Berch'ta (modern form Bertha, the old High German Perahta, 'the bright'), a goddess of South German mythology, apparently the same as the
Hulda ('the gracious') of Northern Germany. In Dame Hulda, the gracious and kindly aspect came to be the predominant; but in Dame Berchta, the severe and awe-inspiring, the reason for this being that the popular Christian view had degraded her lower than Hulda. Dame Berchta has the oversight of spinners; whatever spinning she finds unfinished on the last day of the year she spoils. Her festival is kept with a prescribed kind of meagre fare—oatmeal-gruel, or pottage, and fish. If she catches any one eating other food on that day she cuts his stomach open, fills it with chopped straw, and sews up the gash with a ploughshare for a needle, and an iron chain for a thread. She is represented in some places as having a long iron nose and one big foot. It is likely that many of the attributes of Berchta were transferred to the famous Berthas of medieval history and fable, as Berta, wife of King Pippin and mother of Charlemagne. She has been connected with the feast of the Epiphany (6th January), and has been explained by some as a personification of the brightness of the heavenly vision that appeared to the shepherds in the field; but it is far more likely that the analogy of the 'bright' day was tacked on to a previously existing Perhta, a deity of heathendom. The numerous stories of the 'White Lady' (q.v.) who appears in noble houses at night, and acts as the guardian angel of the race, have doubtless their root in the ancient heathen goddess Berchta.