The Month of Rebirth
Sheltered in our warm houses and able to buy food from the supermarket all year round, we find it hard to conceive what winter meant for our ancestors. Just imagine for a moment. During the summer and autumn, the long hours of light and warmth provide a bountiful harvest of greenery, grain, and fruit. Animals have plenty of grazing and have reproduced, supplying meat, milk, and cheese. But then winter comes. Darkness and cold increase daily, causing plants to shrivel and die and animals to perish while struggling to find fodder. Humans die from cold and hunger. The great source of life, the sun, is weakening daily. Each day it is lower and lower on the horizon, and each day the hours of daylight grow fewer. Darkness is spreading; everything is winding down, threatening to come to a standstill. The year has declined and languishes in the season of its old age, standing on the edge of its grave.
If the sun does not regenerate, then time itself will come to an end—life will be extinguished, and the world will return to the dark womb of chaos from which it emerged. And when the sun decays towards its death at Yule, that primal chaos threatens to return.
In the myths of many cultures, before the sun was set spinning on its course—creating the hours, days, and seasons—there was only chaos; it was the beginning of regularised time that brought the cosmos into being. In Greek, chaos did not mean “disorder,” as it does today, but primordial emptiness, space, and darkness, a confused mixture of the four elements, a formless mass without order but containing everything in potential. The world began when Cronos, the god of time, set the world in motion and confined the forces of chaos to the underworld. But although chaos was locked away, it continued to exert an influence. They believed there is a gateway to the underworld that cracks open as the sun declines. As darkness increases, the immortal spirits of chaos creep from the underworld.
In many parts of the world, it is thought that the dead return at Christmas. In Scandinavia the dead revisited their old homes and had to be made welcome. Before people went to bed, they made sure the house was left tidy, with a fire burning in the hearth. Food and ale were left out on the table. In Poland the dead were invited inside to warm themselves and funeral foods were eaten. In Portugal the souls of the dead are welcomed at Christmas with crumbs that are scattered for them on the hearth. In ancient times seeds were left out for the dead so they could return with fruits and grains from the otherworld at harvest time. In Lithuania food would be left on the table, as it was believed that once the family was asleep, the dead would come in and feast.
Only the sun’s rebirth can send the spirits of chaos back and restore time and order to their proper courses. Until then, the world is turned upside down and the Kingdom of Misrule is established.
The great source of life is failing. The Sun God is dying. Will he be overcome by the powers of darkness and chaos or will he fight and overcome? The fate of the whole world rests with him. Eventually everything comes to a standstill. For three days the sun does not move on the horizon. The great Wheel of the Year has stopped turning. Then, on the shortest day, in the time of greatest darkness, the sun is reborn.
Each sunrise the sun demonstrates the victory of life over the forces of death and darkness; it is a metaphor for human spiritual and physical life, reflecting our own experiences of birth, growth, decay, and death, as well as our hope of rebirth, our struggles against negativity, and the triumph of spirit. For our ancestors, the eternal cycle of the sun was the central paradigm of their spiritual beliefs.
The ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Teutons (among others) all had a twelve-day festival around the winter solstice. The twelve days represent the twelve signs of the zodiac or the twelve months the sun must past through in the coming year. The idea was adopted by Christianity in the fourth century.
Modern Christians celebrate December 25 as the birthday of Jesus Christ, but this is a date that was not fixed until the fourth century and is still not accepted by some Eastern churches. Various sects have celebrated Christmas on 136 separate dates, and every month of the year as been mentioned as the possible one in which Christ was born. The first evidence of the birth of Jesus being celebrated was in Egypt around 200 CE, when it was celebrated on May 25. The Nativity of Christ was not considered an important festival by early Christians, unlike Easter, which celebrates the resurrection. The celebration of a birthday was rejected as a Pagan tradition by most Christians during the first three hundred years of Christianity. However, partly in reaction to the claims by Gnostics that Jesus had not been mortal, Christians began to emphasise the Nativity, though a date could not be agreed upon.
The celebration of Christmas arrived in Britain around the early fifth century. By 1100 Christmas was celebrated all over Europe. The Protestant Reformation in sixteenth-century Europe saw a rejection of the Roman Catholic Church. Turning to the Bible, they found no evidence of a date for Christ’s birthday and no commandment to celebrate it. Puritans called Christmas by such pejorative names as Old Heathen Feasting Day and abolished the Christmas celebration by an act of Parliament in 1647, a ban not lifted until the Restoration. Parish officers were subject to penalties for allowing the decking of churches and allowing services to be conducted on Christmas Day. However, the much-loved feast was not so easily suppressed, and many people protested; there were riots in several places. In 1647 evergreen decorations were defiantly hung up in London, and the Lord Mayor and City Marshal had to ride about setting fire to them.
The Puritans had a point: every element of the Christmas story and every Christmas custom is Pagan in origin. But while Christians see time as linear and believe that the birth of the divine child came but once, two thousand years ago, Pagans view time as cyclical and know that the Child of Light—and with him the world—is reborn and renewed every year.
Early December
December 1: The Three Fates
During the longest nights of the year, families would have spent their time huddled around their hearths, pursuing what crafts they had sufficient light for, telling stories, and listening to the cold winds outside, imagining the spirits of misery and chaos getting closer. Ancestral spirits were propitiated with libations poured onto the hearth. St. Jerome, in the fifth century, reported the laying of tables with an abundance of food on the first day of December, condemning it as a Pagan charm to ensure abundance during the coming year. In the early eleventh century, Burchardus of Worms said that people still laid tables with food and drink and three knives for “those three Sisters whom the ancients in their folly called Parcae.”254 The Parcae were the three Roman goddesses of birth and midwifery, later associated with the Greek Fates, the Moirai; like them and other fate goddesses, including the northern Wyrd Sisters, they spin, weave, and cut the metaphorical thread of human life. It is fitting to associate their midwifery with the imminent birth of a new cycle, the rebirth of the sun and thus all life on earth. Possibly the name Modranicht (“night of the mothers”), which Bede says the Pagan Angles gave to Christmas Eve, may be connected with this practice.255
Offering to the Three Fates
It is fitting to begin December with an offering to the Three Fates, the weavers of destiny. Put out three small cups of red wine, fruit, and bread, along with three knives. This is a way of honouring the powers that will bring more provisions during the coming year. Have three candles ready: white, red, and black.
Light the white candle and say:
Goddess who upholds the primal law of the universe, to which even the gods are subject, allow me to know and release what cannot be changed, the things that have already been: the deeds of myself and others.
Light the red candle and say:
Goddess of becoming, drawing together the threads of the past and the layers of my thoughts and deeds to make the present, allow me to understand how my actions now are weaving my future.
Light the black candle and say:
Goddess of that which may become, allow me to understand the web of possible futures, for my destiny and my soul are one and the same. Goddesses of Fate,
look kindly upon my offerings and keep me in your care. Blessed be.
Allow the candles to burn out.
December 4: St. Barbara’s Day
In Christian tradition, this is St. Barbara’s Day. Barbara is said to have been imprisoned in a high tower by her father to discourage her many suitors, but when he found out she had converted to Christianity, he handed her over to his henchmen for torture and eventually beheaded her himself, whereupon he was immediately struck dead by lightning. Therefore she is invoked against lightning, tempests, and explosions. Finding no evidence for her existence, the Roman Catholic Church removed her from the list of saints in 1969. Her real origins lie in earlier Pagan goddesses. In Dutch Pagan tradition there were three chief goddesses, Anbet the Earth, Wilbert the Moon, and Barbet the Sun. In Germanic lore there were three sister goddesses, Einbet, Barbet, and Wilbet, and in some areas these were the names given to the Norns, three fate goddesses.256 Slavonic art portrays both St. Barbara and St. Catherine with the solar haloes, which are usually reserved for important male saints. St. Catherine is associated with the fiery wheel and Barbara with lightning, and both originally may have been solar maidens.
In many places the Christmas season begins with the feast day of Saint Barbara, and it is especially associated with wheat and omens for the next harvest. In Lebanon a special dish of grain called kahmie is served. In southern France, especially in Provence, wheat grains are soaked in water, placed in dishes, and set to germinate in the warm chimney corner or a sunny window. If it grows fast, crops will do well in the coming year.
There is an old custom of cutting cherry branches on December 4 and putting them in water to encourage them to blossom. They are commonly called St. Barbara’s boughs. If they bloom in time for Christmas, it indicates a good harvest for the coming year; if not, it portends bad luck.
Barbet Ritual
To honour the Goddess today, bring in a fruit tree branch and encourage it to blossom by putting it in water in a warm place. If it flowers, it is a blessing for the coming year.
December 5: Eve of St. Nicholas
St. Nicholas was said to be the bishop of Lycia, who died on December 6, 346 CE, though there is no historical evidence of his existence. He had a great reputation for giving gifts and took over the legends and functions of the gift-giving spirits of the season (such as Woden and the Winter Hag), even being identified with the modern Santa Claus. In the Netherlands children put their wooden clogs (or sometimes baskets) by the hearth on the Eve of St. Nicholas, hoping that St. Nicholas, riding through the air on his white horse, will pause, come down the chimney, and fill them with sweets. Carrots and hay are left out for his white horse. This could be a Christianisation of the legend of Woden flying through the air on his eight-legged horse around the winter solstice to deal out reward or punishment.
St. Nicholas has a variety of helpers, sinister winter spirits—sometimes horned, often hairy with blackened or hideous faces—that carry rods to punish naughty children and evildoers, even dragging some away to hell. They go by a variety of names in various regions and include Knecht Rupprecht, Pelznickle, Zwarte Piets, Furry Nicholas, Rough Nicholas, and Klapperbock.
Modern gift-giving spirits, such as Santa Claus, have their origin in much older Pagan legends. The Hag Goddess comes into her power in this season and flies through the midnight skies, accompanied by wild women, ghosts, and other spirits, collecting the souls of the dead, especially those unbaptised at the time of their death. She is usually described as a spinner or a crone who has a long nose or perhaps a nose made of iron, or she has iron teeth.257 She sometimes carried a pitcher of live coals or a cauldron to burn the distaffs of lazy spinners.258 However, though she was severe in her punishments, she rewarded those who pleased her, and her passing blessed the land with fertility. It was she who gave newborns their destiny.
Mid-December
Up until recent decades, “bringing in the green” was one of the most widespread features of the season. Evergreen plants were collected from gardens, woods, and hedgerows and used to decorate hearths, make wreaths, and bedeck houses and churches. Stow, in his Survey of London (1603), recorded that not only were houses and churches decorated with evergreens, but also the conduits, standards, and crosses in the streets.259 These decorations were either taken down on Twelfth Night or as late as Candlemas. The custom is ancient. The Romans decorated their houses with evergreens during the Saturnalia and January Kalends, and in spite of church condemnations they survived. In the sixth century, the bishop Martin of Braga forbade the adorning of houses with laurels and green trees.
For the old Pagans, the evergreen was a symbol of immortality as it had the power to survive the winter death that struck down all other forms of vegetation. Evergreens represent the continuation of life during the death time of winter. Particularly precious were plants like the holly, ivy, and mistletoe, which actually bear fruit in wintertime. Decorating your home with evergreens is an act of magic far more significant than tacking up shiny plastic decorations.
The Romans used holly as a decoration during the Saturnalia winter festival and would send fresh holly boughs as a greeting to friends. In Germanic myth the holly was associated with Frau Holle (Holde or Holda), the winter hag. The early Christians forbade the practice as a Pagan custom, but the association of holly and the winter solstice continued unabated, so the church was forced to reinterpret it, identifying the holly with Christ, the white flower emblematic of his purity, the prickles his crown of thorns, and the red berries the drops of his shed blood. In the Middle Ages, Christian mythographers decided that St. John the Baptist was born at the summer solstice, at the time of the weakening sun, announcing his own power would wane with the birth of Christ at the winter solstice, the time of the strengthening sun,260 associating Christ with the waxing year and John with the waning, represented by the holly and oak respectively.261 Many popular superstitions still linger round the use of holly at Christmas. Tradition says that no branch should be cut from a holly tree, but rather that it should be pulled free. Sterile holly (holly without berries) was unlucky in decorations. In some western counties of England, the boughs removed from churches were treasured for luck throughout the year.
Mistletoe is an evergreen, woody parasite growing on the branches of trees, mainly apple and pear but occasionally on ash, hawthorn, and oak. It was considered a potent magical plant because it did not grow on the earth but on the branches of a tree, in a “place between places.” It grows into a ball, imitating the sun, and the leaves are fresh and green all year long, making it a plant symbolising immortality and life in the dead time. Because the evergreen mistletoe bears its fruit in winter, it is an emblem of fertility. The Roman historian Pliny wrote that the mistletoe was one of the most important magical plants of the Celts. He recorded that the druids called it “all healing” and it served as a symbol for the winter solstice. In Norse mythology the mistletoe was used to slay the sun god Balder and afterwards given into the keeping of Frigga, the goddess of love, and it was ordained that anyone who passed beneath the mistletoe should receive a kiss to show that it had become a symbol of peace and love.262 A berry had to be plucked off with each kiss for luck.263 Though other evergreens were included in the decorations of churches, mistletoe was the one omission, being considered too Pagan. The exception was at York, where on Christmas Eve mistletoe was carried to the high altar of the cathedral and a general pardon and season of peace was proclaimed. In the coven we each keep a single piece of Yuletide mistletoe throughout the year as a symbol of hospitality and to burn as part of next year’s Yule ritual to signify the ending of another cycle.
Ivy is an evergreen plant that begins to grow on the ground but which then climbs the nearest tree in a spiral fashion. This associates the plant with the sun, since the path of the sun during the year is a spiral one, depicted as such on Neolithic monuments such as Newgrange. Any plant with a spiral growth pattern was thus considered a plant of immortality and sacred to death and resurrection gods such as Dionysus and Osiris. As a symbol of rebirth, ivy was carried in a basket representing Bacchus. In Christian allegory it represented the eternal life and the resurrection of Christ. Church ivy saved from Christmas was fed to ewes to induce the conception of spring lambs. An ivy leaf placed in water on New Year’s Eve that was still fresh on Twelfth Night meant that the year ahead would be favourable.
The Christmas evergreens had a sacred nature, as evidenced by their careful hanging and disposal. In Shropshire people never threw them away for fear of misfortune, but either burnt them or gave them to the cows; it was very unlucky to let a piece fall to the ground. The Shropshire custom was to leave the holly and ivy up until Candlemas, while the mistletoe bough was carefully preserved until the time came for a new one next Yule.
December 12: St. Lucy’s Eve
Saint Lucy, Lussi, or Lucia (“light”) was said to be a Christian virgin who refused to marry a Pagan and was martyred for it. In one version of her tale, her eyes were pricked out prior to execution; in another version, her suitor praised her beautiful eyes, and she plucked them out and sent them to him. She is often pictured with her eyes on a plate beside her and thus became the patron saint of the blind. Whether an actual person called Lucia ever existed or not, the saint seems to have taken her mythology and characteristics from local Pagan deities and so is seen differently in different regions. In Italy it is likely that she acquired attributes of the Roman goddess Juno Lucina or Lucetia, the Mother of Light, who also carried a tray and a lamp, bestowing the gifts of light, enlightenment, and sight, and who was also known as the opener of newborn children’s eyes.264 In Scandinavia she seems to have taken on characteristics of the goddess Freya, who was known as the Vanadis, or the shining bride of the gods. The lussekatter (Lucy cats)—the golden saffron rolls that are served at this time in Scandinavian countries—are said to be the devil’s cats that Lucia subdued, and the cats were pictured at her feet; cats were also associated with Freya and pulled her chariot. Freya’s special season was Yule, when she dispensed wealth and plenty. The traditional shape of the rolls is a crossed shape, where the arms are rolled inward and in the curve are bright pieces of fruit or small candles in the form of a solar wheel.265 Lucia may also have some aspects of the Norse sun goddess Sunna, whose emblem is the fiery wheel.
St. Lucy’s Eve was a mysterious and dangerous time in many parts of Europe, a time when witches were thought to be especially powerful. In Britain witches and fairies would kidnap anyone who went to bed without any supper. In Lower Austria witchcraft had to be averted by prayer and incense; a procession was made through each house to cense every room. On this evening, too, girls were afraid to spin lest in the morning they should find their distaffs twisted, the threads broken, and the yarn in confusion. Between Lussi Night and Christmas, trolls, ghosts, and evil spirits were thought to be active. It was particularly dangerous to be out during Lussi Night. On St. Lucy’s Eve in Scandinavia, candles are lit and all electrical lights are turned off, and the Lussevaka (“Lucy wake”) vigil is held, staying awake through the Lussinatt to guard the household against evil. It was also a time when the future could be divined. In Austria a mysterious light called Luzieschein (“the Lucy shining”) was observed by boys outdoors at midnight, and the future could be foretold from its appearance.
December 13: Little Yule
Though the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year, it is not the date of either the earliest sunset or the latest sunrise. The earliest sunset occurs around Little Yule and the latest sunrise around New Year, at the beginning of January.
In Sweden the Christmas season begins with St. Lucy’s Day and as such is sometimes referred to as “Little Yule.” It is thought that to celebrate the day with vigour will help a person live through the winter days with enough light. In the home, the oldest daughter rises first and wakes the rest of the family. She is dressed in white with a red sash and wears a nine-candle wreath, while her younger sisters will just dress in white and carry a single candle as they take breakfast to their parents, with hot coffee and lussekatter (“Lucy cats,” i.e., yeast rolls). For the day, the elder girl is called Lussi (Lucy) or Lussibruden (Lucy bride). The family then eats breakfast in a room lit with candles.
On Little Yule we hold the first of our three Yule rites with the lighting of the Yule log (the others being the Yule rite proper and the last the wassailing of the orchards). The Yule log is an old custom once widespread in Europe, the winter counterpart of the midsummer bonfire. Traditionally it was a huge block of wood, often chosen and set aside earlier in the year, lit with great ceremony and burned throughout the festive season. It was very unlucky if it went out, and a piece would be kept throughout the year to guard the house from fire and lightning, or steeped in water to cure many ills amongst humans and cattle, while the ashes were thrown on the wheat fields to protect the crops from mildew. The Yule log must never be bought but should be received as a gift, found, or taken from your own property. In some parts of the Scottish Highlands, the head of the household would find a withered stump and carve it into the likeness of an old woman, the Cailleach Nollaich (“Christmas old wife”), a sinister being representing the evils of winter and death. Burning her drove away the winter and protected the occupants of the household from death.
The First Rite of Yule
We usually celebrate this ritual with the coven’s outer circle. None of us has a big enough fireplace to burn a massive log throughout the season, so we light a symbolic small fire, putting a fire pit in the courtyard laid with fuel, and everyone is given a sparkler. We have a large cup and some warm wassail drink waiting. Everyone wears ivy and mistletoe. We keep a partially burned piece of the old Yule log to start the fire. (If you don’t have one, take a small log and put on it some symbols—runes, pictures, or glyphs—of the old year.)
Light the fire and say:
We open the season of Yule with this, the first of our three ceremonies of Yule, when we light the Yule log and usher in the time of peace and love on earth.
This is the old Yule log, representing the old year. (Put the old log on the fire.)
This is the new Yule log, representing what is to come. (Place the new log on the fire.)
Consider this for a moment. We then give out the sparklers and everyone lights them on the fire. Then it is time for the wassail toast. Pour the drink into the cup and say:
I wish you peace, joy, and health. Wassail!
The cup is passed around the circle, and as each person drinks they shout wassail (“be of good health”), which everyone shouts back in good cheer and blessing.
Then there may follow the singing of songs and carols. At the end, say:
We await the rebirth of the sun. May this be a time of peace, joy, and love.
Blessed be.
Don’t forget to rescue a bit of the new Yule log to save for next year.
December 16: Official Start of the Mince Pie Season
In the past, little fresh food was available at this time. However, Yule was a time of great feasting and merrymaking. It was a time when special carefully hoarded and stored foods—sweets, costly spices, dried fruit, liqueurs, and spirits—were brought out to celebrate the rebirth of the sun and impart a little cheer in the depths of winter. It was also an act of trust in the harvest yet to come next autumn. Seasonal treats included mince pies. For those who don’t know, mince pies are small, individual shortcrust pastry pies or tartlets filled with sweet mincemeat, i.e., dried fruit and spices. There is a superstition that you should eat a mince pie every day of the twelve days, and each one eaten will give you a month of good health in the coming year.
I certainly shall!
1 pound currants
1 pound raisins
1 pound sultanas
1 pound cooking apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
or coarsely grated
1 pound chopped vegetarian suet
3½ ounces blanched almonds, roughly chopped
1 pound light muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch grated nutmeg
1½ teaspoons mixed spice
1 lemon, grated rind and juice
1 orange, grated rind and juice
7 ounces mixed candied peel, chopped
7 fluid ounces dark rum
9 fluid ounces dry sherry
Mix everything together in a really large bowl. It’s a good idea to get stuck in and use your hands for this. Cover the bowl and set aside for a day so that the flavours can develop. Give it a good stir now and again. Pack the mincemeat into sterilised jars and seal with greaseproof paper jam pot covers and tight-fitting lids. Store in a cool place—if you have the time, let the mincemeat mature for 2–3 weeks before using it for mince pies.
December 17: Saturnalia
Many of our customs of Christmas stem from the Roman Saturnalia, a winter festival spanning several days beginning on December 17. The equivalent of the Greek Cronus, Saturn was a major Roman god of the seasons, the calendar, agriculture, and the harvest, depicted holding a sickle in his left hand and a bundle of wheat in his right. In Roman mythology, after Jupiter defeated him, Saturn fled to Rome and established a golden age there as an earthly king, a time of perfect peace and harmony. When the era was over, Saturn departed to sleep on a magical island but will one day return and bring back another golden age, just like King Arthur. The feast of Saturnalia was meant to recapture something of this perfect time—no taxes could be collected, no wars declared, and no prisoners executed. Presents were given, and feasts and merrymaking were the order of the day.
It was an annual period of license, when the customary restraints of law and morality were thrown aside and everyone gave themselves up to excessive mirth and jollity.266 Catullus called it “the best of days.” Masters changed places with their servants, and the slave might dine with his master or even be waited on by him. Every house had its Saturnalicius Princeps (“master of the Saturnalia”), the Lord of Misrule, chosen by lot, who had to act as foolishly as possible and was free to order others to do his bidding. His command was law, whether it was to dance naked, to sing, suffer a dunking in icy water, or carry a flute girl round the house. Trees were decorated and houses hung with holly and other greenery. Slaves wore the badge of freedom known as the pillius and were exempt from punishment; there was a school holiday and a special market. Senators left aside their togas for more informal clothes, and people greeted each other with “Io Saturnalia” (“hail/praise Saturn”) rather in the manner we say “Merry Christmas.”
Midwinter’s Eve
We have reached the nadir of the year. Ancient man would have realised that we depend on the sun for life—in the summer the long hours of daylight and warmth make the crops grow, but in the winter darkness and cold, they shrivel and die. Each day, up to the winter solstice, the sun grows weaker and weaker. Each day it is lower and lower on the horizon, and each day the hours of daylight grow fewer. Darkness is spreading; everything is winding down, threatening to come to a standstill. As the Roman writer Lucan (39–65 CE) described it:
Nature’s rhythm stops. The night becomes longer and the day keeps waiting. The ether does not obey its law; and the whirling firmament becomes motionless, as soon as it hears the magic spell. Jupiter—who drives the celestial vault that turns on its fast axis—is surprised by the fact that it does not want to turn.267
If the sun does not regenerate, then time will come to an end, life will be extinguished, and the world will return to the dark womb of night from which it emerged.
Late December
We enter the sign of Capricorn. The constellation of Capricorn was called “the House of Death,” as in winter all life in the northern hemisphere is at its lowest ebb. Capricorn is the second faintest constellation after Cancer. It is generally represented as a mythical creature, half goat, half fish, an association that goes back to the Bronze Age and was recorded in the Babylonian star catalogues. In Greek myth, the constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea, the goat-nymph that suckled the infant god Zeus. The goat’s broken horn was transformed into the cornucopia, or horn of plenty. Some ancient sources claim that this derives from the sun “taking nourishment” while in the constellation in preparation for its climb back northward. The Roman astrologer Manilius associated Capricorn with that which needs a “renewal of flame” because its season brought back a renewal of the sun’s light following the winter solstice.268 Macrobius wrote that souls descended to earth through the gate of Cancer, the Gate of Men, but Capricorn was called the Gate of the Gods because through it, men ascended to their seats of immortality and became gods.269
It was a common belief that the sun spent each night or each winter in a cave. Most solar deities are said to have been born from a cave: Zeus was born in the Dictean Caves on Crete; the god Krishna was born in a dark dungeon; Apollo was born under Delos, where no rays of sunlight could penetrate; the Phoenician god Melkarth woke from his winter sleep in his sacred cave at the winter solstice; and the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu lived in a cave for a time. In early Christian stories, Jesus was born in a cave (the Greek text of the Gospel of St. Luke uses the word katalemna, meaning “cave,” not “stable”), and in Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity is built over a cave. The Sun God was reborn from the chthonic realm, bringing order out of chaos and light out of darkness.
Winter Solstice
At the solstice the sun is still for three days, as though time itself is frozen. The word solstice is derived from Latin and literally means “sun stands still.” The sun usually rises at a different point on the horizon each day and travels northeast to its farthest position at the summer solstice, and it appears to stand still for three days before heading southeast, reaching its southernmost position at the winter solstice, where it seems to rest again for three days before heading north once more.
And then, in the very moment of greatest gloom, the sun is reborn. Life and hope are rekindled—the light will grow, warmth will increase, and spring, summer, and harvest will come. The Wheel of the Year, which has been briefly stilled, will spin on. The old year, the old cycle of existence and time, dissolves back into the primordial chaos. The sun reborn and the New Year represent the world rejuvenated and reality renewed. Even today we have the familiar image of Father Time (Saturn or Cronus), depicted as an elderly bearded man carrying a scythe, the personification of the old year who passes the duty of time on to the New Year’s baby.
Modern Pagans usually call the festival Yule, the modern English version of the Old English words g·eól or g·eóhol. The meaning is uncertain. According to The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, Yule comes into modern English from Jól, deriving from Old Norse hjól, meaning “wheel.”
In the Northern Tradition, Yule was the time that marked the death of Balder, the sun god, the result of the jealousy of the trickster Loki. Loki knew that everything in nature had promised not to injure Balder except the mistletoe, which was considered to be too insignificant to worry about. He searched for the mistletoe until he found it growing on an oak tree on the eastern slope of Valhalla. He cut it off and fashioned a dart from it, returning to find the gods engaged in the amusement of tossing spears, axes, and stones at Balder and watching them bounce off of him harmlessly. Then Loki handed the twig of mistletoe to the blind god of darkness, Höder, directing his hand and encouraging him to throw it. When the mistletoe struck Balder, he fell lifeless to the ground, his spirit sinking into Hel, the underworld.
Rite for Yule
I’ve written this ritual so that it can be performed alone or easily adapted for group work, with the parts shared out. Make a representation of the old year. This should be a dark, bent, misshapen thing that holds everything outworn and spent that you want to pass away with the year. It can be made of crumpled paper if you like, or you can come up with something much more inventive if you wish. We generally make a boat that is holed, with bent masts and crooked decks.
In the centre of the circle is a lit brazier (you can substitute a cauldron or metal dish with a candle in it), representing the cauldron-womb of the Goddess at the core of creation. Around it is a spiral of unlit lamps or candles.
Say:
The year has reached its lowest ebb; all is darkness and death.
The forces of chaos threaten to overwhelm the world.
The Sun has ceased in his course, lingering three days in his grave.
Time itself stands still.
Carry the symbol of the old year along the spiral on an inward course to the centre, saying:
Go back to the source
Your time is over.
At the centre, say:
Goddess, great mother,
Your womb is the dark void of space
Which holds the seed of all potentials
You are the beginning and the end and the beginning once again
Take back the spent year and all its forces of chaos.
The symbol of the old year is burned on the brazier.
Say:
In this darkness we must find hope.
In this darkness we must find light.
The Wheel of the Year must spin on.
The Sun must be reborn!
Goddess, great cosmic mother,
Your celestial womb is the source of all things
It births the elements
Goddess, great cosmic mother,
Give us the spark of life
The reborn sun
Renew creation so that the wheel of life spins on.
Take a light from the brazier and gradually light the lamps (or candles) of the spiral so that the light begins at the brazier, which represents the womb of the Goddess at the centre of the cosmos, and travels outwards until it reaches the edge. As you light each lamp, say:
Death moves to life and dark turns to light
The light is reborn!
The wheel spins on
Life is renewed.
With the Sun we are each reborn.
Blessed be!
In the coven, after we have performed this ritual, we go indoors to the hearth fire and the sparkling Yule tree and exchange presents. These are always handmade, and we have an injunction that they should not cost more than a pound (just over a dollar) per person. It’s amazing what people come up with under these strictures, and we’ve had far more meaningful and personal gifts than we would have done if they had been bought. Coveners have knitted hats, made sets of runes, incense, candles, bath salts, engraved glasses, pyrographed placemats, baked cakes and sweets, and produced homemade liqueurs.
December 24: Christmas Eve
In folk belief there is a sense of the nearness of the supernatural on Christmas Eve. Throughout Northern Europe there were traditions that the family ghosts returned at Christmas time to share the festival with their living relatives, along with other less welcome spirits.270 In Sweden the trolls were believed to celebrate Christmas Eve with dancing and revelry. Anne Boleyn is alleged to have been seen haunting her old homes, her headless ghost reported at Rochford Hall in Essex and Hever Castle in Kent. For this reason, it was a tradition to tell ghost stories at Christmas time. Charles Dickens penned several such tales for his readers, and until recently, the BBC televised a dramatised supernatural tale every Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve divination was also a common practice. In England a dumb cake was made by single girls from salt, wheat, and barley, and baked in complete silence. (Dumb may just mean “silence” or be from Middle English doom, meaning “fate” or “destiny.”) It was placed in the oven and the front door opened at midnight. The spectre of the girl’s future husband was supposed to enter the house and stride into the kitchen to turn the cake. Otherwise, children might cut an apple and count the pips. The one whose apple had the most pips could look forward to the most happiness in the twelve months ahead. In Scotland the ashes of the fire were checked on Christmas morning. A foot shape facing the door foretold a death in the family, while a foot facing into the room meant a new arrival.
December 25: Sol Invictus and Happy Mithrasmas
December 25 was the fixed day of the winter solstice in the calendar established by Julius Caesar in Rome in 46 BCE. Actually, the solstice usually falls around December 21 (though it varies), and the difference is due to an error in the Julian calendar that calculated the year on 365¼ days, which meant a discrepancy of one day in the Julian calendar in 128 years.
By 274 CE the emperor Aurelian had established the sun cult as the Roman state religion, with the traditional birthday of Sol (Sun) as December 25, though by then the actual solstice had happened two and a half days earlier.271 It blended a number of Pagan celebrations of the birth of the Sun God into a single festival called Dies Natalis Invicti Solis, the “birthday of the unconquered sun.” Roman women would parade in the streets, crying “Unto us a child is born!”
There are thousands of sun gods and goddesses around the world with remarkably similar characteristics: they battle the forces of darkness and dispel evil; they illuminate the sky; they see everything on their path and uncover those secrets hidden by darkness; they represent truth, justice, and enlightenment; and they bring healing. These gods have several things in common: they are usually counted as the saviours of mankind (because the sun saves the world from darkness and brings life); many were thought to have incarnated upon the earth in order to help humankind; they are born of a virgin mother; they are born in a cave or underground chamber; there is a star in the east; there is a flight into a distant country (while the sun is still too weak to finally triumph over darkness); they are sacrificed to benefit humankind; and finally they descend into the underworld and rise again on the third day. Mithras, for example, was born of a human virgin on December 25, his birth attended by shepherds. When he reached adulthood, Mithras healed the sick, made the lame walk, gave sight to the blind, and raised the dead. Before returning to heaven at the spring equinox, Mithras had a last supper with twelve disciples (representing the twelve signs of the zodiac).
When Constantine replaced the Pagan Diocletian as emperor of the Western Roman Empire in 305 CE, he sought to unify sun worship and Christianity into a single monotheistic state religion and summoned the Council of Nicea in 325 CE to settle disputed points of doctrine and orthodoxy. The council opted to mark Christmas on December 25 to coincide with the Roman festival celebrating the birth of the unconquered sun.272 This identification of Jesus with the Pagan Sun God was a doubled-edged sword for the Christians, however, and Tertullian had to assert that Sol was not the Christians’ god, while Augustine denounced the heretical identification of Christ with Sol. In 386 CE St. Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, preached:
But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December…the eight before the calends of January…, But they call it the “Birthday of the Unconquered.” Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord…? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the Sun, He is the Sun of Justice.273
Pagan customs and observances persisted. Tertullian condemned Saturnalia customs such as exchanging gifts and decorating homes with evergreens. The biographer of St. Eligius recorded that the bishop would caution his flock:
(Do not) make vetulas (little figures of the Winter Hag), little deer or iotticos or set tables at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks.
The early church flourished in Egypt, with the result that many elements of ancient Egyptian mythology were incorporated into the Jesus story. The most prominent Egyptian deities of the time were Osiris and his consort Isis, who had been worshipped for thousands of years and who had gradually assumed the powers of various other gods.
Osiris was a god who chose to become a man to guide his people; as such, he was called “the Good Shepherd” and depicted with a shepherd’s crook. As a corn god he died, was buried, and was brought back to life. As grain he fed his people and was called the “Resurrection and the Life.” His flesh was eaten in the form of wheaten cakes. Like Mary, Isis was called “the Star of the Sea” and “Queen of Heaven,” a virgin who brought forth a son titled “the Saviour of the World,” the hero who brings order back into the universe. Isis and her son Horus were forced to hide from an evil king until Horus became a man. According to Plutarch, Osiris was betrayed by Typhon (Set), the power of darkness, killed and dismembered when the sun enters the sign of the Scorpion and reborn as Horus at the winter solstice. The Temple of Luxor shows images of the god Thoth announcing to Isis that she will conceive Horus and then of the virgin birth and the adoration. The pictures and statues of Isis suckling her son Horus are the prototypes of the Virgin Mary and her child.
Horus’s birth was heralded by the evening rising of the three stars of Orion’s (Osiris’s) belt just before the rising of the birth star Sirius (Isis) shortly afterwards in the east, marking the place where the newborn sun would rise. The Egyptians represented the newborn sun Horus by the image of an infant, which they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers.274 The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, “The Virgin has brought forth! The light is waxing!” Macrobius (395–423 CE) reported that a figure of the baby Horus was laid in a manger and a statue of Isis was placed beside it. The festival lasted twelve days to reflect the twelve months (or twelve zodiac signs) of the year.
Twelve Days Out of Time
The twelve days of Christmas officially begin on December 26, called Boxing Day in the UK. According to some, they are the last six days of the old year and first six days of the new year. The ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Teutons (among others) all had a twelve-day festival around the winter solstice. The idea was adopted by Christianity in the fourth century because, the apologists said, it took the Wise Men twelve days to find Jesus. They start on Boxing Day because “Christmas Day was a holy day,” or maybe because the old way of counting days was that they began at sunset, so Boxing Day starts on the eve of December 25. If, as Pagans, we celebrate the solstice on December 21, that neatly and conveniently takes the twelve days of Yule to New Year’s Day.
The sun reborn at Yule is a weakling babe, and for twelve days all is still uncertain. Only at their conclusion does the sun gain enough power to turn the tide and send the winter spirits back to the underworld. These first twelve days are the most dangerous and uncanny days of the year. They exist outside of normal time and do not belong to the year proper; time is in suspension. Finnish shamans call this period “the Dreaming” or “God’s Trance Hour.”275 The strangeness of these days is reflected in many of their other names: the Balkan “unbaptised days,” the Slovenian “wolf nights,” the Germanic “raw nights,” and the Bulgarian “heathen days” or “dirty days” when demons attack the World Tree.276 In Scotland no court had power during the twelve days. In Finland and Sweden the twelve days of Christmas were declared by law to be a time of civil peace, and anyone committing a crime during them could expect a stiffer sentence than normal.
Many of the ancient beliefs and customs surrounding the twelve days remain to this day. They are a time of danger, the eerie, and the supernatural, haunted by spirits that might punish or reward.
As the twelve days represent the twelve months of the coming year, many omens were taken from them. In England it was said that the weather on the first day would reflect the weather in January, the weather on the second day the weather in February, and so on.
The threat of the precarious twelve days that follow before the sun gains enough power to combat it is reflected in the folk tales of ghosts and fairies temporarily freed from the underworld. In Guernsey the powers of darkness are supposed to be especially active between St. Thomas’s Day (December 21) and New Year’s Eve, and it is dangerous to be out after nightfall. In the Orkneys precautions had to be taken against supernatural visitors, especially from the influence of the trows, the ugly and malicious fairies of the Northern Isles who leave the underworld at Yule.277 In the Scandinavian countries on Christmas Eve people stayed indoors so as not to meet the spirits. In Sweden the trolls were abroad. In Iceland the thirteen Yule lads, or Jolasveinar, appear. Though today they have become cuddly gift bringers, leaving presents for good children and potatoes for naughty ones, originally they were terrifying characters, the sons of two undead trolls, Gryla and Leppaludi, who stole and ate naughty children. The Yule lads start arriving during the days before Christmas to cause mischief.
The Hag Goddess comes into her supremacy during the twelve nights and flies through the midnight skies accompanied by wild women, ghosts, and other spirits, collecting the souls of the dead, especially those unbaptised at the time of their death. Frau Gauden and her twenty-four daughters were often seen during the twelve nights, and where she passed by with her dogs, the harvest would be good. In northern Germany the hag was Frau Holle or Frau Holt. To placate the Crone and her host, people would leave out offerings. In Germany the Hollenzopf (“Hölle’s braid”) plaited loaf was left out. Holda, whose name means “the kindly one,” brought rewards for diligent spinners, and on every New Year’s Eve between nine and ten o’clock she drove a carriage full of presents through villages where respect had been shown to her. At the crack of her whip the people would come out to receive her gifts. In Hesse and Thuringia she was imagined as a beautiful woman clad in white with long golden hair, and, when it snows hard, people said that “Frau Holle is shaking her featherbed.” She is derived from the Germanic sky goddess Holda or Hulda, who was also a goddess of fertility, the hearth, and spinning.278
More frightening are the Greek Kallikantzaroi who appear during the twelve days. They are half-animal, half-human monsters, black and hairy, with huge heads, red eyes, goats’ or asses’ ears, lolling red tongues, ferocious tusks, long curved claws, and animals’ feet. Though they normally live in the underworld, at this time they attempt to climb up the world tree to emerge on earth. In the Macedonian plain of Saraghiol, the Kallikantzaroi emerge from a stone named Kiatra Schuligan, beneath which an abyss opens, black and deep, and the sound of laughter, sobs, and screams can be heard issuing from it, along with the sounds of pipes and beating drums.279 The signal for their final departure does not come until Twelfth Night with the Kalanda festival, when the “Blessing of the Waters” ceremony takes place. Like other such creatures elsewhere, they are often said to be spirits of the dead. Children born at Christmas are susceptible to becoming Kallikantzaroi, as are people with inept guardian angels. In some places they are thought to be transformed humans placed under a spell after being born with a caul during the twelve nights.
This is a characteristic they share with the werewolf, a man who is supposed to change into a ravening wolf—“man-wolves” is the name given to the Kallikantzaroi in southern Greece. The connection between Christmas and werewolves is not confined to Greece. According to a belief in the north and east of Germany, children born during the twelve nights become werewolves, while in Livonia and Poland that period is the special season for the werewolf’s rapacity.280 The wolf is associated both with the wild side of nature and the time of chaos and boundaries. In Norse myth the Fenris wolf embodies the forces of night and chaos and will bring about Ragnarok, when those forces will overwhelm the world.
December 31: New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve is a day of omens and taboos when people believed that it was important to banish the old year completely and ensure good luck and prosperity for the new one. Creditors had to be paid off to avoid starting the new year in debt and thus setting a pattern for the future. Lending as much as a light for a candle was considered very unlucky.
As the liminal point when one year shifts into the next, New Year’s Eve was often considered a dangerous and magically charged night of the year, making it necessary to protect the home and its inhabitants from the supernatural. In Iceland, for example, cows gain human speech, seals take on human form, the dead rise from their graves, and the elves move house. In the Scottish Highlands houses were decorated with holly to keep out the fairies. It was the tradition to keep the fire, which was usually damped down at night, burning away merrily all through New Year’s night, fuelled along with a special incantation. If the fire went out that night, it was a very bad omen for the coming year. In Silesia it was the custom to fire shots into bushes and trees to drive out evil spirits and witches. Fireworks were traditional in Germany for the same reason. In Denmark the same thing is done, with the aim of chasing away trolls and evil spirits. This seems to be an end-of-year custom designed to make enough noise to chase away the spirits of darkness.281 In Switzerland the people parade through the streets dressed in costumes and hats representative of good and evil spirits.
Ritual purification was common. On the last night of the year, Strathdown Highlanders would bring home great loads of juniper, which was kindled in the different rooms with all the windows and doors closed to fumigate all the household members and farm animals.282 In Germany juniper twigs collected during the year were brought in and burned to protect the house. Austrians considered this a rauchnacht, or “smoke night,” when all rooms and animals must be purified with the smoke of burning wormwood and holy water.
In several places it was customary to “burn out the old year” with bonfires. In Herefordshire and surrounding counties, one tradition was the weaving of a globe of hawthorn twigs that was then set alight and carried around the fields. The custom was widespread on farms and in villages in Herefordshire and Radnorshire during the nineteenth century. In parts of Worcestershire on New Year’s morning, a crown was made of blackthorn that was then baked in the oven before being burned to ashes in a cornfield, the ashes then being scattered over the ground.
This is also St. Sylvester’s Day. Sylvester means “forest” or “wood.” An Austrian custom involved a masked figure called the Sylvester (a sort of wildman) who hid in the corner at inns and leapt out when a young man or woman passed to give them a kiss. The Sylvester wore a wreath of mistletoe, perhaps an emblem of the fertility that he bestows with the kisses. When midnight came, he was driven out of the room as a representative of the old year.283
It was important to “let the New Year in” in the proper manner. First footing customs are found throughout Britain. It was considered most important that the first-foot (i.e., the first person over the threshold after midnight) should not come empty-handed but must offer a gift of spiced ale, whiskey, shortbread, oak cakes, sweets, or fuel for the fire. An offering of food or drink must be accepted by sharing it with everyone present, including the visitor. Fuel must be placed onto the fire by the visitor with the words “A good New Year to one and all, and many may you see.” The first foot had to be a man or a boy, preferably dark haired, as it was very unlucky for a red-headed man—or, in some places, a fair-haired man—to “let in” the New Year.284
Divinations were also practiced. One involved placing a ring in a water-filled bowl, with young unmarried people dunking for the ring; the one who succeeded in retrieving it without the use of his or her hands was guaranteed to be married within the year.
The coming weather was also considered. According to one rhyme:
If New Year’s Eve night wind blows South,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If West, much milk and fish in the sea,
If North, much cold and storms there will be;
If East, the trees will bear much fruit;
If North-east, flee it, man and brute.
New Year’s Eve Ritual
To set the tone of prosperity for the coming year, we practice the custom of first-footing. We choose a dark-haired man to be the first person across the threshold after the stroke of midnight, and he must bring in and present to the householders the following:
- a piece of coal to represent warmth
- a silver coin to represent prosperity
- a glass of whiskey to represent good cheer
- a branch of evergreen to represent long life
- a loaf of bread to represent enough to eat during the year
- a pinch of salt to represent hospitality
254. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition.
255. Ibid.
256. Pennick, The Goddess Year.
257. The Russian witch goddess Baba Yaga had iron teeth and flew with witches at the summer solstice.
258. Max Dashu, http://www.suppressedhistories.net/secrethistory/witchtregenda.html.
259. Thomas K. Hervey, The Book of Christmas (The Folklore Society, 1888).
260. Walter, Christianity.
261. In a reversal of the usual borrowings from Pagan to Christian, many modern Pagans have adopted this as the oak and holly king theme but switch the roles around so that the holly king gives up his power to the oak king at Yule and regains it at the summer solstice; Williamson, The Oak King, the Holly King, and the Unicorn.
262. Thomas K. Hervey, The Book of Christmas (The Folklore Society, 1888).
263. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition.
264. Susan Granquist, 1995, http://www.irminsul.org/arc/001sg.html, accessed 12.12.18.
265. Susan Granquist, 1995, http://www.irminsul.org/arc/001sg.html, accessed 12.12.18.
266. Frazer, The Golden Bough.
267. Quoted in Christian Rätsch and Claudia Müller-Ebeling, Pagan Christmas: The Plants, Spirits, and Rituals at the Origins of Yuletide (VT: Inner Traditions, 2006).
268. Manilius, Astronomica (c. AD 10), trans. G. P. Goold (London: Harvard Heinemann, 1997).
269. In the same way, the sun is responsible for the birth of each New Age every 2,000 years. Because of precession, the Gate of the Gods moves to Sagittarius.
270. In Brittany there was the custom of leaving food for the ghosts while the family attended church.
271. Krupp, Beyond the Blue Horizon.
272. The Eastern Church refused to accept December 25 for another three hundred years.
273. Quoted in Allan J. Macdonald, A Jolly Folly? The Propriety of the Christian Endorsement of Christmas (Wipf, 2017).
274. Frazer, The Golden Bough.
275. Nigel Jackson, Compleat Vampire (Chieveley: Capall Bann).
276. The “Pagan Days” by Max Dashu, http://www.matrifocus.com/IMB07/scholar.htm.
277. Anna Franklin, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Fairies (London: Vega, 2002).
278. Ibid.
279. This Macedonian lore of the Kallikantzaroi connects high rock formations with the dead, especially infants who died without baptism. Similar associations were made by the Scots, who used to have a custom of burying unbaptised babies among inaccessible rocks. The child’s spirit entered into the rocks and became the echo (called “child of the rock” in Gaelic).
280. Nigel Jackson, Compleat Vampyre (Chieveley: Cappall Bann, 1995).
281. Walter, Christianity.
282. W. Grant, Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland (London: Archibald Constable, 1823).
283. Walter, Christianity.
284. Owen, Welsh Folk Customs.