Mother Holle.

I drew Mother Holle in pen and colored ink on Ampersand’s clayboard . It depicts the fairytale  of Mother Hulda, also known as Mother Holle (aka Frau Holle, Hulda, Hol, Hel, Holda, Hilda) She’s a Germanic Goddess who appears in the Grimms fairy tale # 24. I decided to show a scene from the fairy tale where it is said that when Mother Holle makes her bed it snows. So here she is leaning out of her window shaking and fluffing up her feather pillows and making it snow on the Medieval winter scene below. This winter farm scene is adapted from the illumination”February” from the Medieval Book of Hours, Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. The seated woman stirring her cauldron is the English Mystic, Margery Kemp 1373-1438 who led a very interesting life for a woman of her time. The border illustrates the old English carol “The Holly and the Ivy”.

Mother Holle was printed on a line of Solstice cards and was also on Storytelling Magazine’s January 2013 cover.