I briefly thought about the gender of the noun as well. In German it's feminine, too. Would be interesting to do a bit of iconography research...

And the icons are adorable. They really capture the atmosphere of them.

By the way, I just did a bit of research about Kittelsen, to know where to place him in art history, and was astonished to find out that he had worked in Germany. But even though, I am specializing on the art of this period I never had heard of him. That just shows, how much there still is to be discovered...