According to German folklore, a feast is held to celebrate Frau Holle on Walpurgis Night. On this eve, witches gather together to worship, while dancing around bonfires. This is one of the Holiest of Eves as it marks the conclusion of Holle’s Wild hunt and the beginning of the Spring cycle.
This practice is held from the beginning of sunset on the Eve of May Day ( April 30). During this period, the windows sills are left open so as to invite Frau Holle into one’s home for a blessing.
Below is a ritual to perform to Frau Holda in order to bring blessings into your Home and to your Family and Friends. It can also be used to Swear Solemn Oaths for Prosperity.
Items Needed:
- Smudge Stick
- Wine glass and Wine/ Mead/ Cider or apple juice
- Fire cauldron (can be small to put oaths into it)
- Incense
- Salt
- Paper and pen
- Bread/ cakes
Procedures:
- Set up the Altar and place the above items at their respective spots.
- Purify the area using Cedar or Sage,
- You can burn a smudge stick to purify and hallow the ground.
- Draw your circle using salt.
- Light up the Incense then as it burns, call out to the quarters by reciting:
We call the Powers of the North
Whose icy fingers in Winter
Grips Mother Earth with her frigid hand
Changing the landscape into a Wonderland of Snow eternal.
Hail and Welcome
We call upon the Powers of the East
Whose Air and wind
Lifts up our eyes to the horizon
And brings dreams of good fortune and far off destinations.
Hail and Welcome
We call upon the Great Powers of the South
Whose Fires of hearth and home
Burns fiercely in our hearts, forging Family and Friendship
Eternal in our souls.
Hail and Welcome
We call upon the Powers of the West
Whose Waters filled with creatures great and small
Surrounds us with dreams of soul-searching journeys
Delving into the unknown depths of the unseen.
Hail and Welcome
We call the Ancients of Antiquity and to the Spirit Guides for their Protection, and we ask them for their good tidings.
Purpose of Ritual/ Intent
The Purpose: To Honor Frau Holda and ask for her Blessings on Family and Friends, Heart and Home as she turns the Great Wheel on this Walpurgisnacht.
Recitation:
We are gathered this evening to Honor Frau Holle. She touches every part of our lives with her inspiration and her courage. It is on this Hollowed Eve that she concludes the Wild Hunt and returns with those Souls to the Other world for Rebirth, so she may once again turn the wheel, so we may begin again the life cycle with the uncovering of Spring.
Frau Holle, we beseech you; may fresh plowing of the sod and the first Spring planting of the Seeds flourish to bring us love among family and friends. May our hearts be warmed with laughter and good cheer. May our community be united and prosper with jobs for all. May we be Blessed with your abundance and rewarded for our endeavors.
On this Hollowed Night of Walpurgisnacht, we honor you and invite you into our homes for your Blessings. We open our windows so you may enter and give us your Blessings.
Hail and Greetings Lady and Mistress of the Wild Hunt. Frau Holda.
We Honor You and seek your Good Tidings.
Invocation
Hail Great Mother Holle,
We bid you to come into our circle this Holy Eve
Mistress of the Wild Hunt
We Honor you and ask for your Blessings.
Keeper of the Hearth and Home
Protectors of Children and Women
We Honor you and ask for your Blessings.
Guardian of the Great Wheel
And Patron of Spinners and the craft of fibers
We Honor you and Ask for your Blessings.
Great Mother Holle
Your Children Beseech you
We Honor you and Ask for your Blessings.
Hail Mother Holle
Keeper of the Sacred Well
Bless this Hallowed ground and altar.
Hail and Welcome into our circle of Love and Light on this Walpurgis Night.
Cone of Power: Offering of our Solemn Oaths
If you have an Oath you would like to pledge to the Goddess Frau Holle, you may write them on a paper and put them into the burning cauldron to take your words to the Goddess. For example, I plan to be a better listener to my partner, etc…
Meditate on the Oath or Intent you would like to bring before Frau Holle.
Visualize her as the Great Mother Goddess whose heart is open to your needs and wants. Embrace her with your heart and open your mind to her. You are one of her Sacred Children and She is wanting to claim you as her own. She has stretched her arms out over a millennium and has been the caretaker of souls who are in need of finding their way to the Other world. On this holy night, she leads the way on her mighty steed driving the Wild Hunt to its climax. She turns the Great wheel where she will now usher in the tidings of Spring.
After Meditating and giving great thought to your Oaths, put them down in writing and throw them into the Cauldron of the Night Ride. She will take with her these Oaths as she begins the cycle of rebirth. Visualize her night ride across the star-lit sky, the wind at your face and the Moon at your side. Hear the thunder of the horses’ hooves in your ears. Face your fears and know you are safe and dwell within her heart. Your Solemn Oaths you have given. She rides this Eve Triumphantly.
So Mote it be.
Offerings:
Blessed Frau Holle
Be with us and celebrate the joy we have during this Spring season.
Be our honored guest so we may share with you our love and admiration.
Lady of the Fields and Hearth, please grant us your stay
Let us share with you our fruits of sacrifice so we may be forever joined with you.
This is to Give an offering of the sacred wine or cider or Mead and Cake (sacrifice) to the Goddess Holle:
We lift our heart to you and sing our Praise and Thanksgiving.
Let us lift our glasses (horn) to the Mother Goddess Frau Holle.
We offer this sacred Mead and other gifts of bread/ or cakes to you as a token of our great admiration.
We are grateful for your diligence and watchful presence over the great halls of antiquity, hearth, and home.
We are grateful for the bonds of friendship and family, one with each other, in the days and seasons to come.
As the Great Wheel of the year turns once more on this Hollowed Eve we give you Thanks and Honor Great Mother Holle.
We have sworn and given our Solemn Oaths.
Hail Frau Holle
Heel Frau Holle
Hail Frau Holle
Libations:
Pour the remainder of the mead or cider onto the ground and say:
A gift for a gift
In the name of Frau Holle
Blessed be Frau Holle.
Farewell and Departure: Opening the Circle
We thank the Goddess Frau Holle for her Blessings.
May her Blessings be in our hearts and present in our Minds.
Who is the safeguard of our Oaths, dreams and desires.
May they grow and flourish as the Great Wheel turns and Spring rebounds.
Blessed be the Elements and the Elemental, the Ancients of Antiquity, and the Spirit Guides.
May they go in Peace.
As it is Above
So it is Below
Close the Circle:
This circle is open
But never broken
Merry Meet and Merry Part
Until we Merry Meet again.
Close the circle.
Sources:
1. Powwowing: A Persistent American Esoteric Tradition David W Kriebel, Ph.D. http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeIV/Powwow.htm
2.Traditions Within Heathenism, Der Urglaawe , by Rob Lusch; http://www.thortrains.com/utmo/Urglaawe.htm or http://www.Urglaawe.org
3. Brothers Grimm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm
4. Grimm, Jacob Teutonic Mythology, Vol. 1-1V translated from 4th edition by James S.
Stallybrass, George Bell& Sons, London 1883: http://www.Northvegr.org.
5. Davidson, H.E. Roles of the Northern Goddess, 1998 by Anthony Rowe, Ltd.
6. Thorskega Thorm, “Holda”, http://www.thorshof.org/holda.htm
7. Waschmitius, V., Perht, Holda and Werwandte Gestalten, Sitzungen Kaiser Akademie D. Wisserschaften ( Philos./ History) 174, Vienna.
8. Tacitus, Cornelius, Germania, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html
9. Holda shaking her feather bed: found at http://lexikon.freenet.de/Frau_Holle
10. Mother Goose: found at http://www.collecto-mania.com/
11. http://orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/FrauHolda/index.htm