Hulda
Hulda is also known as Holle or Berchta, and is one of the earlier gods/giants, representing an earlier goddess tradition that far precedes Valhalla. To those who are drawn to the folk magics of the era and lands of the Norse religion, an understanding of Hulda is very useful. Although she is not directly part of the Eddic cycle of legends (she and her magic-user followers, as adherents of an older tradition, are mentioned often as being in conflict with the followers of Asgard), her worship at one time spread over all of the northern, central, and eastern Europe, contributing greatly to the common peoples' traditions and followings of the Norse religion.
There are vast amounts of folklore pertaining to her still surviving in lands, and probably many in those regions ho still follow her, though probably under a different name. Over the past thousand years, or so, Christianity has been applied to the goddess, and she has been re-named "Mary," with her deeds and sayings transferred intact as part of the local versions of the Judo-Christianity.
Hulda's the goddess of burial mounds and fairy mounds (the Brothers Grimm called her Venus in the ancient legend of the Tannauser), and is the "Eye Goddess" associated with grave mounds, whose spiral eye carvings mark ancient grave sites across Europe.
She is sometimes comely and dignified, though more often appears as an old crone or a wise woman. She is kind, benignant and merciful, likes lakes and fountains, creates rain and snow, and rules over her garden-like realm in the nether world, and apple trees are sacred to her. She's the patron of flax and weaving, and is mentioned in eastern European legends as going though houses and blessing the infants she finds there.
Hulda is also the goddess of Witches, winter, and the underworld. In the depth of winter, she leads a procession of wolves, elves, witches and spirits through the moonlight and snow, carrying away the souls of those whose time has come. She oftentimes appears as a beautiful women from the front, but appears as a tree from behind. She is the kindly bringer of life, as well as the dark one who takes it away at life's end. She's the forerunner of Hel, and gave many of the powers to the Asgardian Queen of the underworld.
She was often seen carrying a spindle, for spinning the threads of fate and destiny, and some legends state that her spindle is magically linked with the axis runs through the earth, out to the north star, which she gave to Freya.
Hulda loves singing and the playing of music, and thus was the patroness of music, and, in older legends, she was believed to be the wife/mother of Oden, though the more recent ones conflict with that belief. Some people in ancient Northern Europe called the Milky Way "Hulda's Road" (more recently now the "road of souls," which is said to belong to Greya, who inherited many of Hulda's attributes).
Scholars have believed that she preceded the Old Gods, and that she was also known as Huldana, Erda, or Earth, and, if so, she is perhaps the most ancient of all the High Ones, deserving honor as the Ultimate Source.
