First Reading

Attendant reads:

The origin of the word Yule comes from a Northern European word “jol”.  The feast known as Jolnir was celebrated as a fire festival of light honoring Odin.  In the early Anglo-Saxon language, the word Yule derived from “geola,” which means “the yoke” of the year.  Yule literally means “wheel,” when the sun is at its lowest ebb, but is reborn to regenerate the earth in spring.  Yule is the shortest day flanked on each side by the longest nights.  It is a time to welcome the sun back from its slumber and exchange tokens of joy with friends and family. 

The Yule season runs a magical twelve days, starting on Mother’s Nights, December 20th to December 31st, and is considered the holiest feast of the festival cycles.  The twelve days of Yule represent the twelve months of the year in microcosm.

Mother’s Night is so named as it is the day when night gives birth to a new sun.  The twelfth night is ended with much oath making and celebration.  Norsemen were known to make their oaths on the backs of a live boar in honor of Freyr and his trademark battle boar, Gullinbursti.

The right eye of Odin represents to sun, as does the solar wheel symbol.  Yule is a sun festival held in honor of Odin as well as Thor and Freyr.   As Balder is the god of midsummer’s sun, Freyr is the god of the midwinter sun.  To the Romans the Yule tradition was the festival of Sol Invictus, the undefeated sun, which included the celebration of Saturnalia, an intense time of merry-making.

Yule involves both matriarchal and patriarchal symbology.  As the mother goddess (moon) gives birth to the father god (sun), she then rests through the cold months which belong to the newborn infant god.  In the Norse Yule festivals, the dead were always commemorated and believed to be present in spirit, Yule sacrifices were known to be offered for growth.

It has been an unbroken custom to use the evergreen tree as the foremost symbol of the Yule season, as it remains green the year round.  The evergreen tree is a token of that which never dies, “everlasting” life eternal, akin in this respect to the world tree Yggdrasil.  The druids are known to have tied gilded apples to the Yule tree as a symbol of fire in honor of the Allfather Odin.

Burning the Yule tree holds its origins in man’s effort to return the gift of fire to the gods by burning a tree along with sacrificial gifts.  These burnt offerings would also be characterized in the form of bonfires and the Yule log.  The Yule log is traditionally oak, ash, or beech and directly associated with fire as the purifying emanations of the Sun God.  The log is personally cut and brought into the house with ceremony on the eve of Yule, and ignited with a piece of the previous year’s Yule log is available.

The Yule candle is another symbol of light in the darkness of winter.  Customarily, it was a large ornamental candle, usually blue, green, or red in color, which is lit at the beginning of Mother’s Night.  Often it is displayed in the window of a home to signify good will.

Holly and mistletoe are also a popular standard of the old tradition, and particularly spiritual to the Druids.  It was believed that all who passed under the mistletoe were kissed by Freya, our goddess of fertility.  Additionally, mistletoe was the fateful poison which brought the demise of the heretofore invincible Balder, the god of the summer son.  So, it is believed that mistletoe symbolizes the death of the summer son while the winter son reigns.  To decorate with evergreen, holly, and ivy is a long time tradition in the homes during Yule, paying homage to the feminine elements.  The prickly holly signifies the male, and the entwining, yielding ivy is the female.  Together they remind us that nature never dies, but is waiting to be reborn again in Spring.  The colors of these plants have significance as well: red for the sun, green for eternal life, and white for purity.