Episode 74 – Creepy Crawly Christmas – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 74 Show Notes

Source: Ukrainian/Germanic Folklore

This week on MYTH, it’s once again time for the annual holiday special! You’ll learn why spiders are good luck, why you should use more cobwebs in your Christmas decorating, and why you should plant a tree in your living room. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll want to finish your chores on time so that the Christmas Witch doesn’t come for you in your sleep. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 74, “Creepy Crawly Christmas”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
The holidays are upon us once more, which means it’s time for our annual holiday special. This one snuck up on me a little, and I completely forgot that it was up next when I recorded the last episode, hence the completely misleading ‘next time on MYTH’ segment. Mia culpa. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been cooped up in the house for so long that I’ve started to make friends with the inanimate object and small insects in and around my house (apparently, Tom Hanks befriending Wilson the volleyball was dead on), so I thought it would be appropriate to tell a story about making friends with bugs for the holidays. Specifically, spiders.
This particular folktale comes from Eastern Europe, especially Western Ukraine though it also pops up in Germany, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. For a little spider, she sure gets around. There are a number of different regional variations on the story, so we’ll cover a few I found in turn. And of course, as so many good stories do, they all start the same way.
Once upon a time, in a small village, there lived a woman and her children. The village was poor, as was the woman (and as usual, the father is absent with no explanation in most of the stories, so insert your own, though at least one version does specifically say that he’s dead), so they lived together in a small hut. Times were tough, but the mother was resilient and resourceful and so she always managed to scrape together enough to keep everyone fed, clothed, and relatively happy. A pinecone fell from a tree through a hole in the thatched roof (which wasn’t as big a deal in late spring) and left some seeds in the dirt floor of the hut. Before long, a small pine tree grew in the middle of the floor.
The children loved the little seedling and so their mother let them keep it, growing there in the middle of the floor. They tended it all year long, whispering excitedly to each other the whole year about what a splendid Christmas tree it would make come December. Holiday decorations were a luxury that the poor family could never afford, so they were thrilled about the possibility of having something, anything, to brighten up their home this Christmas. They planned and dreamed and envisioned all kinds of elaborate decorations for their beloved tree with growing excitement as spring turned to summer and summer crept into fall. As winter approached, the children were practically quivering with excitement at the thought of how incredible their living Christmas tree would be.
Their poor mother was a lot less excited. She knew that her children were planning for something incredible, but she also knew that they would never be able to afford anything of the sort. Their tree would be bare, but at least they would have one.
Christmas Eve came and the tree had grown into a tall, luxurious tree. The children were terribly disappointed that they hadn’t been able to scrape together anything to spruce up the tree (pun intended), and their mother was depressed that she hadn’t been able to give her children even a decorated tree, let alone any gifts to put beneath it. Money was always tight, but this winter had been especially tough. The world went dark early, as it was wont to do in the dead of winter close to the shortest day of the year, and everyone went to bed far too sad for Christmas Eve.
As you might expect from a family of children who had adopted a rogue sapling as a pet, they had also befriended the spiders that lived in their rafters. They (and their mother) made no effort to sweep away their delicate webs and allowed the tiny arachnids to share their humble home. The spiders had listened in all year, and had heard the fervent planning of the children and their disappointment that no decorations had been forthcoming. It was a minor miracle all by itself that these spiders understood Ukranian (or whatever language was spoken in the region of the story teller), but speaking animals are pretty common in folklore.
They were grateful for the kindness of the humans and decided to do their best to pay it back. While everyone slept, the spiders crept down from the rafters and swarmed over the tree, coating it in glistening strands of delicate silk in the most complex, intricate patterns they could manage. They wove and wove the whole night through and then retreated back up to the rafters just before the sun rose.
The children rose with the sun, as children are wont to do on Christmas morning in houses that celebrate the holiday, and rushed to the tree. Maybe they hoped for miraculous gifts under the tree or maybe they were just looking for a chance to be excited about something on a fairly dismal holiday. Either way, they found something truly incredible. Their humble tree stood there, glistening in shimmering tinsel made of spider silk (the first time that tinsel had been used as Christmas decor, according to the tale). They woke their confused mother, who couldn’t figure out what they were excited about since she’d gone to bed depressed about the bare floor under the tree, but she soon stood there gaping at the marvelous pine as well.
As they stood there, staring, the first golden rays of sunlight touched the tree, and to their shock and amazement, the spider silk shimmered and shone and transformed into spun silver and gold. The poor woman reached out one trembling hand to touch the impossible tree, and found that the miracle was real. The tree was covered in riches beyond their imagining and, from then on, the family never again had to live in poverty.
From what I can tell, this is the most common, and most basic, version of the Christmas Spider story. A similar variation is almost exactly the same, except that no pine cone lands on the floor to create a living, indoor tree. Instead, the poor mother is sitting up on Christmas Eve, listening to the disappointed sobbing of her children at another Christmas with no presents and no decor. She stared out into the darkness as the snow began to fall, and she came to a decision. She may not have money for presents, but she could at least give them some simple thing to make it feel like Christmas. She knew that there was a lovely pine tree not far from the house that would make a fine Christmas tree. Determined, she bundled up, took up her axe, and headed out into the darkness.
She soon found the small pine tree and, with determined swings of her blade, brought it down fairly quickly. The mother dragged the tree back to the hut and set it up in the middle of the room, careful not to wake the children. With small, colorful fruit, bits of ribbon, and some Christmas cookies, she did her best to make the tree festive. When she had done as well as she could hope, she blew out her candle and went to bed herself.
As before, the spiders in the rafters (though some versions say they lived in the tree and had been spidernapped) saw the mother’s hard work and decided to help out as much as they could, adding spider silk to the humble decor on the tree. As before, they worked harder than they ever had before, with all of the skill they could muster, and as before, they succeeded in creating a Christmas masterpiece. They then retired to the rafters to sleep themselves.
This version does have another significant change however: enter Father Christmas. Since their poor mother had done her damndest to provide a good Christmas for her children, Santa had stepped in to pick up the slack. The story doesn’t say what had kept him from bringing the poor children gifts every other year (otherwise, why would she have been so despondent about not having any gifts if old St. Nick was just going to bring some free ones later) but we’re just going to ignore that. Either way, he was bringing them gifts this year.
With his penchant for magical breaking and entering, Santa had no trouble getting into the small wooden hut (barred door or no). He saw the tree, covered in spiderwebs, and with a dose of supernatural intuition, he knew exactly what had happened. He smiled brightly at the beautiful handiwork of the diligent spiders, but he paused as he thought through the ramifications. He knew the spiders were proud of their craft, but he also knew that the mother would be less charmed by it. Indeed, she would likely be heartbroken at the sight of the tree she had worked so hard to decorate so late into the night covered in webs.
Santa had brains and, more importantly, access to Christmas magic. Laying a finger alongside his nose, Santa gave a nod. With a whoosh of magic and snowflakes straight out of an animated Christmas special, Santa turned the silk webbing into strands of woven silver. He then pulled presents out of his magical sack, placed them under the richly decorated tree, and then headed out to the next house (who would not be getting magical silver). When the sun rose, waking the children, they screamed in delight at the sudden appearance of a fully decorated tree and presents that had appeared as if by magic overnight (which was mostly true). Their mother, delighted to hear her children so happy with what she thought was just their meager tree, came in to share in their joy. She was even more surprised than the kids to discover both the gifts that she had definitely not put there and, even more so, the solid silver draped across the tree branches. She knew that, with this wealth of silver suddenly appearing, they would never want for anything ever again.
The third major variation on the story goes thusly. Once, long ago, there lived a widow with her children. Unlike the other versions however, this widow was moderately wealthy. She took great pride in her home and kept it fastidiously clean. Cobwebs in particular were the bane of her existence, and she hated spiders for leaving them strewn throughout her house.
Christmastime was approaching, and the widow was on a cleaning frenzy. No corner of the property escaped her scourge, including the nook where a family of spiders were squatting. Gleefully, the widow drove the terrified arachnids before her with her deadly broom, and they fled her wrath. The small spiders scuttled up to the attic to hide, the only place where dust was permitted to settle. During their retreat, the youngest spiders had gotten a glimpse of something shimmering and glittering and wonderful in the main room, but with their tiny spider eyes, they hadn’t been able to see it very well, especially in the mad rush for survival. Once everyone was settled down in the attic, the young spiders began to talk about the half-seen, half-imagined wonder.
As night fell and the house began to quiet, the young spiders began to beg their elders to be allowed to sneak down and peek. The eldest, truly ancient by spider standards, said that it was far too dangerous. Like children everywhere of all species (at least, all species of magical folktale animals anyway), they begged and pleaded and wheedled until the adults finally gave in just to get some peace. They all agreed that, around midnight when the house was at its stillest, they could go down and explore.
Time crept by for the excited child spiders, but midnight came at last. Scuttling as silently as they knew how, the spiders crept down out of the attic to find the wonder the children just couldn’t seem to shut up about.
And then there it was. A riotous explosion of colors and lights and textures. Even the adult spiders had to admit that this miracle, which turned out to be an exquisitely decorated Christmas tree, had been worth the trek. Desperate to see absolutely all of this wonder, the spiders climbed and clambered over the branches and the ornaments to gawk at the lights and the glittering decorations and the whole shebang. Without realizing it however, the little spiders had been leaving trails of webbing behind them everywhere they went, covering the tree in dull gray silk.
Tradition in that part of the world held that, instead of Santa Claus, the little Christ child himself would visit every house on Christmas Eve and bless them all, and it just so happened that the baby boy toddled in to this particular house as the spiders were finishing up and getting ready to go hide in the attic again. He loved the spiders and applauded them for their curiosity, but he knew that the widow would be horrified to see the tree that she had worked so hard to have ready for her children to enjoy in the morning covered in spider silk, so he used a little divine magic and turned the silk to strands of silver and gold, creating the first tinsel (are you seeing a common thread here?).
There are more variations, but the rest are basically just a mix and match of different elements from the main versions, so you get the basic sense for all of them now. Given how wide-spread different versions of this story are, it’s unclear where exactly this story originated, but Germany or Ukraine are the most likely candidates. In both countries, finding a spider’s web on a Christmas tree is considered to be good luck, and in Ukraine, they even make little ornaments known as pavuchky, which translates to little spiders, that are in the shape of spiders, often on delicate webbing. The story may or may not be related to the folk superstitions that hold that spiders bring good luck with them and/or that it is bad luck to destroy a spider’s web unless the spider is safely away already. Since most of us could probably use a little good luck about now, keep an eye out for any little spiders hiding in your home. With a little magic, maybe they can spin you some free silver and gold (but probably they’ll just eat some pesky bugs for you instead).
And with the spiders safe in the attic once more, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s goddess is Perchta.
Our main story was surprisingly wholesome and happy, but have no fear: here comes the Christmas Witch. To be exact, Perchta (also known as Berchta or Bertha among many other names) is a wild goddess native to the Alps, which includes a number of Bavarian and Germanic countries (with a marked resemblance to the Norse goddess Frigga). Much like the great god Pan, she is not the goddess of a specific mountain or region, but of the wilderness itself, of the groves and the glens and the wide open spaces.
She goes by many names in many places (all related), leaving some storytellers, including the Brothers Grimm, to wonder if she was a shapeshifter, especially as she is often described as having one strange foot. As you may have noticed in a number of our Gods and Monsters segments, beings with one unusual foot are always beings of great power, and often have the ability to change into some kind of animal form. In her human guise, she usually takes one of two distinct aspects: that of the beautiful maiden in pure, spotless white (one possible origin of her name is ‘the bright one’ from Old High German) or that of the wizened, haggard crone, long in the tooth and great in wisdom. Sometimes, she is more monstrous, possessing a long beaked nose of iron and hobbling along on a stout cane in her torn and tattered rags.
Known sometimes by the titles of the Lady of the Ember Days or the Spinning Room Lady, Frau Perchta is the protector of cultural taboos, especially those of the domestic arts for women. Some stories, including the Grimm Brothers, include a male counterpart known as Berchtold or Quantembermann, but he is a lot less well known and frankly a lot less interesting.
When midwinter came, Perchta would wander the countryside to spy on the local homesteads, though her duties and presence were by no means limited to the winter months. As her dual identity of beautiful maiden and terrible crone imply, Perchta has a dual personality as well: loving and kind or cruel and violent by turns, depending on the situation. Closely associated with spinning and the spindle, she was often spied during the spring and summer by shepherds bringing in their flax to make cloth. In stories where they bring her their wool, she blesses their flocks. Many shepherds would even claim to see her walking the mountains by night, striding along the steepest slopes with her golden spindle in her hand like a shining star.
The spindle is one of those objects that becomes associated with a lot of powerful female mythological and mystical beings, and is almost always strongly associated with fate and fortune (think of Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos spinning, measuring, and cutting the threads of fate for instance, or the story of Brier Rose from way back in Episode 11). This will prove especially meaningful come winter, but more on that in a moment.
In the late fall and into the depths of winter, Perchta could sometimes be found roaming the wilds with the famed Wild Hunt (which we’ve discussed a few times already), and was even one of the rare beings powerful enough to take the reigns and lead the hunt. Here is another similarity with Frigga (and with Freyja as well), as she too would at times lead the deadly hunt, depending on the specific location where the tale was told. This hunt, red in tooth and claw, was a ghostly procession of hunters and predator creatures that howled over the barren, blasted earth along with the bitter storms of winter. Spotting or being spotted by the Wild Hunt was a deadly dangerous affair. Best case scenario, you ended up being swept away and dropped off miles from where you were taken up. Worst case scenario, you were the hunt’s next victim. Those powerful enough could even join in with the Hunt, sending their spirits to rampage through the world with the spectral incarnations of winter’s cruelty.
It is in winter that Perchta becomes the crone, a figure of judgment and cruel punishment. Her feasts and ceremonies are held in December and January, usually the night of January 5th and into January 6th, though some places honor her on December 5th and 6th instead, perhaps to overlap with Krampusnacht (see Episode 23). This holiday was referred to as perchentag, or either ‘bright day’ or ‘Perchta’s day’, though since the Christenization of the region, this now overlaps with the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as the 12th Night (ie, the last of the 12 Days of Christmas).
Custom held that all spinning needed to be completed before that time since, when the Christmas season was over, it was time to get out the loom and begin the long process of weaving the thread into cloth. On the 12th Night, Perchta would go from house to house, inspecting each of them to see if the houses were clean and orderly and if all of the spinning was indeed finished. It was traditional for a gift of porridge or milk to be left out for her visit (not unlike the modern tradition of milk and cookies for Santa), though the offering would be fed to the livestock in the morning, having been blessed by the goddess overnight to provide the animals with vim and vigor for the coming year. It was also traditional to eat a meal of fish and gruel for her feast day, and failure to do so could also earn her wrath.
If your house was lazy enough to have failed to complete the required tasks, you would draw down the wrath of Perchta on you and yours. Stories abound of her trampling or burning half-spun threads in anger, and that was the light version if, say, all you did was not get around to finishing all of the spinning. If you were truly lazy, and had offended her by having a filthy house, unfinished spinning, and no offering to placate her, she would do far, far worse. According to the legends, Perchta would then slip silently into your bedroom and draw a long, wicked knife from under her rags, which she would use to slit open your belly, pull your gray, glistening guts out through the gaping hole, and stuff you full of rocks and straw before stitching you back up again to suffer. Some folklorists have noted that this motif appears to be related to Perchta as an educator figure, with the removal of the intestines to be replaced with something new as a dream-style version of initiation into the mysteries of adulthood, a sort of death and rebirth, especially since stories of mutilated men with their guts trailing behind is noted in descriptions of the Wild Hunt when headed by Perchta.
Perchta could also be a figure of terror to young children, slitting them open and stuffing them with straw or stealing them away to disappear forever. She is often followed by a horde of dead children, especially those who had died before being named or who had gotten lost in the wild places and died of the elements (later evolving into unbaptized children). On the flip side however, she was also a giver of fortune to children and their caregivers when they were good and responsible. For the good little ones, she would sometimes leave a small silver coin for them in a shoe or pail. There are also stories of villagers coming across Perchta and her small army of zombie children and taking pity on the little ones and, in response to their charity, finding great good fortune in the coming days thanks to Perchta’s blessing (such as finding a rich godparent for a new baby).
Her feast day survives into the present day where the Perchten, or the followers of Perchta, don the masks of animals, especially wild predators, for a great parade, often split into the Schonperchten and the Schiachperchten, or the beautiful and the ugly followers of Perchta. These masked figures would roam the village during the 12 nights, with the bright and beautiful ones bringing gifts and luck to the people and the dark and ugly ones driving out the demons and ghosts that linger from the previous year. So if you hear the wind howling or the thunder rumbling during the 12 nights of Christmas this year, make sure all of your chores are done so that Perchta and her Wild Hunt (which these dark sounds herald) don’t come for your sleeping belly with her cold, wicked knife.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on Stitcher, on TuneIn, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Twitter as @HardcoreMyth and on Instagram as Myths Your Teacher Hated Pod. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff, whom you can find on fiverr.com.
Next time, we’ll journey into death with Odysseus and his men. You’ll see that your mother is never too dead to talk your ear off, that Persephone has a reputation, and that some people are just dying to talk to Odysseus. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll see that the only thing standing between you and world domination is dirty ears and snake tongues. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.