Frau Perchta, the Alpine Christmas witch

The lady of the Twelve Nights

Clement Miles, writing in 1912, describes a mysterious “Frau” who makes her rounds in the Twelve Nights: Berchta or Perchta in southern Germany and Tyrol. She belongs above all to the eve of Epiphany; in Carinthia, January 6 was still called Berchtentag, Perchta's Day. Her name may come from the old German for “the bright night”. She cares about spinning. In Upper Austria girls had to finish their flax by Christmas, or “Frau Berch” sent bad luck.

The famous punishment

Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie records her most notorious habit: if you ate the wrong food on her day instead of the traditional fish and dumplings, she cut open your belly, stuffed it with chopped straw, and sewed it shut with a ploughshare for a needle and an iron chain for thread. Around Traunstein, Miles adds, naughty children were warned of the same. She had a kind side too: in Styria she heard children's prayers and gave them nuts and apples, and a Tyrolean tale has her promise a helpful peasant that his children would never go hungry.

Perchta and the Perchten

The Perchten, found only in Alpine Bavaria and Austria, probably take their name from her. They come as beautiful Schönperchten and frightful Schiachperchten, all with bells to drive out the winter. As SalzburgerLand puts it, “a Percht is not a Krampus”: Krampus belongs to early December, the Perchten to the rough nights between Christmas and Epiphany. The Gastein Perchten run, held every four years, is on Austria's list of intangible cultural heritage. Perchten runs for 2026 and 2027 are in our Krampus events guide.