Picture Book Buds are a fun and easy way to incorporate literacy into nature study. Read a book (you can even read it outside!) and then enjoy the related activity and snack suggestions!
Mother Holle
Written by: The Grimm Brothers & Illustrated by: John Stewig
Mother Holle is a classic Grimm’s fairytale in which a mistreated step sister falls down a magical well to a fairy realm where she is rewarded for being kind to Mother Holle with gold. (There is of course also a “bad” sister who does everything wrong and is punished in proper Grimm fashion.) The moral of the story is that “industrious children are rewarded and lazy children are punished” although I like to view it in a more modern sense- that kindness is rewarded. Mother Holle is cataloged as AT 480 in the International Folktale catalog, under “Supernatural Tasks.” It is one of a large number of folktales that focus on the industrious/ lazy dynamic. The girl completes a number of tasks in the story, all demonstrating her kindness. One of those is helping Mother (or Frau) Holle shake her bed linens. The feathers from the linens become snow in the mortal world. It’s one of the more interesting fairytales I’ve read, even more so because Frau Holle features heavily in Grimm’s non-fiction writing about Germanic folklore. Holle is an ancient goddess who was seen as an old woman in winter and reborn as a young woman in spring. She is associated with light and the protection of children. This version features beautiful illustrations, but there are many versions to choose from.
Mother Holle Crafts
I was so inspired by this book that I came up with lots of projects around it.
Seed Clouds
I love the image of the feathers turning to snow and wanted to do something more literal with it. I came across some writing about the goddess version of Holle that talked about her flying over fields at Midwinter to make them fertile. My rather practical scientific mind was immediately struck by the idea of seed starting in relation to this myth. Most native seeds require a period of cold to germinate, gardeners call this cold stratification. This is why I paradoxically love seed projects in the winter, there are many plants that actually grow better when planted in the cold and snow. So I came up with another snowing cloud, but this time it snows seed paper confetti in the shape of feathers and snowflakes to lay dormant all winter and burst to life in the spring!
Get the full instructions here.
Frost Lanterns
In early Germanic and Nordic folklore, Frau Holle controlled the weather and kept children safe in the winter. In modern lexicon she is a kindly old woman who makes it snow by shaking out her quilts. I like the idea of a sweet old woman who makes snow and looks after children. It follows to me that giving children lanterns might be a way to look after them. As I was contemplating what sort of lantern I wanted to make, I knew that I wanted to incorporate feathers and snow somehow- it’s such an evocative image. All of a sudden it dawned on me that frost on windows looks just like feathers made of snow. The frost lantern was born!
Get the full instructions here.
Edible Snowing Clouds
Back to the fairytale version of Holle- the “good” child is rewarded for her kindness by a deluge of gold from a cloud. My theory here is that the gold is symbol for the sun returning in the spring. Frau Holle was historically associated with controlling the weather and had been making it snow in the story. It then follows that gold emanating from the clouds of Holle would likely be sun.
All of this fascinating winter folklore, inspired me to make an edible Midwinter project. I was originally just going to make meringue clouds that you could crack open and find “gold” inside, but then I figured why not make them snow also? Frau Holle is to this day still seen as a kindly old woman who makes it snow in germanic cultures and Midwinter is a time to celebrate snow in my part of the world.
Get the full instructions here.
Kindness Bread
For this project we decided to focus on kindness and some of the kind tasks that the girl completes: she helps the bread, the apples and Mother Holle by shaking out her feather quilt. All of this came together in a “Kindness Bread” that is meant to be shared. Its shape is based on a classic pan di epi, but it is instead shaped like the feather of Holle’s quilt. Conveniently, the bits of the feather tear off easily to be shared! The bread is an apple challah, calling back to the apples and the bread that received the girl’s kindness. We wrote various acts of kindness on parchment and tucked them into the points of the feathers before it rose. As you eat the bread you receive a kindness prompt. Last, a little gold leaf reminds you that kindness is its own reward.
Click here for the full instructions to make this bread.