Frau Holle

"Frau Holle" (also known as "Mother Holle" or "Old Mother Frost") is a German fairy tale that comes from the book Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.Frau Holle is the 24th story in the first volume of the book published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales.

The legend itself, as it was eventually passed to the Grimm Brothers, originates from oral traditions in Central Germany in what is now known as Hessen. It was told to them by Henriette Dorothea Wild (whom Wilhelm Grimm married in 1825) with more details added in the second edition (1819). It is still common expression in Hessen and beyond to say "Hulda is making her bed" when it is snowing, that is, she shakes her bed and out comes snow from heaven.

In the second edition of the book in 1819 they added some details, most prominently the rooster's greetings, provided by a correspondent Georg August Friedrich Goldmann from Hannover. Like many other tales collected by the brothers Grimm the story of Frau Holle was told to teach a moral. In this case, it is that hard work is rewarded and laziness is punished.

A rich widow lives with her daughter and her stepdaughter. The widow favored her biological daughter allowing her to become spoiled and idle while her stepdaughter was left to do all the work. Every day the stepdaughter would sit outside the cottage and spin beside the well.

One day she pricked her finger on the point of the spindle. Leaning over the well to wash the blood away, the spindle fell from her hand and sank out of sight. The stepdaughter feared that she would be punished for losing the spindle, and in a panic she leapt into the well after it.

The girl found herself in a meadow where she came upon an oven full of bread. The bread asked to be taken out before it burned. With a baker's peel she took all the loaves out and then walked on. Then she came to an apple tree that asked that its apples be harvested. So she did so and gathered them into a pile, before continuing on her way. Finally she came to a small house of an old woman, who offered to allow the girl to stay if she would help with the housework.

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