Buschgroßmutter

nature_spirit forest German folklore single tradition · 2

The Buschgroßmutter is a forest spirit living in the deepest woods which shows herself to humans only once every hundred years. She is as old as the hills, her appearance being small and ducked, wrinkly and ugly. She has staring eyes and is sometimes said to have an iron head, a typical demonic feature.

↻ synthesized from 2 sources

When

Relationships

parent of
Moosfräulein
syncretized with
Hulda, Bertha
served by
Moosfräulein, Heimchen

Expand to full subgraph →

Sources

Source passages

“H. Naumann: Buschgroßmutter, Buschweibchen. In: Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer: Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens: Band 1 Aal-Butzemann. Berlin 1927.”

#5949 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001

“a demonic creature dwells near Leutenberg and on the left bank of river Saale, called the Buschgroßmutter ("Shrub Grandmother"). She has many daughters, called Moosfräuleins ("Moss ladies"), with whom she roves around the country”

#8600 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5