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(Number 155)
The coming of Yule
MIDWINTER NIGHT'S EVE: YULE
Once again, the Sun is born at Yule.
Our Christian friends are often quite surprised at how
enthusiastically we Pagans celebrate the 'Christmas' season. Even
though we prefer to use the word 'Yule', and our celebrations may
peak a few days BEFORE the 25th, we nonetheless follow many of the
traditional customs of the season: decorated trees, presents, Yule
logs, and mistletoe.
In fact, if truth be known, the holiday of Christmas has always been
more Pagan than Christian, with it's associations of Nordic
divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism. That is why
both Christian Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred it, why the
Puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it, (to them,
no day of the year could be more holy than the Sabbath), and why it
was even made ILLEGAL in Boston in the USA! The holiday was already
too closely associated with the birth of older Pagan gods and
heroes. And many of them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus,
Jason, Dionysus, Apollo, Mithra, Horus and even Arthur) possessed a
narrative of birth, death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably
close to that of Jesus. And to make matters worse, many of them pre-
dated the Christian Savior.
Ultimately, of course, the holiday is rooted deeply in the cycle of
the year. It is the Winter Solstice that is being celebrated, seed-
time of the year, the longest night and shortest day. It is the
birthday of the new Sun King, the Sun God -- by whatever name you
choose to call him. On this darkest of nights, the Goddess becomes
the Great Mother and once again gives birth. And it makes perfect
poetic sense that on the longest night of the winter, 'the dark night
of our souls', there springs the new spark of hope, the Sacred Fire,
the Light of the World, the Coel Coeth.
That is why Pagans have as much right to claim this holiday as
Christians. Perhaps even more so, as the Christians were rather late
in laying claim to it, and tried more than once to reject it.
There had been 'only' a tradition in the West that Mary bore the
child Jesus on the twenty-fifth day, but no one could seem to decide
on the month. Finally, in 273 C.E., the Catholic Fathers in Rome
decided to make the wise choice of giving it in December, in an
effort to co-opt the Mithraic celebration of the Romans and the Yule
celebrations of the Celts and Saxons.
There was never much pretense that the date they finally chose was
historically accurate. Shepherds just don't 'tend their flocks by
night' in the high pastures in the dead of winter! But if one wishes
to use the New Testament as historical evidence, this reference may
point to sometime in the spring as the time of Jesus's birth. This
is because the lambing season occurs in the spring and that is the
only time when shepherds are likely to 'watch their flocks by night' -
- to make sure the lambing goes well. Knowing this, the Eastern half
of the Church continued to reject December 25, preferring a 'movable
date' fixed by their astrologers according to the moon.
Thus, despite its shaky start (for over three centuries, no one knew
when Jesus was supposed to have been born!), December 25 finally
began to catch on. By 529, it was a civic holiday, and all work or
public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that
contributed to the delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the
Emperor Justinian.
In 563, the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas Day, and
four years later the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from
December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season. This last point
is perhaps the hardest to impress upon the modern reader, who is
lucky to get a single day off work. Christmas, in the Middle Ages,
was not a SINGLE day, but rather a period of TWELVE days, from
December 25 to January 6. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in fact is
certainly lamentable that the modern world has abandoned this
approach, along with the popular Twelfth Night celebrations.
Of course, the Christian version of the holiday spread to many
countries no faster than Christianity itself, which means
that 'Christmas' wasn't celebrated in Ireland until the late fifth
century; in England, Switzerland, and Austria until the seventh; in
Germany until the eighth; and in the Slavic lands until the ninth and
tenth. Not that these countries lacked their own mid-winter
celebrations of Yuletide. Long before the world had heard of Jesus,
Pagans had been observing the season by bringing in the Yule log,
wishing on it, and lighting it from the remains of last year's log.
Riddles were posed and answered, magic and rituals were practiced,
wild boars were sacrificed and consumed along with large quantities
of liquor, corn dollies were carried from house to house while
caroling, great fertility rites were practiced (and girls standing
under a sprig of mistletoe were subject to a bit more than a kiss
during those times), and divinations were cast for the coming Spring.
Many of these Pagan customs, in an appropriately watered-down form,
have entered the mainstream of Christian celebration, though most
celebrants do not realize (or do not mention it, if they do) their
origins.
For modern Witches, Yule (from the Anglo-Saxon 'Yula',
meaning 'wheel' of the year) is usually celebrated on the actual
Winter Solstice, which may vary by a few days, though it usually
occurs on or around December 21st. It is a Lesser Sabbat or Lower
Holiday in the modern Pagan calendar, one of the four quarter-days of
the year, but a very important one. Pagan customs are still
enthusiastically followed today in many places of the world, albeit a
little shrouded nowadays.
Once, the Yule log had been the center of the celebration and it was
lighted on the eve of the solstice (where it should light on the
first try) and must be kept burning for twelve hours, for good luck.
It should be made of ash.
Later, the Yule log was replaced by the Yule tree but, instead of
burning it, burning candles were placed on it and it was further
decorated with items of nature, along with a wreath of pine cones and
holly and other items from the forest. In Christianity, Protestants
might claim that Martin Luther invented the custom, and Catholics
might grant St. Boniface the honor, but the custom can demonstrably
be traced back through the Roman Saturnalia all the way to ancient
Egypt.
Along with the evergreen, the holly and the ivy and the mistletoe
were also very important plants of the season, all symbolizing
fertility and everlasting life. Mistletoe was especially venerated
by the Celtic Druids, who cut it with a golden sickle on the sixth
night of the moon, and believed it to be an aphrodisiac. But
aphrodisiacs must have been the smallest part of the Yuletide menu in
ancient times, as contemporary reports indicate that the tables
fairly creaked under the strain of every type of good food and
drink! The most popular of which was the 'wassail cup' deriving its
name from the Anglo-Saxon term 'waes hael' (be whole or hale).
Mistletoe was also of course regarded as the seed (semen) of the God
and was venerated as the highest of the fertility symbols and still
plays its now rather tamed down fertility part in the custom of
merely kissing under the mistletoe.
At the Winter Solstice, the two God themes of the year's cycle
coincide – even more dramatically than they do at the Summer
Solstice. Yule, (which we have seen comes from the Norse Iul,
meaning `wheel' marks the death and rebirth of the Sun god; it also
marks the vanquishing of the Holly King, god of the waning year, by
the Oak King, God of the waxing year. The Goddess, who was Death-in-
life at Midsummer, now shows her Life-in-death aspect; for although
at this season She is the `leprous-white Lady, Queen of the cold
darkness, yet this is Her moment for giving brith to the Child of
Promise, the Sun God who will re-fertilize Her and bring back light
and warmth to Her kingdom.
Jerrome, the greatest scholer of the Christian fathers, who lived in
Bethlehem from 386 till his death in 420, tells that there was also a
grove of Adonis (Tammuz) there. Tammuz was the beloved of the
Goddess Ishtar and was the supreme model in that part of the world of
the Dying and Resurrected God. He was (like most of His type) a
vegetation , or Corn God; and Christ absorbed many of these aspects
of the type as well as the solar one.
Yule Tide mumming or mystery plays still survives to this day in many
parts of the UK and Ireland, which more or less teach the harmonious
balance of the dark and light twins, of necessary waxing and waning,
such as in the Holly King and the Oak King.
Oddly enough, the popular name `Old Nick' for the Christian Devil was
erroneously and vehemently given to Woden, (called Nik), the
Cernnunos, Pan, Fosite and generally the Horned One – the aspect of
the Pagan God, which is such a sad degradation given in Christian
bitterness and jealousy of the people's love for Him – going back to
ancient times, (where even cave drawings have seen people circling
about a Horned Figure and another cave drawing shows a ring of naked
women surrounding a seated Horned Figure. This figure is very much a
Holly King figure – as is Santa Clause, otherwise St. Nicholas or St.
Nik, (who in early folklore rode not reindeer but a white horse
through the sky – like Woden!)
Incidentally, in Italy Santa Clause's place is taken by a Witch, and a
lady Witch at that. She is called Befana and she flies around on the
Twelfth Night on her broomstick, bringing gifts for children down the
chimneys.
The Winter Solstice rebirth, and the Goddess's part in it, were
portrayed in ancient Egypt by a ritual in which Isis circled the
shrine of Osiris seven times, to represent the mourning for him and
her wanderings in search of the scattered parts of his body. The
text of her dirge for Osiris, in which her sister Nephthys (who in a
sense is her own dark aspect) joined her, can be found in somewhat
different versions in "The Golden Bough, p. 482. (Can be found on
our site at..
http://www.coven-of-cythrawl.com/On_line_books.htm
Remembering that most Christmas customs are ultimately based upon
older Pagan customs, it only remains for modern Pagans to reclaim
their lost traditions. In doing so, we can share many common customs
with our Christian neighbours, albeit with a slightly different
interpretation.
The beautiful words found in the Book of Shadows site the coming of
the Sun God.
Coveners dance slowly deosil as the HP calls:
HP: "Queen of the Moon, Queen of the Sun,
Queen of the Heavens, Queen of the Stars,
Queen of the Waters, Queen of the Earth,
Bring to us the Child of Promise !
It is the Great Mother who gives birth to Him;
It is the Lord of Life who is born again.
Darkness and tears are set aside when the Sun
shall come up early.
Golden Sun of hill and mountain,
Illumine the land, illumine the world,
Illumine the seas, illumine the rivers,
Sorrows be laid, joy to the world !
Blessed be the Great Goddess,
Without beginning, without ending,
Everlasting to eternity. Io Evoe ! Heh ! Blessed be !
All raise their tapers high and repeat the last line twice more.
Io Evoe ! Heh ! Blessed be !
Io Evoe ! Heh ! Blessed be !
And thus we all share in the beauty of this most magical of seasons,
when the Mother Goddess once again gives birth to the baby Sun-God
and sets the wheel in motion again. To conclude with a long-overdue
paraphrase, 'Goddess bless us, every one!'
Merry Meet,
(This excerpt has been placed on the files, together with a poem and
some other Yule traditions)
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