Jennifer Hartman’s debut book for Pagan children, Old Mother Frost, has been nominated for an award through TCK Publishing’s Reader’s Choice awards. The book is a shortlisted nominee in the Favorite Children’s Book category, alongside 57 other titles published in 2021. Readers will vote for the overall winner from the shortlist.
The inspiration to adapt Old Mother Frost’s story into a children’s book, freshly illustrated by Mousam Banerjee, came in large part from Hartman’s own childhood memories of month-long Yule celebrations. The book blends the old stories with modern traditions. Hartman wanted to translate these traditions into engaging stories, first for her son, and now for other Pagan children.
The cover to Jennifer Hartman’s “Old Mother Frost” [Mousam Banerjee]
Who, though, is Old Mother Frost? Her story is far more likely to be known in Europe, particularly in the Scandinavian countries, as well as Germany, than in the United States. Old Mother Frost is known in different places by different names — Frau Holle, Frau Hulde, Perchta, Berchta, Bertha, and others — and she is thought by some scholars to predate even Odin, Freyja, and many of the other Germanic and Norse gods. In most of her regional iterations throughout northern Europe she is an old woman, the Dunkle Großmutter, or “dark grandmother.”
Old Mother Frost has numerous connections to the underworld. In many stories she is said to live at the bottom of a well, and in the tale curated by the Brothers Grimm, this is how two mortal girls access her realm. She was venerated in mid-winter with a festival, and in addition to her “dark grandmother” moniker, she is also sometimes called Weisse Frau, or “white lady.” Indeed, when the first little girl falls down into her well and meets Old Mother Frost, she is told to shake out Frau Holle’s feather bed until the white feathers fly up and float through the air, just like snow. Often falling snow was said to be the product of Old Mother Frost performing this household task for herself.
In the Grimms’ fairy tale, there is a stepdaughter of a widow who is poor but beautiful and hardworking, and always willing to be helpful to others. The widow’s daughter is the opposite of the stepdaughter in all respects, and through her lying and manipulation she has ensured that the stepdaughter is treated poorly and made to sleep on a rough bed, receiving only the leftover, unwanted pieces of food.
One day, the industrious stepdaughter has worked so hard with her spinning wheel that the spindle is covered with blood. When she tries to wash it off in the well, she accidentally drops it and it sinks to the bottom. Terrified that she’ll be scolded for the loss, she leaps in after it, but rather than sinking to the bottom of a wet and dark well, she finds herself emerging into Old Mother Frost’s world. It’s so beautiful that she decides to explore, and encounters several small labors along the way, all of which she cheerfully performs. When she encounters Old Mother Frost, she sees a very old and ugly woman, but upon hearing her pleasant voice, she happily accompanies her home and helps to shake out her feather bed, causing it to snow in the other world.
Old Mother Frost is so pleased with the girl’s industriousness that she not only returns her spindle and sends her back home, but also showers the girl with gold so that she is no longer poor. Upon seeing this, the deceitful and lazy sister decides to go into the well herself. She ignores the little labors that her sister had been so willing to perform, including shaking out Old Mother Frost’s feather bed. For her laziness, she was sent back home and showered not with gold, but with sticky tar that stuck to her for the rest of her life.
There are a number of themes running through Old Mother Frost’s stories. She presents not simply a morality lesson on the value and virtue of hard work, but also a weather myth — how snow comes to fall from above. Spinning and weaving are also important elements associated with Old Mother Frost, both as valuable societal task and as a tie to the spirit world and witchcraft.
In some areas, Frau Holle she is thought to be the goddess that received children who died as infants; in others, Frau Holde or Perchta leads the Wild Hunt, a mystical, wild horde of gods, magical animals, and spectral figures that ride through the skies in the storms of midwinter, sometimes sweeping even regular people up into the chaotic procession.
Old Mother Frost is portrayed as a very old woman, but also her stories are very old — older even than most Yule celebrations. As her story and role evolved over time, she may have inspired elements of the Yuletide guest who is far more widely known to us in modern times, Santa Claus.
Frau Holle shaking the snow out of her feather bed [Mauro Breda, public domain]
When she wanted to pass on the story of Old Mother Frost and could not find any books for small children, she decided to create her own. “Having Old Mother Frost nominated for the TCK Publishing Reader’s Choice Award: Favorite Children’s Book was a proud moment for me,” said Hartman. “My book feels like a second child with its own purpose and drive. I am happy to be given the opportunity to support it and its purpose on such a grand scale.”
Hartman’s Old Mother Frost focuses on the story of the two girls and their very different encounters with the goddess. She has targeted the book for children ages four and up, and is the first work in a planned series of standalone books designed to acquaint children with Scandinavian and other Pagan holidays and deities. Response has been so favorable to her book, explains Jennifer Hartman, that she’s even had requests from parents in Germany asking for a German translation of the book.
TCK Publishing Reader’s Choice Award is an annual contest, and this year fans can vote until November 13, 2021. There are 16 categories, and only one winner in each category will be selected based on total number of verified votes at the close of the contest period.
Old Mother Frost, written by Jennifer Hartman and illustrated by Mousam Banerjee is available to purchase now. She has begun work on her next book, entitled Midsummer Sól.
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