Yuletide

If you have heard the word yule, it probably was in a song or verse related to Christmas, but the Yule time predates Christmas.

Modern Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas, December 25. However, it is believed that this date was chosen to offset the pagan celebrations of Saturnalia and Natalis Invicti. 

Yule is also known as Alban Arthan and was one of the “Lesser Sabbats” of the Wiccan year in a time when ancient believers celebrated the rebirth of the Sun God and days with more light.

In 2022, Yule began with the solstice on December 21 and ends on Sunday, January 1, 2023. For a long time, I have believed that any Yule/Christmas celebrating (decorating etc.) should only begin with the solstice. Retailers do not agree with me.

For Christians, celebrating the birth of the “true light of the world” was appropriately set to synchronize with the December solstice because from that point onwards, the days have more light (at least in the Northern Hemisphere).

Christmas is sometimes referred to as Yule. The word “yule” may have derived from the Norse word jól or juul, referring to a pre-Christian winter solstice festival.  This took place annually around the time of the December solstice and lasted for 12 days. (The Lesser Sabbats fall on the solstices and equinoxes.)

Yuletide comes from Yule +‎ –tide (“period around a holiday”), from the Old English tīd (“time”)

The Feast of Juul was observed in Scandinavia at this winter solstice and fires were lit to symbolize the heat, light and life-giving properties of the returning sun.

A Yule or Juul log was brought in and burned on the hearth in honor of the Scandinavian god Thor. A piece of the log was kept as both a token of good luck and as kindling for the following year’s log.

In England, Germany, France and other European countries, the Yule log was burned until nothing but ash remained. The ashes were then collected and either strewn on the fields as fertilizer every night until Twelfth Night or kept as a charm and or as medicine.

French peasants believed that if the ashes were kept under the bed, they would protect the house against thunder and lightning.

The present-day custom of lighting a Yule log at Christmas that is sometimes adorned with evergreens, holly and pine cones is believed to have originated in the bonfires associated with the Feast of Juul.

That Yule Log cake that people buy in the stores is pure retail marketing. Thor would not be happy.

According to the Yule Blog, the Yule Goat is a Scandinavian tradition that predates the arrival of Christianity in Northern Europe. The goat was a symbol of the Norse god Thor, whose flying chariot was pulled by two goats.

When entertaining the other gods, Thor would kill goats to feed his guests and then resurrect them afterward, using his hammer Mjöllnir.

In Sweden, a Christmas custom based on this tale of Thor is still performed in the Juloffer, or Yule Sacrifice. Two actors sacrifice a third player dressed as a goat while singing a song, but at the end of the song, the goat is resurrected. Yule Goats are also made of straw both large and small as decorations.

The Yule Goat was once considered to be a bringer of gifts, but this role has been taken over by Father Christmas, who sometimes rides the Yule Goat.

Celebrating Saturnalia

In Ancient Rome the winter solstice festival of Saturnalia began today, December 17.  It was a festival that lasted for seven days.

Created to honor Saturn, the father of the gods, it was interestingly celebrated by suspending discipline and a reversal of the usual order.

It was said that this was the time to suspend grudges. Businesses, courts, and schools were closed. Some accounts say that even warfare was suspended for the week.

Want to celebrate Saturnalia? If you need another reason to have a party, here are some suggestions from the Romans.  Masquerades were common. Traditional gifts were real or imitation fruit (fertility), dolls (symbolic of the custom of human sacrifice), and candles (small symbols of pagan solstice bonfire celebrations).

I have read that a mock king would be chosen. It would probably be a slave or criminal. It sounds like a good thing since this king was able to run wild for the week, but unfortunately, the king was usually killed at the end.

As with much of the Roman empire, Saturnalia degenerated into a week of debauchery and crimes. Today the word “saturnalia” means a period of unrestrained license and revelry.

You can go out this week and look at the sky and see Saturn. In the Northern Hemisphere, if you look at the constellation Gemini which rises above the eastern horizon, a bit west of Gemini is the brilliant planet Jupiter looking like a star to most people.  Just before sunrise, Saturn, Venus, and Mercury appear above the southeastern horizon.

A Week of Saturnalia

Saturnalia by Antoine Callet

I forgot to mark the start of Saturnalia this year.  This Roman holiday was a time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts, and the decoration of trees. Sound familiar?

Saturnalia was the pagan Roman winter solstice festival and honoring of Saturn who controlled the sowing of the new season’s crops, but Romans also began to spend the holiday gambling, singing, playing music, feasting, socializing and giving each other gifts.

First-century poet Gaius Valerius Catullus described Saturnalia as “the best of times… dress codes were relaxed, small gifts such as dolls, candles and caged birds were exchanged.”

It’s not too late to do some Saturnalia celebrating as the holiday became a weeklong festival.

Saturnalia originated as a farmer’s festival to mark the end of the autumn planting season and to honor Saturn (satus means sowing) and the cult of Saturn survived until the early third century AD in some places. Wax taper candles called cerei were common gifts during Saturnalia, to signify light returning after the solstice.

During the reign of Emperor Augustus, it was a two-day celebration on December 17 and 18. By the time Lucian described the festivities, it was a seven-day event from December 17-25 and included the Winter Solstice.  Changes to the Roman calendar moved the climax of Saturnalia to December 25. Is this where Christmas came from?

Christmas owes something to this ancient Roman holiday and pagan festival. As with Christmas, Saturnalia started as a religious holiday, honoring the god Saturn, but evolved (or devolved) into just an excuse for revelry with its religious origins mostly forgotten.

I will note that devout Christians and some Biblical scholars will say that Saturnalia has nothing to do with the birth of Christ. They would say that the nine months of Mary’s pregnancy following the Annunciation on March 25th would produce a December 25th date for the birth of Christ.

Saturnalia Celebrations

Ruins of the Temple of Saturn (eight columns to the far right) as seen in 2010, with three columns from the Temple of Vespasian and Titus (left) and the Arch of Septimius Severus (center).

Today would mark the beginning of the seven-day celebration of Saturnalia in ancient Rome. For the winter festival, the Romans made and exchanged gifts, decorated their homes with holly and ropes of garland, and carried wreaths of evergreen branches to honor the god Saturn and celebrate the solstice.

By the beginning of December, writes Columella, the farmer should have finished his autumn planting and at the time of the winter solstice (December 25 in the Julian calendar), Saturnus, the god of seed and sowing, was honored with a festival.

The Saturnalia officially was celebrated on December 17 and , acccording to Cicero, it lasted in his time for seven days, from December 17-23. Augustus limited the holiday to three days, so the civil courts would not have to be closed any longer than necessary. Partygoer Caligula extended it to five.

Saturnalia was designated a holy day, or holiday, on which religious rites were performed which included sacrifices to Saturn and Kronos.

The Temple of Saturn, the oldest temple recorded by the pontiffs, had been dedicated on the Saturnalia, and the woolen bonds which tied the feet of the ivory cult statue within were loosened on that day to symbolize the liberation of the god.

After sacrifice at the temple, there was a public banquet, which probably included an image of Saturn placed in attendance, as if a guest.

The Saturnalia was the most popular holiday of the Roman year and it sounds like it was quite a party. Catullus describes it as “the best of days,” and Seneca complains that the “whole mob has let itself go in pleasures.”  Pliny the Younger, not so much the toga party animal, writes that he retired to his room while the rest of the household celebrated (Epistles, II.17.24). It was an occasion for celebration, visits to friends, and the presentation of gifts, particularly wax candles (cerei), perhaps to signify the returning light after the solstice.