Frau Holle - Germanic Goddess of Winter

Long ago, when the Germanic religion still honored Nature's power, both her blessing and devastating aspects, she was the rain-giving clouds, the spouse of the God of Storms.  

Later, she became a Sky Queen who, besides mastery over clouds and winds, she also had the power of granting sunshine and prosperity to the fields, and also, as the motherly protector of women's life, she controlled feminine work, namely favoring spinning, and, as Frau Holda or Holle, she kept the souls of the unborn or dead children.

In some countries it was said that her home was in a mountain, a magnificent cave, and still in some others, it was in the waters of some fountains or ponds, where it is still said that children come from [this water allows women to become fertile?].

At the turning of the Winter sun, with her spouse Wodan, would she hold a procession through the land, which began as a blessing, turning later into a wild hunt.

In the Priegnitz and the Mecklenburg, she takes the name of Fru Gode or Frau Gode and she appears particularly between Holy Christmas night and Three Kings day, in the form of the driver of a wild hunt with yapping and howling hounds.  Doors are then kept shut, and nobody goes out in the evenings in order to avoid meeting her. She is often seen as a large and magnificent lady, driven in a car pulled by dogs and it is often said: "If a wheel happens to break, she gives the broken parts to the servant who fixes it, and they become pure gold after a few days."

In Lower Saxony, Frau Holle is a grey-haired old lady with long teeth, who dirties the spindle of the lazy weaver, hides a gift under the compartment of the spindle of the active ones [this piece of equipment is called wockenbreif in the local speech, in place of German Rockenbrief], brings new white shirts to children aged six, and who, in places where she used to be held in reverence, goes through with a car full of New Year gifts each New Year's eve, between 9 and 10 pm. If she would crack her whip, only the devotees would hear it and go out to receive their gifts.

Source: Nordic Life