20/12/2023
Happy Yule to all of you and a joyous Day of the Grape!
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Yule is the ancient Germanic celebration of the Winter Solstice, and means "You will," which was a phrase said with a lot of regularity this time of year.
"You will be cold."
"You will get frostbite."
"You will shovel the snow outside the mead hall."
"You will drink mead."
"You will get presents."
And people did get presents, and had gotten presents on the Winter Solstice long before that too. 2000 years before the first Yule celebration the Druids used to gather at Stonehenge on the morning of the winter solstice. There, under a large pine tree set up in the middle of the stones (which is where the Christmas Tree comes from obviously), they would receive gifts from the Arch-Druid thanking them for all their hard Druid work.
According to the Roman historian Blimey the Elder the Arch Druid would:
"wear magnificent robes of red trimmed with white, his long white beard giving him the appearance of a sage who knew the mysteries well."
When the Arch-Druid was done thanking his flock he would travel to all the villages around the magnificent monument on a sled pulled by a team of reindeer, handing presents out to all the good little pagan girls and boys. From this custom the legend of Santa Claus was born.
Winter time celebrations have generally featured a lot of drinking, and this includes Christmas. While generally thought to reference Jesus Christ ("Christ's Mass"), a more analyzed breakdown of the word reveals something else entirely. Christ is actually a shortened version of the Greek word "Christo," which is a grape varietal the Greeks used to make wine. "Jesus Christ" was literally "Jesus the Grape" and "Christmas" means "Day of the Grape." It wasn't so much about anyone's birthday, but an excuse to drink wine.
The ancient Egyptians celebrated the Winter Solstice as a holiday commemorating the union of the goddess Isis and the god Osiris. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead the story of their courtship includes this passage:
“With berries of red he courted her. With berries of white he won her love. Like a missile he entered her and she felt his passion from her head to her toes.”
The berries written about in the Book of the Dead grew along the Nile River and were named after their union. That plant is mistletoe and has been sacred to Druids and later the holiday of Christmas ever since.
No matter what you do or how you celebrate, I wish you and yours a most blessed Yule and/or a joyous Day of the Grape.