The Klagmuhme or Klagemuhme (both: wailing aunt) is a female sprite from German folklore also known as Klagmutter or Klagemutter (both: wailing mother). She heralds imminent death through wailing and whining[1] and is thus the German equivalent of the banshee.
The terms Klagmuhme, Klage, Klag, Wehklage (all: wailing), Klageweib, Klagefrau (both: wailing woman), and Klagmütterle (wailing mother) refer both to the Klagmuhme and to the owl with which the Klagmuhme often is identified. [2][3] The term Klagmutter also refers to the caterpillar of both the death's-head hawkmoth and of Arctiinae moths.[4]
Further terms are Klagmütterchen (wailing mother), Winselmutter (whining mother), Haulemutter (wailing mother), Klinselweib (wailing woman), and Klagweh (wailing).[4]
The Klagmuhme is first attested in 15th century Middle High German as klagmuoter (wailing mother), denoting an owl.[5]
The Klagmuhme often appears as an animal. So she roves howling around the concerned house in the shape of a longhaired black dog, or she sits whiningly in the corner as a white goose or in the eaves gutter as a dove. She also appears as a big gray cat wearing a scarf on its head or during curfew ringing as a whimpering[6] white or three-legged sheep[7] near the concerned house.[6] She further is a very eerie bird,[4] a fiery toad[8] or a calf with red eyes. As a sheep, she will grow to gigantic proportions if pranked by humans.[4]
The Klagmuhme's human appearance is that of an old woman in a black dress with a white scarf. Otherwise, she is described as a small woman with a face covered with cobwebs who is wearing a little three-cornered hat.[9] She also appears clad in linen, as tall as a church steeple, and with glowing eyes[4] or gigantic, hollow-eyed, deathly pale, and dressed in a wafting burial robe.[10]
Her appearance can also be neither human nor animal, though. She then appears as a distorted black figure or a rolling tangled clew,[4] particularly a misshapen blue clew spraying sparks.[8]
The Klagmuhme's wailing being an omen of death and disaster, it can be downright deadly for those who hear her. If the Klagmuhme wails in front of a house where an ill person is inside, clothing belonging to the diseased is thrown outside the door. If the Klagmuhme carries the clothing away, the diseased will undoubtedly die; if she leaves it behind, the diseased will recover. The prophesied disaster can be averted by immediately telling the Klagmuhme an alternative.[4] In the houses over which she stretches her long bony arm in stormy nights, there will be a corpse ere the moon has finished its cycle. [10]
She is usually invisible[4] when she gets close to the houses without ever entering them[9] and floats over them.[4] Her whining (which sounds like "u-u-u!") can cause frightened people to fall ill with a nervous disease. Otherwise, she does nobody harm. It might happen that a cold shiver can be felt at the sight of the Klagmuhme, though.[9] She is usually active at midnight.[8]
Regarding its origin, the Klage in Austria is the soul of a deceased.[4] In Saxony, she is the soul of an unlucky mother looking for her drowned son.[11] In the Allgäu, there is a midnight procession of Klagefrauen (wailing women) or of ghostly men carrying a coffin. In Carinthia and Switzerland, the Klagmuhme is part of the wild hunt (German Wildes Heer meaning "wild host"). In the Fichtel Mountains, the Klagmütterlein is a female wood sprite, a Waldweibchen (forest woman). In the Harz, mythologists wrongly identified the Haulemutter with the similar-sounding Frau Holle.[12]