Mother Holle

Mother Holle

Once there was a girl named Marta. She was calm, hardworking, and always noticed when someone needed help. At home she had many chores: carrying water, cleaning, spinning thread, and tending the garden.

One day she sat beside the old well spinning. She had been working a long time, her fingers were tired, and suddenly the spindle slipped from her hand.

Splash!

It fell straight into the water.

“Oh no,” Marta sighed.

It was her only spindle. She leaned over the well, trying to see it. The sky was reflected in the water, and suddenly she thought she could see sunlight shining somewhere far below.

Marta carefully climbed down to a low stone ledge, reached out her hand... and suddenly felt a light wind lift her.

A moment later she was lying on soft green grass.

All around her was a wondrous world. The sun shone gently, flowers nodded their heads, and nearby stood an oven.

A voice came from inside it.

“Girl, please help me! The bread is baked, and if no one takes it out, it will become too dry.”

Marta was surprised, but she went over. Round loaves were browning on the shelf.

She took a wooden peel and lifted them out one by one onto the table.

“Thank you!” sighed the oven happily.

Marta went on.

Soon she came to an apple tree whose branches bent beneath the weight of ripe fruit.

“Shake me, please,” asked the tree. “My apples are ready.”

Marta took hold of a low branch and gently shook it. Apples tumbled onto the grass: thump, thump, thump.

She did not leave them scattered around, but gathered them into a neat pile so that none would roll into the bushes.

“Thank you too,” rustled the apple tree.

The path led Marta to a little white house. At the door stood an elderly woman with kind eyes and very white hair.

“Come in,” she said. “My name is Mother Holle. If you like, you may stay with me for a while. There is not much work, but one task must be done carefully: every morning, give my featherbeds a good shaking.”

“Why?” Marta asked.

Mother Holle smiled.

“You’ll see.”

The next morning Marta carried a featherbed to the window and began shaking it.

Feathers whirled through the air. But instead of falling to the floor, they flew into the sky and turned into white snowflakes.

Far away in the ordinary world, children ran outside shouting:

“Snow! It’s snowing!”

Marta laughed.

From then on she shook the featherbeds carefully every morning. She helped in the kitchen, watered the flowers, listened to Mother Holle’s stories, and in the evenings watched the stars appear above the clouds.

She liked the magical house, but after several weeks she said:

“It is wonderful here, but I miss home.”

“That is as it should be,” Mother Holle replied. “Someone who loves home should return to it.”

She led Marta to a great gate.

When it opened, a warm golden rain fell over the girl. Golden sparks touched her dress and became tiny shining patterns.

“This is not payment for your work,” said Mother Holle. “It is a reminder that you helped even when no one had promised you a reward.”

Beside the gate lay Marta’s lost spindle.

She picked it up, and in the next instant she was standing beside her own well again.

When the people at home saw the golden patterns and heard her story, another girl who lived in the same house decided:

“I want gold too!”

The next day she deliberately threw a spindle into the well and entered the magical world.

The oven called:

“Please take out the bread.”

“Certainly not!” the girl replied. “I’ll get flour on my hands.”

The apple tree asked:

“Please shake my branches.”

“Someone else can do it.”

But she hurried straight to Mother Holle’s house.

On the first day, the girl shook the featherbed diligently. On the second, not quite so carefully. On the third, she gave it only one quick shake. Then she decided she had done enough.

“I want to go home, and I want my reward,” she said.

Mother Holle did not argue.

“Come to the gate.”

The girl stood beneath it and closed her eyes, waiting for a shower of gold.

Something black and light drifted down from above.

“Achoo!” she sneezed.

It was ordinary chimney soot. It covered her nose, cheeks, and hair with black speckles.

“Don’t worry,” Mother Holle said. “It washes off easily. But perhaps while you are washing, you will have time to think about this: rewards do not come because we demand them. They come when we do something good and do it well.”

The girl blushed beneath the soot.

When she returned home, she spent a long time washing away the black spots. The next morning, when she saw a basket of apples beside the table, she unexpectedly offered to help sort them.

Marta said nothing. She only smiled.

And whenever soft snow began to fall over the village in winter, both girls looked through the window and knew that somewhere high above the clouds, Mother Holle was shaking out her magical featherbeds once again.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨