BERCHTA, (same as modern Bertha, from OHG. bcraht, bee/II, Engl. bright; cf. Lat. Lucius, from lux, light, and Clara, from clarus, clear, bright). In German myth ology, the name given in the south of Ger many and in Switzerland to a spiritual being, who was apparently the same as the (gracious, benign) of northern Germany. This being represented originally one of the kindly and benign aspects of the unseen powers; and so the traditions of Hilda (q.v.) in the north con tinued to represent her. But the Berchta of the south, in the course of time, became rather an object of terror, and a bugbear to frighten chil dren; the difference probably arising from the circumstance that the influence of Christianity in converting the pagan deities into demons was sooner felt in the south than in the north. Lady Berchta has the oversight of spinners. The last day of the year is sacred to her, and if she finds any flax left on the distaff that day, she spoils it. Her festival is kept with a prescribed kind of meagre fa•e—oatmeal gruel, or pottage, and fish. If she catches any persons eating other food
on that day, she euts them open, fills their paunches with chopped straw and other such agreeable stuffing, and then sews up the woad with a plowshare for a needle, and an iron chain for a thread. In some places she is the queen of the crickets. She is represented as having a long iron nose and an immensely large foot. That she was once an object of worship is tes tified by the numerous springs, etc., that bear her name in Salzburg and elsewhere. It is likely that many of the sagas of Berchta were transferred to the famous Berthas of history and fable. The numerous stories of the 'White Lady' who appears in noble houses at night, rocks and nurses the children while the nurses are asleep, and acts as the guardian angel of the race, have doubtless their root in the ancient heathen god dess Berchta.