We’re all familiar with Yule as a term for the midwinter festival. We have Yuletide greetings, Yule log chocolate cakes, and Yule logs to burn on the fire.
Holly has been used to decorate at midwinter for millennia
But Yule is also shrouded in mystery, part of the mysterious Germanic and Scandinavian cultures who came to Britain after the Romans left, and eventually founded the English state. Their origins and beliefs are mysterious because we only have written records made after their conversion to Christianity.
The Christian church fostered literacy – but their writings disapproved of nature-worshipping and the many Gods and Goddesses of the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. However, the Pope did recommend that churches be built in places that were already revered, such as wells or sacred groves.
Nature’s Christmas decorations: frosted berries in the forest
Despite the lack of written records, , J. Kim Siddorn, leader of the Regia Anglorum re-enactment group, has spent decades studying the the mindset of the people who lived here in the 11th century, and can see some links between traditions then and now.
Yule, he thinks, was a time outside the rest of the year: a break point, a time of reflection. There were ceremonial fires – the Yule Log – and, like now, games, feasting and drinking.
In Scotland, a ‘First Footer’ comes at New Year, and brings with him good luck. Kim thinks it’s possible that at Yule, there was a similar ceremony called ‘Sin Eating’. The ‘Sin Eater’ would eat something that was deemed to contain the bad things of the last year, which he would then take away, leaving a fresh start to the new year.
It’s a great idea: a twelve day holiday outside the working year, followed by a fresh, new start.
Read more about how Yule may have been celebrated – and about Regia Anglorum – in Countryman, December 2013