Most Popular White Papers
Content provided in partnership with
Perchta the belly-slitter and her kin: a view of some traditional threatening figures, threats and punishments
Folklore, August, 2004 by John B. Smith
Feasting and Fasting are Perchta's Primary Concern
Further clues are provided by Wolfram when he tells us that Twelfth Night--and we must not forget here that this and the following day belong to Perchta by virtue of her very name--is traditionally a time for feasting. In Styria there would be nine, that is three times the ritually significant number of three, courses to the feast, and a rather drastic Styrian saying was that it was no proper Twelfth Night ("foaste Roahnacht") unless the chief farmhand gorged himself to the point of throwing up three times. A further saying, or belief, was that on 6 January Perchta's knife could be deflected by a well-filled belly. If at that time she came across an insufficiently rounded belly, she would slit it and fill the aperture with rags (Wolfram 1980, 46). Late medieval texts already contain the advice to eat heartily at Epiphany, lest Percht alias Stempe, whose name we have already seen linked with the "stamping" associated with nightmares, should come and trample the bellies of those who had not done justice to the copious fare provided (von der Hagen 1961, vol. 3, x, xiii and 33-5; Grimm 1968, vol. 1, 230; Hoffmann-Krayer and Bachtold-Staubli 1927-41, vol. 8, 365; Rumpf 1976, 220-1).
Such texts have been wrongly taken to mean that Perchta threatens those who feast rather than those who fast on this occasion (Rumpf 1980, 71; Kellner 1994, 321). In later accounts, such as those from Orlagau and Voigtland cited by Grimm, we do in fact find Perchta and Werre or Holle ensuring that people fast--that is, eat only the ordained foods--on certain days. Interestingly, the sanctions mentioned also extend to spinning (Grimm 1968, vol. 1, 226-7). This activity seems to have been prominent among Perchta's interests from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, with the ousting of distaffs by spinning-wheels, and, presumably, the growing economic importance of young girls' communal work at the latter (Rumpf 1980, 57-8 and 71; 1991, 38 and 49).
We thus see that, although in the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, and indeed well before that, Perchta was invoked in support of the work ethic, but also for the very Christian purpose of ensuring that days of rest and fasting were observed as the Church ordained, an earlier function of hers was to encourage feasting as well as fasting at the proper times, a preoccupation that is, for instance, hinted at in a Tegernsee document of 1483 paraphrased by Rumpf (1991, 78). Of course, it makes sense to eat heartily while this is permitted and food is plentiful. The archaic implication is, however, that abundance of food on feast-days is somehow a guarantee of plenty later on, as reports from many parts of Germany show (Hoffmann-Krayer and Bachtold-Staubli 1927-41, vol. 2, 1048-9). Not to do justice to that abundance is to undermine the guarantee. English has a saying essentially to the same effect: He who eats goose on Michaelmas Day/Will never lack money his debts to pay. Eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is similarly beneficial. Compare also the widespread superstition that each mince pie consumed between Christmas Day and 6 January ensures a happy month (Opie and Tatem 1989, 178-9, 297-8 and 248-9).
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: Reference
- Academe
- African American Review
- African Arts
- African Studies Review
- Afro-Americans in New York Life and History
- Alabama Heritage
- Alabama Review
- American Mathematical Monthly, The
- Anglican Theological Review
- Annals of Dyslexia
- Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ)
- Auk, The
- Australian Journal of Anthropology, The
- Christian Century
- Natural History
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »