I wish you peace, love and joy this holiday season.
Nollaig Shona (Happy Christmas)
Linda Keady
Celtic Rainbow Gifts
Bar Harbor, Me
Winter Solstice –December 20-22
(varies astronomically every year)
At the winter solstice, the Celts made final preparations for the coming winter. Any of the livestock that were not being used for breeding or would not be needed in the spring, were slaughtered for food. The Celts would salt the meat to last through the winter. Fresh meat was only enjoyed in the late fall and early wintertime, as were fresh fruits that would not last in storage. The feasting around the winter solstice celebrated the bounty of the land and often led to excess. As the year was filled with hard work just prior to the solstice and not much work immediately after (crops were already harvested, the ground was frozen, and animals had been slaughtered) there was plenty of time for lengthy celebrations.
The Roman festival of world renewal was called Saturnalia, with its feasting, drinking, and wild celebrations. This was the most important holiday in pre-Christian Rome. It came just before the winter solstice and was followed by the New Year. At a later point, the New Year was celebrated at the time of the spring equinox.
In later medieval times, the celebrations of the winter solstice usually featured a “Lord of Misrule,” who turned the standard social order upside down. The rich were treated as poor servants and the poor would be treated as rich. Men would dress as women and women dress as men. The workers would go to their lord and sing songs to gain entrance. Once inside the great homes of the ruling lords, they would be given the best food and drink. This is the origin of wassailing, and of our present-day tradition of caroling.
People lit sacred fires, kindled from a bonfire held sacred by the village, in their homes to drive away evil spirits. In Norse cultures, the sacred fires involved a Yule log and were burned indoors.
Yule comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word geola, meaning “yoke”. At Yuletide, the sun is caught as its lowest point in the sky, buy only briefly. For in the celebration of Yule we find rebirth, new growth, and the survival of light in the darkness. This was a celebration of the sun, despite the dark season. In this darkest time of the year, to keep the balance and maintain hope, people celebrated the sun.
Mistletoe, which grows on oak trees sacred to the Celts, is a symbol of eternal life. Cut by a druid in a ritual ceremony, great bunches of mistletoe were hung in doorways in Brittany (in France) at the winter solstice to ensure good fortune for their homes. There are overlaps between celebrations of the winter solstice, Yule, Saturnalia, and Christmas.
When Christianity began to spread it made sense for the early Christians to place Christ’s birth at the same times as the solstice. Linking the birth of God’s son with the annual birth of the celestial sun held a strong appeal for both Christians and non-Christians in the common metaphor of the birth of light.
Taken from the book: “The Ancient Celtic Festivals” and how we celebrate them today.
By: Clare Walker Leslie and Frank E. Gerace
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