December is here! I think of this as “the time of year when we welcome the winter deities”. I am a winter person (which most people find incomprehensible). I crave the Scandinavian darkness and hibernation. I dance for joy when the first snow arrives!
In the Northern Hemisphere, the nights are now much longer than the days. This is the time when the Wild Hunt rides out, a well-known phenomenon across Central, Western and Northern Europe. Folklore tells us about a supernatural leader travelling through the sky (but close to the ground) to the sounds of the howling icy winds. This leader (often a deity or other well-known figure such as Odin) is accompanied by a troupe of other beings, and often animals too (causing the sound of baying hounds). I have also seen people on the Hunt riding horses.
This is the time of year when two ancient Germanic figures get active: Frau Holle (in Dutch Vrouw Holle, also known as Mother Holle) and Sinterklaas (the Dutch name for St Nicholas). Both Frau Holle and Sinterklaas have a connection to the Wild Hunt. Both are soul conductors (or psycho pomps) and have a connection to children.
In the (modern) Netherlands, Sinterklaas is a feast focused on children. The saint arrives on his steamboat in mid-November (and children watch this event on TV). He then visits different locations and children put a shoe by the fireplace (or other key place in the house) in the hope of finding sweets (candy) in their shoes the next morning. They usually leave an offering for his horse too (usually a carrot) and sing songs about Sinterklaas.
The popular saint keeps a large book where he makes notes of the behaviour of children (the idea is that well-behaved children are rewarded and naughty children are punished, or at least told off). On the eve of his birthday (December 5th), he delivers presents and then disappears for another year. “His steamboat returns to Spain”, as children are told, but different versions exist in the surrounding regions, such as parts of Germany close to the Dutch border.
Sinterklaas has many helpers called Zwarte Pieten (Black Peters) who check on children and assist with the delivery of presents and treats. The figure of Zwarte Piet has become very controversial in recent years. The accusation of “black face” has been made because (for centuries) white men would traditionally use shoe polish (in our day, face paint) to blacken their faces. This has set a new trend in motion of “Regenboog Pieten” (Rainbow Peters), where the helpers do not use face paint but wear the characteristic colourful costumes and rainbow coloured wigs instead.
The Netherlands has absorbed a large number of global immigrants (of all possible ethnicities) in the last decade. Therefore, I understand the reasons for this backlash. However, historically speaking, we need to point out that this tradition did not refer to actual skin colour at all. By white people blackening their faces, a spiritual reversal occurred, which indicated they now represented the souls of the dead, who are known to come calling at this time of year, expecting food offerings. The Land of the Dead is often referred to as a place where “things are reversed”. In some parts of the world, people believe that “the dead walk upside down in the footsteps of the living”. In other parts of Europe, we also find Reversal Festivals at this time of year.
Recent essay about “reversal feasts”:
Frau (or Mother) Holle became demonised (along with many other older or pagan deities) when Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe. There are many reports of her roaming the land and night sky, accompanied by the spirits of dead children. This phenomenon is called The Wild Hunt of Frau Holle. In Middle Dutch, the name of the Milky Way was Vroneldenstraet: the street or highway of Frau Holle. She is also known as the Hyllemoer or Elder Mother and is closely associated with the spirit of the Elder Tree. As a new religion called Christianity took over, Frau Holle became feared, even demonised. Her crucial role, patrolling the liminal zone between Life and Death, was no longer understood. Her deep compassion for life, especially young life, was no longer felt. I feel strongly that Frau Holle deserves to return to our collective consciousness and take her rightful place there.
THE WILD HUNT OF FRAU HOLLE AND HER HEIMCHEN 2017 Imelda Almqvist Art Video
Our Northern European ancestors knew that we need to tread with care at this time of year. We need to make offerings to ancestors and the spirits of the land. And unless we are spirit workers, we stay indoors when we hear the howling or baying sounds of the Wild Hunt riding out.
During Twelvetide (or the Twelve Days of Christmas, remember the song?), women used to take a pause from spinning and weaving because this is a very liminal time. They remove the wool from their distaff and clean all their spinning tools? Why, because the sacred art of spinning has a connection to the Norns or Fates (and in the Netherlands to the Witte Wieven: Pale Ladies or Mist Witches).
After all, spinning is a spiritually charged activity. It might just affect what happens to the Threads of Life and Threads of Fate that tie us to Life on Earth and the Human Family…
To hear more about all this, listen to a Podcast that John Hijatt (the host of the Gifts of the Wyrd Podcast) recorded with me a year ago. The information is timeless and as relevant this year:
84 Gifts of the Wyrd: Yule Web…–Gifts of the Wyrd – Apple Podcasts
I wish you all a good festive season and I hope that reading about ancestral traditions from Northern Europe will give you some inspiration.
Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seidr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). She has published three books: Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019 and Medicine of the Imagination – Dwelling in possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020. She has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Neolithic arctic deer shamanism. Her fourth book, about the pre-Christian spirituality of The Netherlands and Low Countries, has just gone into production. She has already started her fifth book: about the runes of the Futhark/Uthark. In response to the 2020 pandemic she has opened an on-line school, called Pregnant Hag Teachings, to make more of her classes available on-line. Website: http://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk
For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/imelda-almqvist
The Pagan Collective 
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