lady did so and the twelve witches came running out screaming and heading off to Slievenamon. The well spirit told her how to secure her house and she followed his instructions. She poured water she had used to wash her childrens’ feet over the threshold. She broke up the cake the witches had made in her absence with blood and put the pieces in the mouths of her sleeping children. She put the witches weaving half in and half out of her linen chest and locked the lid, lastly she bolted the door.
The witches soon returned screaming for vengeance. They called to the water to let them in. ‘I cannot’ the water replied, ‘I am scattered on the ground.’ They called to the cake to let them in. ‘I cannot’ replied the cake, ‘I am broken and my blood is on the lips of the children.’ On hearing these words the witches fled through the air back to Slievenamon screaming curses at the spirit of the well. One of them dropped a mantle which was kept by the lady’s family for many generations.
The first two tales are clearly connected. Holda’s land beneath the well where the industrious girls are rewarded and the idle suffer punishment remains the same but Holda is transformed from compassionate crone to hateful trollwife. The German Holda is the survival of an ancient goddess, possibly Frigg herself and folklore gives her the governance of fertility and weather. She is generally connected with water and apple trees and it can be no co-incidence that both appear in both tales. The trollwife is probably the same goddess seen in a Christian world, she is ugly, incapable of love and bitterly resentful of her human neighbours. Even in Grimm’s version of the tale Holda is long toothed and fearful in appearance. The connection between Holda and the well brings to mind the lakeside hall of Frigg, the well of the norns, and the ancient sacred springs and lakes dedicated to the northern deities. In both stories the act of spinning causes the girls to go down the well, an act governed by both Holda and Frigg. The addition of blood in the German tale is very interesting, suggesting the girl has made an involuntary offering to the goddess which takes her to Holda’s land. Note the similarity between this motif and the story of Sleeping Beauty where a blooded spindle also starts the enchantment. The sensation of dropping into a well may also be a metaphor for a shamantic trance, again explaining the link between the worlds. Imagery comparable to the rainbow bridge and the world tree which link all the worlds in everyday language. The Irish tale belongs to another story group where the act of spinning summons hostile spirits, a theme also common to Rumplestiltskin and Tom Tit Tot. The witches are from a local fairy hill and try to take possession of the farmstead by enchantment. A almost identical tale is told in Scotland where the fairies are less ominous, being slight women dressed in green. However they are equally dangerous and the housewife does not notice the enchantment until she realised that he husband cannot be woken. Spinning was traditionally and evening task, performed after the essential cooking laundry and farmwork of the day. If a housewife was expected to keep the household self sufficient in cloth she would have to work late in the evening while the menfolk retired earlier. This meant the spinner was alone after dark and a tempted prey for malicious fairies. Again the well acts as a link to the spirit world, the helpful man in the well who saves the spinners family. Again this may be a memory of a time when wells and springs were held sacred.
(1) Household Tales. Brothers Grimm. Pan Books. 1977.
(2) Magical Justice: The Enchanted World. Time Life Books. 1986.
(3) Fairy Tales of Ireland. W B Yates. Collins 1990.