Perchta

The name Perchta (also Perchta, Perechta, Paruchta, Parychta or, in Moravia, Šperechta) in contemporary Czech culture is connected especially with the name for a noble woman from the House of Rožmberk whose tragic fate earned her the status of probably the best known White Lady, in spite of the fact that the connection between her and the White Lady from Jindřichův Hradec was made erroneously, by Bohuslav Balbín.

In the German cultural environment, Perchta was known in the form of a ragged old woman with an iron nose, or entirely made of iron, who causes fear. She is connected with Christmas and Epiphany, when together with the dead she leads a wild chase or punishes for breaking taboos: working on a holiday and breaking the fast.

According to Czech Romantic mythology, Perchta was a masked character who had the form of a mare (southern Bohemia) at folk festivities during Christmas time, Epiphany and Masopust, while elsewhere she was a popular apparition for scaring children. She is described as a scary woman with a golden head, tin eyes, bronze ears, iron nose, silver beard and lead throat. Wearing a hood, she was a disfigured mask threatening children who did not pray or who ate too much on Christmas Eve, who did not fast on Christmas Eve or ate all the sweets from Saint Nicholas. Perchta threatened such children to rip their bellies and stuff them with dried pea stems. Sometimes adults were also threatened in this way; launderers in particular had to pay attention to maintain established norms.