Frau Perchta

Frau Perchta is a winter boundary spirit and household overseer whose presence is felt more than seen: she moves along the line between old year and new, checking stitches and hearths. Smell: a mix of cold smoke, damp wool and faint iron; Sound: the soft rat-tat of a spindle, the whisper of starched skirts, or the distant clatter of bells from a procession; Temperature: an immediate, clean chill like the first hard frost that raises crystals on the sill. Field notes from alpine farmsteads place her visits on the Twelve Nights and Epiphany, when thresholds are watched and chores judged with an almost clerical exactness.