Holda preserves the spinning goddess Frija in Central German folk belief — shaking her featherbed to bring snow, inspecting households during the Twelve Nights, and rewarding diligent spinners as Frija once blessed the industrious.
⚠ Grimm (Teutonic Mythology, 1835) argued Holda is a direct survival of Frija, but Timm (Frau Holle, Frau Percht und verwandte Gestalten, 2003) and others question whether Holda was ever a goddess rather than an independent folk figure.
Holda rides forth on winter nights at the head of the Wild Hunt through Hesse and Thuringia, leading the souls of unbaptized children and women who died in childbirth across the frozen sky.
In central German folk tradition, Holda and Wodan both lead the Wild Hunt through winter skies — she commanding a female host of spirits and dead souls, he the howling rout of warriors and hounds, the two forming paired rulers of the spectral procession.
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