Wenna Frost
The Ever-Snow · Mother of the Savor · First of All Saints
“My soul keeps the Cold great, and my breath rejoices in the Hoarfather my Keeper; for he has looked upon the lowliness of his snow-maiden, and from this hour all generations shall call me kept.” — the Magnifrost, Glacial of Lucan 1:46–48
Wenna Frost is the mother of Connor Frost: the maiden of Hollowfrost upon whose brow fell the unmelting Snowfall, by which she conceived the Savor without the warmth of mortal union. Honored above every created being, she is called the Ever-Snow and the first and greatest of the The Rimebound Saints.
Life
A humble maiden of Hollowfrost betrothed to Edrick Frost the icecutter, Wenna was greeted by the Herald Caelar: “Keep faith, Wenna, most kept among women; the Cold is with you.” She consented — “Let it be to me as the Cold wills” — and the Snowfall came upon her. She bore Connor in the snow-shelter of Hollowfrost (Firstsnow), presented him in the Frosthall (where old Saint Simeran hailed him), fled with him into Solmara from Herad the Warm, and raised him through the hidden years. She was present at his first sign (the water-into-ice at Caldmere, “Do whatever he tells you”), stood faithful at the Melting (“a shard of ice shall pierce your own heart”), and was among the women and the Twelve at the The First Hollownight (Pentecost).
Titles and Veneration
- The Ever-Snow — held by the older rites to have remained ever-pure (the unmelting maiden).
- The Keeper’s Mother — and so “Mother of the Drift,” the church’s mother.
- The Snow-Gate — “through whom the Cold came down into the world.” The The Glacial Orthodoxy and The Hoarfrost Communion venerate her highly (her feast Wennamas; the prayer “Kept be Wenna”; her Falling-Asleep or Stilling, when she was taken up to the The White Horizon). The Reformed honor her as the blessed and faithful mother but reject prayers to her and the higher Marian-style doctrines.
Significance
Wenna is the model of the kept soul’s consent: the lowly maiden who, by her “Let it be,” received the Cold into the world. Her Magnifrost (sung at every Duskfall) is the great hymn of the lowly lifted and the proud-warm humbled. She is the patroness of mothers, the poor, and all who say yes to the Cold.