Have you ever heard of a Christmas witch?
Like Santa, but not as nice
She flies through the air on a broom. She’s an old hag. She terrorizes small children. She’ll split your belly open! She appears on…Christmas?
That’s right. Last year when I was researching winter folklore of Europe, I came across a series of figures who can only be described as Christmas witches (or winter witches). I was intrigued by the fact that they sound a lot like Santa Claus but (a) they’re women and (b) they’re kind of evil. In particular:
La Befana (Italy)
Perchta (Germany/Austria)
Gryla (Iceland)
As it turns out, evil Christmas has already found its way into popular culture in the US (see: Krampus), but until last year it was a new idea to me. And it’s exactly the kind of Christmas/Halloween crossover that Night Hag readers have been clamoring for! (In my very active imagination.) So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this brief, scholarly-but-hopefully-not-too-scholarly installment of THE CHRISTMAS WITCHES.
La Befana and Perchta
La Befana (Italy) and Perchta (Germany/Austria) are sort of like angel and devil versions of the same figure: an old woman who goes from house to house between Christmas and the Epiphany, giving presents OR punishing children, depending on the version of the story (and whether the children have been good, of course). In addition to dispensing gifts and punishment, La Befana and Perchta are both “spinning hags,” figures associated with the preindustrial spinning of raw fiber into thread. While they’re primarily linked to Twelfth Night (the eve of the Epiphany), you’ll find references to them throughout the Christmas season.
Of the two, La Befana is more likely to bring you a gift (although she may also curse your crops), while Perchta is more likely to remove your stomach and guts. Perchta will split your belly open for a variety of reasons: maybe you’re a badly-behaved child, or maybe you’re a housewife who didn’t finish her spinning before the new year (naughty, naughty). Either way, you’re disemboweled!
La Befana is also more explicitly identified with Christmas than Perchta: in addition to closely resembling Santa Claus (justice for woman Santas!), some versions of the Befana story place her in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’s birth, or, like the Magi, traveling to bestow gifts on the baby Jesus. Perhaps you are familiar with the children’s book Strega Nona? The author, Tomie dePaola, has another book called The Legend of Old Befana that is basically the familiar Christmas story (three kings, heavenly host, Christ child, etc.) but like…with a witch who joins the gang? And she’s not an obscure figure: as Steve Siporin documents in his book, La Befana remains part of Italian Christmas and Epiphany celebrations even today.
Perchta remains part of Alpine tradition as well. In Salzburg or Tyrol you can attend Perchtenlauf (Perchten Run): a parade in which participants don terrifying masks to make mischief and frighten away winter spirits. (Similar idea to Krampus; in fact, Perchten Runs and Krampus Runs are often discussed as analogous/overlapping events.) What’s the connection to Perchta? The Perchten are devilish followers of Perchta.
If this all seems a bit pagan to you, you’re not alone. A 15th-century source condemns those “who leave food for Perchta in the ‘night of Perchta’” as “sinners,” suggesting that belief in Perchta falls outside Christian tradition.1 Jacob Grimm (of the fairytales) writes that “we cannot point out a dame Perchta before the 15th or 14th century, or at earliest the 13th,” but nonetheless speculates that she derives from a “heathen deity.”2 Similarly, Lotte Motz identifies Perchta as one of several “potent female forces” whom she calls “ancient goddesses” or “divinities.”3
There’s also a pagan version of La Befana. Or, at least, there are competing accounts of where her story originates. While some scholars believe La Befana evolved alongside Christianity, others link her to an ancient “grandmother progenitress” who returns each year to bring “blessings of fertility to her descendants.” But Siporin cautions that this is “more of a hypothesis than established fact.”4
Gryla
As Grimm’s and Siporin’s disclaimers acknowledge, the lack of textual evidence makes it difficult to say for sure whether Perchta and La Befana are pagan figures. Another winter witch who seems to originate in pre-Christian story cycles — but whose story has become blended with Christianity — is Gryla.
Gryla appears in the folklore of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Shetland, and Orkney. (She also appears in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and if you’re me then maybe that’s how you learned about her.) She is first on a list of “troll wives” from 13th-century Iceland; later stories retain Gryla’s troll-like qualities but weave her into the Christian calendar:
Down comes Gryla from the outfields with forty tails, a bag on her back, a short sword (or knife) in each hand, coming to carve out the stomachs (or eyes) of children who cry for meat during Lent.5
Sound familiar? Shades of Perchta. In other versions Gryla punishes children at Christmastime rather than during Lent, further aligning her with Perchta. And in Shetland there’s a tradition of men dressing as Gryla’s descendants (the grølleks) and going from house to house, not unlike the Perchten.6
And that’s a wrap — for now — on the Christmas witches! As you all settle in for your long winter’s nap, may visions of belly-slitters dance in your head. Better hurry up and finish your spinning.
Imagine Christmas witches, shooting out of your eyes.7
Lotte Motz, “The Winter Goddess: Percht, Holda, and Related Figures,” Folklore 95:ii (1984): 151.
Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, translated from the fourth edition with notes and appendix by James Steven Stallybrass, vol. I (1882), 281–2, Google Books.
Motz, 151.
Steve Siporin, The Befana Is Returning (University of Wisconsin Press, 2022), 151.
William Sayers, “Grendel’s Mother, Icelandic Gryla, and Irish Nechta Scéne: Eviscerating Fear,” Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium (1996/1997): 262.
Sayers, 262. See also John B. Smith, “Perchta the Belly-Slitter and Her Kin: A View of Some Traditional Threatening Figures, Threats and Punishments,” Folklore 115:2 (2004): 179.
I reeeeaaaaally want to take credit for this but: thank you Matthew Loar for this excellent joke.
Couldn't be more delighted to see Night Hag in my inbox! However, you've presented a maddening embarrassment of potential-band-name riches: Spinning Hags? Troll Wives?! The Perchten??