Yule

Old English Giuli; Old Norse jól

See it on the Wheel of the Sky

When it comes round

North of the equator: the December solstice, when the Sun reaches 0° Capricorn, on .

South of the equator, where the seasons are reversed, the Wheel of the Sky keeps Yule in the same season, half a year later or earlier: the June solstice, when the Sun reaches 0° Cancer, on .

The solstices and equinoxes are the Sun at 0° of a cardinal sign, so the festival is that moment itself. Worked out with the same Sun calculation as the calendar and the Wheel of the Sky.

The midwinter festival at the winter solstice, the longest night, whose name lives on in the northern European words for Christmas.

In history

One of the earliest known mentions is Bede’s, in the early 8th century. In the old English calendar he describes, both December and January were called Giuli, a name taken “from the day when the sun turns back” (Bede, The Reckoning of Time); it was not a festival so much as a way of marking the passage of time (Britannica). Bede adds that the heathen English began their year at Christmas, and that the night Christians held so sacred had once been called Modranecht, “mother’s night,” because, he suspected, of the ceremonies held all that night.

The festival itself is generally agreed to have begun as the Norse jól, though its purpose is debated. Some have seen it as a Norse day of the dead, with the god Odin, one of whose names was Jolnir; at least one historian argues that it was a new-year festival. Light, fire and feasting were common threads, and since most cattle were slaughtered before winter, meat was plentiful for a midwinter feast (Britannica).

Yule became a name for Christmas around the 9th century, and it still is: jul in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, joulu in Finnish, jól in Icelandic. The saga of King Haakon the Good of Norway says that in the 10th century he made Yule be kept at the same time as Christmas, with everyone brewing ale from a measure of grain and keeping the feast while it lasted. Possible survivals are the Yule log, once a great log that burned through the whole festival, for as many as 12 days, and Sweden’s straw Yule goat, perhaps a tribute to Thor, whose chariot was drawn by goats (Britannica).

In modern practice

Many modern Pagans keep Yule as a solstice festival. For Wiccans it is a sabbat that welcomes the return of the Sun; some act out a battle between the Holly King and the Oak King, burn yule logs, hold feasts, or stay awake until dawn (Britannica). The eight-festival Wheel of the Year itself is modern: Wicca, which emerged in England in the 1950s, typically keeps eight seasonal festivals, called sabbats, based on traditional celebrations drawn from different periods of British and Irish history, and many Wiccans in the Southern Hemisphere move them to fit their own seasons (Britannica, “Wicca”).

Learn more