Desert Snake
Veteran Member
If Yule is on December 21, why are people saying that Xmas is actually Yule? Makes no sense.
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If Yule is on December 21, why are people saying that Yule is Xmas?
- Thread starter Desert Snake
- Start date
Glaurung
Denizen of Niflheim
Yule is another name for Christmas in Christian tradition.
What you really mean to ask is why are there those who insist that Christmas is just a re-branded pagan feast.
Originally the idea was spread by Puritans with an anti-catholic agenda, but in recent times it's just because it's a talking point for anti-Christians.
What you really mean to ask is why are there those who insist that Christmas is just a re-branded pagan feast.
Originally the idea was spread by Puritans with an anti-catholic agenda, but in recent times it's just because it's a talking point for anti-Christians.
This is not correct.
Yule comes from Scandinavian languages, Jul, from Jólablót, a midwinter "blot" which was a ritual offering and marking of winter solstice in Norse culture. That is where the world Yule comes from.
Christian tradition has adopted it, the Norse king Håkon Den Gode (Haakon The Good) who was an important man in the forced Christianing of Norway, ordered the traditional Jul to be merged with Christmas in order to remove the pagan holidays and make them Christian ones instead. But many pagan symbols remain from pre-Christian times in Norway.
And in at least Norway, Sweden and Denmark, this holiday is still called Jul today, which is the name from before the Christening of these areas.
So yes, if the world Yule now is part of the "Christian tradition", it has been adopted into it from pre-Christian sources.
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
That's nice, but why are the dates different then.
Another horn of mead for Tom, Son of Columbus!
Because when our Heathen & Pagan ancestors were being converted the missionaries of their White-Christ were trying to equate him and the day of his birth with feast-days we already celebrated.
Conversion wasn't a single-step process. It was something they were...well. Tricked into. They had no problem adding the Nazarene to their pantheon, but to worship him and only him? Not something they were used to. So they did this piecing out Yule and other Feast-Celebrations. Easter is a similar story.
There's more to it than that. Yule, including the Yule-log and other such things, formed the basis for Northern-European Christmas traditions like the Tree and such. But the actual date has more to do with Saturnalia, it just so happens that everyone on the planet tends to celebrate the Solstices. It is not a case that the Solstices fall on Holy Days, it's a case of Holy Days happening to fall near the Solstices. One came before the other.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Winter solstice is based on our planets orbit around the sun, not a human made artificial calendar that tries to mimic the seasons. We have leap years, and even leap seconds to fix an ever changing earth-sun relationship. Every 10 years we have 2 milliseconds added to our clocks because of our rotation slowing down. The rotation of Earth around its axis isn't perfectly matched to the rotation around the sun, which is causing us to have a 365.25 day year. Earth has rotated 365 times and a quarter around its axis after it has completed an exact orbit. So the "24th" is an artificial day somewhere during the winter phase. The calendar system has changed. During the ancient times the months were different, and the days as well. They had even more problem to adjust the calendar than we do. When the 24th was taken, I suspect that winter solstice probably was around that day. And I haven't checked this, but from this information alone, we can surmise that the solstice is on different days each year, but still around this time. But the church likes fixed dates on a calendar instead of something defined by planetary objects, so 24th is it. That's my thoughts about it.
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Yule, Jul, Jol... whatever dialect... is from the day of the Winter Solstice through the next 12 days (Twelfth Night, anyone?
). This year it is from Dec. 21 - Jan. 1. It can vary by the 1 or 2 days the Winter Solstice varies by. Therefore today, Dec. 25 is the 5th day of Yule 2014. Christmas falls within Yule, it is not Yule.
As was already pointed out, Yule lasted more than one day.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I made some homemade mulled wine today, just to totally derail this thread. LOL! It's also called glögg in Sweden. What do you call it in your country Jumi? Just curious. Anyway, I made it from real wine and mulling spices and sugar. The best one I ever made. Yum.
Yule "starts" on the 21st of Dec, or so (it varies between the exact day and time every year). And lasted for 12 days, to encompass the 25th of December. Why this was the arbitrary date chosen in the long run, no one probably knows the answer to that question anymore. One of those things lost to history.
Christianity took aspects of Yule, and centered it around their central figure. Since Yule is about the rebirth (birth) of the 'sun', they made it now about the birth of the 'son'. Easier to digest by those who were clinging to their pagan roots.
Christianity took aspects of Yule, and centered it around their central figure. Since Yule is about the rebirth (birth) of the 'sun', they made it now about the birth of the 'son'. Easier to digest by those who were clinging to their pagan roots.
Servant_of_the_One1
Well-Known Member
Disciple, did jesus peace be upon him celebrate his own birthday with a tree? Did the true disciples celebrate his birthday with a tree?
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
'Cos it is!
The priests would wait until they saw a definite return of the sun before they announced celebrations, possibly?
And so the sun-return festival would be held circa 25th December....?
And Christian evangelists reversed Christmas festival into that date?
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Christian evangelists? Are you saying that Xian evangelists invented Xmas?
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Invented?
Many church sites around here were probably gathering places before Christianity. Now where would you build a church if you were an evangelist?
And why not reverse Christmas into an ancient festival?
Christmas needed to be celebrated at sometime in the year....
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Fair enough!
Most English people celebrate Xmas as a special feast because they have done all their lives. This is shown by the scarcity of religious programmes on telly today.
Hence 'Xmas'!
Desert Snake
Veteran Member
Well, there was nothing overtly religious about my xmas.
I seem to recall Christmas being invented by German bishops in the 700s. Yule was just too deeply ingrained in northern European culture to root out. They couldn't beat em so they joined em. Thats why nearly all the traditional stuff is utterly pagan. From decorated trees to feasts to presents, it all came from earlier traditions.
There was more to this than just the solstice. In agrarian cultures there just wasn't as much work to be done in winter. Plus, food and supplies were then at their annual maximum. Food storage was primitive, feasting while it was at it's best was sensible. And if you slaughter and eat some livestock you don't have to feed it any more. There were good reasons for a big festival at this time of year. So that's what everyone did.
Christmas was an attempt to both coopt and tame the primitive paganism of the day. Totally artificial holiday with a political agenda.
Tom
There was more to this than just the solstice. In agrarian cultures there just wasn't as much work to be done in winter. Plus, food and supplies were then at their annual maximum. Food storage was primitive, feasting while it was at it's best was sensible. And if you slaughter and eat some livestock you don't have to feed it any more. There were good reasons for a big festival at this time of year. So that's what everyone did.
Christmas was an attempt to both coopt and tame the primitive paganism of the day. Totally artificial holiday with a political agenda.
Tom