Journal Entry:December 20-23, Winter Solstice...................... Longest Night of the Year

Origins: Yule is the Scandinavian word for the pre-Roman calendar months of December and January, when folks gather together to feast, have fun, celebrate the return of the sunlight, and cement ties of goodwill with gifts during long, dark days indoors. Recent Christmas images reflect the ancient Pagan ones: that of the old Father of Time, and the Earth Mother who labors on the longest night of the year to give birth to the Sun baby, and so renew the Wheel of the Year. Santa Claus emerges from ancient origins in our collective subconscious to express the spirit of generosity and the protection and care of children--the growing ones--even in the midst of apparent death of nature. Santa descends directly from pagan shamanic characters who, like him; exist outside of real time, give presents anonymously and whose totems are reindeer. Likewise, the evergreen tree of life and its' sacrificial Yule log, symbolically regenerating mistletoe, carolling and the wassail cup (a spell/prayer for health and wholeness during the winter) are all important legacies of Yuletide.

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I was wandering in the starry dark now. The night was so very cold as I followed a path illuminated by red lanterns. As it began to snow, a very pregnant, glowing woman with long golden braids, wearing a red wool cape, came out of a grove of evergreens and took my arm, leading me back to a little log cabin glowing warmly from within. Inside near the blazing fire, we wrapped ourselves in eiderdown quilts; and giggling like children, we drank from mugs of spiced cider. I had never felt so warm and cared-for, despite the cold outside. The woman smiled at me radiantly, and began to undo her braids, while I threw another log on the fire. At last I asked, “Is your baby due soon?” And she, with a calm, expectant smile, answered, “Oh yes, very soon.”

Mother of the Sun's
Old Traditions
Reindeer
Deck the Halls:
Activities of the Season
The Nature of Winter
Elemental Homeschooling
Stories of Magical Generosity
Evergreens and Snowmen
Yule Festal Foods
Yuletide Links

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The night was sacred to the triple Goddess who created (maiden), sustained (mother) and took away life (crone), but most especially to the great Earth Mother who labors all night on Solstice to give birth to the sun baby, thereby returning light to the world. Christian imagery of the Mother and baby shining with halos of light, as well as the holy star directly descend from ancient Goddess religions.

On Mother's night, one family member baked "Care Cakes," ( to the Romans--placentae) which they served to the rest of the family still in bed. This celebratory role play served to dramatize the laboring and birthgiving that the Great Mother had done. As the Swedes believed the maiden aspect of the Goddess is the light bringer of mid-winter, Mother's Night gradually became the Swedish feast of St. Lucia: whereby one honored daughter of the family, dressed in white and wearing a candle-lit crown of greenery on her head, brings Yule breakfast to her fresh-woken family. Younger siblings wear tall pointed caps decorated with stars, playing the newer children of light. Much older Norse myths describe Fenrir the Wolf swallowing the sun and giving birth to it after the Solstice. Other connections exist between Yule and Mother/Child in France, where into the 1960's, women gathered together on Christmas Eve to sew baby wear for pregnant friends and for the local poor.

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Look at any 19th Century Belsnickels--robed Santa Claus figures--and you will see the descendant of our earliest magical Wise Men Shamans. These pre-Victorian age figures are not religious, and they are not representations of the mythical St. Nickolas. As evidenced by the Wildberger Mann statue in Stuttgart Cathedral, red robes, long hair and beards were specifically "liturgical characteristics of Pagan priesthood." (Jones and Pennick, A History of Pagan Europe, 1995)

For more information on the historical connection between masculine Yule archetypes and the present day Santa Claus, read When Santa Was a Shaman: The Ancient Origins of Santa Claus and the Christmas Tree
( Llewellyn Publications, 1995) by Tony van Renterghem. It is a fascinating and well-supported look at Santa's Pagan ancestry!

In France, a Yule tradition has survived as the Reveillon. Literally meaning "renewal" and "awakening," this midnight meal is now enjoyed after midnight mass, but originally would have been part of late night feasting that welcomed the birth of the sun. Families serve a traditional thirteen different desserts, one each to celebrate the renewed Wheel of the Year, with its thirteen lunar cycles.

King Knut of Scandinavia was the first to decree that Yuletide span an entire month, ending on January 6th, the twelfth night after Christmas. British Twelfth Night celebrations are a forecasting role-play for May Day. At the party, the man and woman who find a bean and a pea ( in folklore, both magical seeds: the bean from Jack in the Beanstalk and the pea from the Princess and the Pea) in the traditional cake are made King and Queen for the night. Having been so fortunate to have found these quick-sprouting harbingers of spring, the couple become symbols of the coming re-birth of the earth, representing the nature-renewing lovers of the May.

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White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow...
The antlered buck and his doe Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them.
I saw them suddenly go, Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow.

The Buck in the Snow by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Once a little reindeer found a magic feather on the ground, which had been hanging from a magic tree. The reindeer gave it to the sky Goddess. Then he found out he could fly.
"Look Santa," he said, "I am a real reindeer." He showed Santa how he could fly.
"Great," Santa said, "you can lead my team someday."
Then the reindeer's nose glowed red. "Hey, why's my nose glowing?" he asked. He had'nt realized the Goddess had changed his nose.
"Oh wow! Now I can lead the team in the gloomy night." Then he was happy to be such a wonderful reindeer.

In Northern European myth, the Mother Goddess lives in a cave, gives birth to the sun child, and can shape shift into a white hind, or doe. Therefore, the white hind was magical, to be protected and never hunted. In myth, graceful running women of the forest--who were actually magical white hinds--brought instant old age or death to hunters who chased them.

To the Celts, all deer were especially symbolic of nurturing, gentle and loving femaleness. White deer hide was used to make tribal women's clothing. White deer called "faery cattle" were commonly believed to offer milk to fairies. In Britain amongst the Druids, some men experienced life-transforming epiphanies from spiritual visions or visitations by white hinds, balancing and healing their inner feminine energy. In Europe white hinds truly exist, and are many shades of warm white cream-colors, with pale lashes--otherworldly in their peaceful and modest behavior. To many Native American tribes, deer are models of the graceful and patient mother who exhibits unconditional love and healthy, integrated female energy.

In British lore, the stag is one of the five oldest and wisest animals in the world, embodying dignity, power and integrity. From their late Autumn dramatic rutting displays, stags represented strength, sexuality and fertility. As evidenced by multiple prehistoric excavations of stag antler ritual costumes, the wearing of stag antlers in folk dance recreated the sacred male shaman figure called Lord of the Wild Hunt, Cernunnos, or Herne the Hunter, among others--he who travels between worlds, escorting animal spirits to the afterlife and sparking wisdom and fertility in this world. Likewise, the stag's branching antlers echo the growth of vegetation. In America, the stag represents male ideals: the ability to "walk one's talk," and powerfully, peacefully blend stewardship and care of the tribe with sexual and spiritual integrity.

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For Yule, make beautiful Scandinavian-esque luminarias by filling buckets with water and leaving them outdoors on a night that dips below a freezing temperature. In the morning, ice will have clung to the sides, top and bottom of the bucket, while the center remains liquid. Slide the ice out of the bucket, (loosening with hot water on the outside if need be) break off the top ice crust and tip out the water from the hollow. Line them up your footpath, then light a long-lasting candle to place within during nighttime. Your ice lanterns will remind all who see that the light will return even though night is longest at Solstice--besides helping Santa Claus to find your house!

Until early in this century, English villages still took part in "hurling" at Yuletide. Perhaps the original rugby or volleyball, in the game a ball was thrown between two teams, and never allowed to touch the ground. This ball was always silver or gold in color, and symbolized the sun when the earth was it its darkest. This game's ancient symbolism physically enacted magic for the survival of the sun. You can play the same game: choose a day near the Solstice when its warm enough, though snow might be on the ground. Have one adult throw the ball between two groups of children, and do your best to keep it in the air!

An ancient feasting game called "snapdragon" consists of raisins in a large, shallow bowl, covered with liquor (brandy) poured over. The family would ignite this in the dark, and then plunge their hands through the flames, attempting to grab a raisin! Perhaps this was a bit of magic-play enacting the necessity to steal fire from the Gods at this time of year. Nowadays it might just be fun to watch the colorful flame until it burns out, then use the brandied raisins in baking! (kids don't try this at home, get a grown-up to carefully light the fire!)

Make your own miniature snow scene in a water globe! With a good quality craft glue, secure some small plastic trinkets (tiny pine trees, a Yule log, reindeer or Santa found at craft or hobby store) to the bottom of a wide mouthed, very clean glass jar. Let dry overnight. Add 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of white or silver glitter, and fill the jar with baby or mineral oil. Use several drops of glue on the inside lid to secure it on tight. Cover the lid with a disc of fabric, felt or paper and continue to decorate with glitter or Yule-themed cut outs and designs. Allow the lid to dry completely, then shake up the scene!

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Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell

At the edge of the world
It is growing light.
The trees stand shining.
I like it.
It is growing light.
Papago song

Jack Frost is the writer, the artist, the musician of winter. 

He sends messages in the whitest script, using windows and glass
 
doors as his writing paper.  When he snaps his fingers, everything is
 
covered with ice.  If he likes he can enclose whole trees in clear, 

glassy ice and set all the woods ringing in a clashing, tinkling,

cracking song.

Green Christmas, White Easter. The nearer to new moon is Solstice,
the harder will be the rest of the winter.

If the first snowflakes of a snowstorm are large, this means the storm will last...small flakes indicate a short storm.
The day of the month on which the first snowfall occurs signifies the number of snowfall days in the coming winter. So if the first snowfall occurs on the 17th, there will be seventeen snowstorms during the winter.
Melt a handful of snow from the first snowfall...the number of rising bubbles shows the number of coming snowfalls for the season.
If snow begins near mid of day, expect a foot of it to lay.

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an our or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When, to go out,mother doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap:
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Frost

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• Northern European folk culture, Scandinavia, Germany, Iceland, Greenland (connection to the Santa Claus archetype)
• Issues about giving and generousity
• Native Inuit/Eskimo culture, Arctic and Antarctic
• Snow, snowflakes, ice, freezing temperatures
• Tundra life, glaciers, ice age
• Space, planets, stars, universe, astronomy (reflects the longest night of the year)
• Subtraction
• Geology, rocks, minerals, crystals
• Pre-history Goddess cultures, cave dwelling
• Crafts: pottery, sculpture, rock painting, crystal making

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A good little village girl lived with her parents and seven other sisters and brothers in a small adobe house, shared with aunties and her grandfather too. Everyone worked very well, sometimes getting ahead, with plenty of posole and tortillas on the table. The family all worked together and made clever use of their abilities, but sometimes they did not have enough to eat. Still, the family loved each other very much and had the power of magic to light their eyes.
One day in December the girl felt inclined to visit the Goddess and leave her a present. She looked around the house, finding nothing to keep but a tiny piece of green yarn left over from her mama's weaving. She went outside to search for more. In the stone street near where water ran, she found a red feather. What a treasure! She kept looking, and found some dried out but pretty flowered weeds outside her neighborhood, and gathered them together. She tied the yarn around the weeds, and tucked in the red feather. Very pleased, the girl closed her eyes and imagined the bunch was as beautiful and big as the paper flowers for sale in the city, bright sparkling and delicate to touch. Then she set off toward the statue of the Goddess. The peaceful Goddess looked down at her, her soft hands folded, with an expression of absolute love. Though she was carved from wood, to the little girl she seemed like a real person, and her heart felt big with happiness and sadness at the same time. As she set the gift down at the Goddess' feet, four tears fell upon it. And as the girl backed away, her ragged bunch of weeds, magically bound with yarn and feather into a sincere offering of love, instantly transformed and grew into the gorgeous, velvet red petaled plant we now know as the Poinsettia. Amazed, she did not want to ever forget what had happened, so the little girl gathered one seed from one flower. Thanks to the Goddess, with that her family was able to happily make their life's prosperous work from growing the Poinsettia ever after.

On Christmas Eve, close to midnight, an exhausted single mother put the final touches onto a package for one of her sleeping children. She wearily regarded the stuffy apartment where they lived. In one corner stood the little tree, in the dark hung with paper ornaments the children had made. She wished they'd been able to get some lights this year, but money was too tight. In a couple of weeks, it would probably be better.
At last this mother went off to bed. From out the corners of the kitchen, magic spiders appeared. They scattered to the tree, and began to spin. The spiders spun their silvery strands all over the tree, until it shone with lights of the city sparkling the threads to a glimmer. Next morning, the family was astounded to find the tree so beautiful, twinkling with the first tinsel they had ever seen.

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An English manuscript of 1605 describes the first documented Christmas tree "decorated with roses cut out of many colored papers, apples, wafers, gold foil and sweets."

... ...

Certainly to European pagans, the evergreen symbolized everlasting life and the promise of the returning spring. In tribal life for centuries, every hill, stream, waterfall, glade, every distinctive natural creature that composed the world was imbued with natural power and consciousness. Because trees grow ever larger and taller from the ground as a sapling up toward the sky, they were especially revered: reflecting humans' own journey from youth to age, as well as the spiritual journey from Earth/Mother/Energy extending out into Sky/Father/Consciousness. Ancient myths describe the entire world as being rooted and spinning from a sacred, immense tree--just as now we know the globe spins on its "pole."

Gradually sacred tree imagery was absorbed and minimalized by the Christian church--but it was never able to destroy trees' resonance within our collective unconscious completely. We realize when we plant a tree we are encouraging the Earth to breathe. And when we decorate our evergreen trees at Yule, we are making a symbol of our dream world with the objects we hang upon it. Perhaps a chain or garland, reflecting the linking of all together on Earth. Lights--for the light of human consciousness, animal figures who serve as our totems, fruits and colors that nourish and give beauty to our world, gold and silver for prosperity, treats and nuts that blend sweet and bitter--just as in real life. The trees we decorate now with symbols of our perfect worlds actually animate what we esteem and what we hope for in the coming year; as from this night, the light returns, reborn.

Little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the forest and were you very sorry to come away?
see...i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would, only don't be afraid.

look...the spangles that sleep all year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

that when you're quite dressed you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare! oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

e.e. cummings

... ...

An old Ukrainian folktale tells of an aged couple who are lonely for a child. The old woman makes a pair of white fur slippers for her imaginary dream-child and magically, a little snow child dressed in sparkling white appears the next day--who fits the slippers perfectly! Every winter this snow child comes and lives with them, filling their lives with love and joy. She dances through the snow, leaves frost leaves on the windows, makes snow tunnels in the yard--but cannot bear to come inside where it's warm. Every Spring the old folks are sad when their child melts, though they know she will return with next year's snowfall.

This myth is part of a long line of legends that tell of a snow person coming to live with mortals--a symbol of renewal and regeneration, even in the cold--for the time that the winter lasts. Snowmen still symbolize this magic for us even now. We're lucky, in some parts of the country, when we have enough snow to make a snowman--and that it properly sticks, and does'nt blow away like powder. A beautiful sight is a wonderfully made snowman seeming to guard a house, illuminated at dusk by colored lights on the house beyond.

One of the most beautiful renderings of the story is The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, who used his own memories of an exceptionally blizzardy winter in England to spark the tale. Both the book and the animated video are gentle and lovely, with beautiful music and no narration/text, and are very poignant in the end, when the snowman melts.

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Y u l e  F e s t a l   F o o d s

Be links no longer broken;
Be sweet forgiveness spoken,
Under the holly bough.

Charles Mackay, 19th Century

Cherry Coconut bars

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup butter (medium cold, not soft)
• 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar...Mix 1 c. flour, butter and powdered sugar loosely with hands and press in a 8"x 8" square pan. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
• 2 eggs...Beat eggs, and stir in the all of the rest of the ingredients. Spread over the shortbread (need'nt be cool) and bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Watch carefully that it is not overdone: should be golden brown, but not pulling away from sides of pan too much! Cool completely and cut.
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1/4 t. salt
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
• 1/2 c. chopped marachino cherries (in liquid)

At Christmas time we deck the hall
With holy branches brave and tall,
With sturdy pine and hemlock bright
And in the Yule log's dancing light
We tell old tales of field and fight
At Christmas time.

At Christmas time we pile the board
With flesh and fruit and vintage stored,
And mid the laughter and the glow
We tread a measure soft and slow,
And kiss beneath the mistletoe
At Christmas time.

English, traditional

Almond Cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar...cream together butter and sugar, then add egg, then flavorings
• 1 well beaten egg
• 1/2 t. almond, 1/2 t. vanilla flavoring
• 2 cups flour...mix together all dry ingredients, then add to creamed mixture. Stir in nuts.
• 3/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 t. soda
• 1 t. cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup finely chopped nuts...Drop onto a plain cookie sheet and criss-cross with fork tines. Remove cookies before the bottoms darken: should have a golden yellow color, not dark at sides.

Then ye be glad, good people,
This night of all the year,
And light ye up your candles:
His star is shining near.

traditional

Classic Eggnog

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1 cup half-and-half (equal parts cream and milk)...blend cream and half-and-half in pan and bring to a simmer.
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar...separately, whisk egg yolks and sugar to combine, then gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture. Return to same pan. Stir over medium-low heat (do not boil) about 4 minutes until it thickens and and leaves a path on the back of a spoon when finger is drawn through it. Strain into bowl.
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg...cool slightly and stir in nutmeg.
• 6 Tablespoons dry sherry...Divide into glasses (warm or cold) and stir in 1 Tablespoon of sherry into each, if desired.
• extra nutmeg to sprinkle over, then serve.

Each house is swept the day before,
And windows stuck with evergreens,
The snow is besom'd from the door,
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes.
Gilt holly, with its thorny pricks
And yew and box, with berries small,
These deck the unused candlesticks,
And pictures hanging by the wall.

John Clare, 19th Century

Thin German Crepes

• 5 well beaten eggs...add salt, sugar and flour to beaten eggs to make a smooth paste.
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 Cups flour
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 2 1/4 cups milk...add milk and stir well until thin and creamy. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes to thicken. Stir again and cook as pancakes with a hot buttered pan. Re-apply small amounts of butter as needed. Serve with lemons and sugar, rolled up and cut, or with any accompaniments you can think of.

Wassail

• 4 litres apple cider or juice (fresh milled organic is excellent!)
• 1 orange, chopped
• 1 lime, chopped
• 1 lemon, chopped
• 4 cinnamon sticks or 1 t. ground cinnamon
• 1 inch-square piece of fresh ginger or 1/4 t. ground ginger
• 1 t. cloves, allspice and/or star anise...heat all and simmer in an enamel pot (aluminum can impart a metallic flavor) on low for an hour, then serve to cold, caroling folks.
• brandy or rum for adults, optional

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Swedish Yulen Traditions

How the Swedish celebrate Yule, including St. Lucia.

Winter Festivals of the Past and Present

Interesting, compact definitions of world festivals held near the same time as Yule. Some necessarily do not reflect "return of the light" folklore, but are Springtime festivals in Asia or the Southern hemisphere.

Yule Table of Contents

Visit the garden during frosty Imbolc.

© 1996, 1997 Jill Pederson-Meyer

All rights reserved. May be distributed freely, but not sold, with acknowledgment of source and author.