Berchta
Also called Frau Berchta, Perchta, Percht, Precht, Bertha, Berkta, Brechta.
The ragged Alpine winter woman with one flattened treadle foot, who inspects barns and spinning between Christmas and Twelfth Night.
At a glance
- Tradition
- Alpine folklore
- Region
- European Alps (place of origin)
- Trait family
- The Child-Frighteners
- Symbols
- Foot
Near this figure
Symbols
Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.
- Foot bears image-domain The foot denotes contact with earth and the ground of reality, bared to receive its blessing, while cloven or wounded it marks a chthonic nature.
why
The ragged Alpine winter woman with one flattened treadle foot, who inspects barns and spinning between Christmas and Twelfth Night.
Traits
Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.
Behaviour
- Invoked to frighten children into obedience
why
She is still held over disobedient children and workshy young people in parts of the Austrian and south German lands, and across into Switzerland and Alsace, and the sources are deliberately open about her rank, calling her a hobgoblin or a minor goddess according to who is telling it.
- Annual seasonal attack
why
Disordered herself, she requires order and steady work from everybody else, and her season is exact rather than general: the stretch running from Christmas to her own feast at Twelfth Night.
Roles
Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.
- Shadow carries
1 citation
- Carol Rose, Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins, s.v. "Berchta."