Walpurgis Night is the English translation of
Walpurgisnacht, one of the German names for the night of 30 April, so called because it is the eve of the feast day of
Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century
abbess in
Germania. In Germanic
folklore Walpurgisnacht, also called
Hexennacht (
Dutch:
heksennacht; literally "Witches' Night"), is believed to be the night of a witches' meeting on the
Brocken, the highest peak in the
Harz Mountains, a range of wooded hills in central Germany between the rivers Weser and Elbe. The first known written occurrence of the English translation "Walpurgis Night" is from the 19th century. Local variants of Walpurgis Night are observed across
Europe in the
Netherlands,
Germany, the
Czech Republic,
Sweden,
Lithuania,
Latvia,
Finland and
Estonia.