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YuleYule is a traditional celebration with its origins in pre-Christian winter solstice celebrations. The Yule tide was a festivity celebrating the fact that the days and warmth would now start to get longer and warmer again. Yule was Christianized as Christmas; indeed, many traditional trappings of Christmas, such as the Yule log, holly, mistletoe and the Christmas tree are derived from pre-Christian Yule celebrations.
In the Scandinavian countries, Jul is the word for Christmas. Of the contested origin of Yule, one likely connection is to Old Norse Hjól, 'wheel,' to identify the moment when the wheel of the year is at its lowpoint, ready to rise again. Other linguists suggest that the connection is fortuitous, and that Hjól has been inherited by Germanic and Scandinavian languages from a pre-Indo-European language level. Though there are numerous references to Yule in the Icelandic sagas, there are few accounts of how Yule was actually celebrated, beyond the fact that it was a time for feasting. 'Yule-Joy', with dancing, continued through the Middle Ages in Iceland, but was frowned upon when the Reformation arrived. Today, Yule, or midwinter, is one of the eight solar holidays or sabbats of Neopaganism. In modern neopaganism Yule is celebrated on the winter solstice, in the northern hemisphere circa December 21 and in the southern hemisphere circa June 21. In some traditions, it commemorates the death of the Holly King (symbolizing the old year and the shortened sun) at the hands of his son and successor, the Oak King (the new year and the new sun that begins to grow). In other traditions, it is seen as the birthday of the new sun god. A traditional yule ritual is a vigil from dusk to dawn, the longest night of the year, to make sure that the sun will rise again. The yule log was a huge log (sometimes an entire tree) that was burned slowly throughout the yule tide, to herald the birth of the new sun. One end of the log would be placed in the fireplace with the rest sticking out into the room. The log was slowly fed into the fire over the course of several days until it was completely consumed.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia and from ShiningRise.com
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