Winter Fairies & Winter Goddesses

Snow fairies capture our imagination. They appear in stories in our childhood in frozen and Jack Frost. We know them from fairytales and myths. In this lecture I want you to explore the origins of the snow fairies with me. They are connected to many winter goddesses such as Germanic Frau Holle, Scandinavian Hulda, and Finnish Louhi. This audio is based on a video lecture that was posted on one of my channels in 2016.

Transcript

Fairies in general,

They are nature spirits.

Fairies are elementals,

So snow fairies,

They are elementals and they represent winter,

Frost and ice,

Coldness and especially icy roads and stuff,

They can be very harmful.

Snow fairies,

They also represent element of danger within them and we have to acknowledge the fact that snow fairies,

They live in different dimension to us people.

We know that the word of the snow fairies,

It is separate from us,

So we can never be entirely part of their world because they only live in this one season according to folklore from many different parts of the world.

Elementals are the ones who create the seasons.

We have spring fairies making flowers grow,

We have summer fairies making world green,

We have autumn fairies who paint the leaves to be colourful,

Then we have winter fairies who create everything to be frosty and white and beautiful,

Sparkly,

Shimmering,

Magical and of course fairies,

Snow fairies especially are connected to snowflakes.

Each snowflake is unique,

But the snow fairies,

They do possess this element of danger and unknown,

But they are also fairies that represent comfort and rest and peace,

All the things that are represented in the nature that is falling under a snowy blanket.

Snow fairies,

They are also protectors,

They protect nature,

They allow it to rest.

Snow fairies,

They represent rebirth and therefore they also represent dying nature and bird of nature and this goes all the way down to the fairy tale origins of the Snow Queen fairy tale and also some fairy tales from Brothers Grimm.

But let's start with the Snow Queen,

I'm sure many of you know the Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale about the Snow Queen about the two children,

A boy and a girl who were almost like brother and sister because they were very close and the Snow Queen took the boy and the girl went on a long journey to find him back.

And the Snow Queen in this story is not really an evil character,

But more of a someone who we should feel pity because she is very lonely and she kidnaps the boy to her winter kingdom.

That's Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale.

Then we have a story about Frau Holla and Frau Holla is believed to be a character or a goddess whose character the Snow Queen is based or one of the characters because these ideas of goddesses connected to winter,

You can find them from many different countries you can find them from Scotland,

From Finland,

From Russia,

From Germany,

From Sweden,

From Norway and so on.

Frau Holla,

She is a Germanic folklore figure.

Brothers Grimm,

They wrote a fairy tale about her in the 19th century that has lots of Christian elements so we have to be very careful when we interpret that fairy tale.

And in this particular fairy tale there is a girl who has an evil stepmother and an evil stepsister,

Classical fairy tale and she is spinning the spinning wheel and she hurts her finger into the spindle and blood starts to flow and she goes to wash the spindle and she drops the spindle into the well and because she is afraid that the stepmother is going to beat her up,

Because of that she dives into the well to find the spindle and the well is magical and takes her into a magical dimension where she is in a beautiful meadow and there she meets Frau Holla who in this story is described to be an old hag,

Because that's what they did for the many goddesses,

Brothers Grimm they turned them into old hags.

So the girl,

She becomes the servant of Frau Holla and in the fairy tale when the girl shakes her mattress she creates snow storms and snow starts to fall to the earth at the end of the fairy tale she returns to her home and the Frau Holla gives her gold and stuff and she is happily ever after That's the Brothers Grimm fairy tale but Frau Holla itself is an actual Germanic goddess who was worshipped in the pagan times by different Germanic tribes and according to the legend she was connected to Yule and to winter solstice and she was prayed by women because she was a protector of women and she was a protector of children she was also a goddess of magic.

It makes sense because many goddesses who are connected to winter and autumn time they are also seen as the crown goddesses,

They possess the crown wisdom,

Knowledge of the world,

Knowledge of life Frau Holla is based on an even more older folklore figure,

That is Hulda,

Goddess Hulda or Hulda,

The name varies and she is a Scandinavian-norse goddess and worship of Hulda is really ancient,

It predates the bird of Norse pantheon she is a primordial goddess,

She was worshipped according to some sources already in Mesopaleotic times so she really represents the earliest form of mother cult,

Mother goddess cult in Scandinavia and I found stories about Hulda really interesting and rather shamanistic So Hulda was a goddess similar to Frau Holla,

Protector of children and goddess of magic Hulda was goddess of winter,

Goddess of darkness and she was many times depicted to be an old woman so this is something very common when it comes to this.

Wintery goddesses,

Her origins are believed to be celestial even I heard this myth for the first time,

It reminded me of the story of Lohifra,

Feliz Mthawachi who is goddess of the underworld but before that,

Before she was demonized because she is another crown goddess who is extremely powerful goddess of shamanism,

Magic and witchcraft she was goddess of the moon and her name is derived from many different words and probably some of the most close reasons why her name is Lohi or Lohitat is that Lohi is old Finnish and means vagina and she is connected to female powers and female magic and it is believed that Lohi's origins are in the moon and even ordered them that in the star skies and in northern lights because she is the goddess who rules star skies she is another celestial goddess.

So Hulda have similar origins,

Goddess of the moon perhaps and goddess of the celestial constellation stars,

Stardust she is the goddess of star dust,

Goddess of beauty in the night sky and there is these beliefs from northern Europe across no matter what language these people spoke because they spoke many different languages is that at some point people believed that underworld was not a literal place somewhere underground but spirits of the dead,

They lived in the stars and in the star skies so Hulda and Lohitat are both connected to this idea of are spirits living in the night sky,

It's beautiful and Hulda as being the protector of women and children there are things that are very connected to her like spinning,

Spinning is another thing that is connected to goddesses of fate and of course being goddess of death is also goddess of life and this is very essential idea in all goddesses that are related to winter this idea of nature dying is that they hold a seed inside them and this literally is representation of a snow covering the earth the earth represents the seed which blooms in the spring so these winter goddesses they are keeper of the seeds and it's the same with the snow fairies,

They are keeper of the seeds because they create winter so they are all connected to rebirth in nature and rebirth in animals,

Rebirth in us humans,

It's a beautiful way to understand it and this actually has connections too as Christian understands fairytale because there we have the woman who in my eyes or in my understanding of the fairytale does not have ability to have children that's why she kidnaps the boy and wants the boy to love her but that doesn't happen because love needs to be unconditional and she wants to charm the boy to love her and it doesn't work that way of course so these are the origins of the snow queen fairytale and some stories about the snow fairies and winter goddesses

Reviews

Wow this was a fascinating and packed with wonderful information. Thank you!