the.com/yule
the pagan midwinter blowout that Christianity quietly annexed and rebranded as Christmas.
means An old name for the midwinter festival and its season, now used as a poetic synonym for Christmas and its trappings (the yule log, yuletide).
from From Old English 'geōl,' a midwinter feast, with cousins across the Germanic north — Old Norse 'jól' named the pre-Christian winter celebration. The Norse word survives in modern Scandinavian 'jul,' still the everyday word for Christmas. Beyond Germanic, the deeper roots are murky; the word predates Christianity in the north, which is exactly why the church found it easier to baptize the old feast than to erase it.
- older than santa
- Germanic peoples feasted Yule centuries before the Nativity
- burning log
- Yule log was a real trunk burned for twelve nights
- word origin
- From Old Norse jol, a midwinter festival
- odin rode
- Wild Hunt myths likely seeded the gift-giving sky figure
- twelve days
- Source of the famous Twelve Days of Christmas
yule log — traditional british christmas dessert cake rolled with cream, eaten since the 18th century
yule goat — swedish christmas symbol, giant straw goat in gävle erected annually since 1966