Red and green together be seen
In the time of dread and fear
Green for the thorn of the holly leaf
That shines in candlelight
That holds the hope of evergreen
That glimmers in the night
Red for the berry round and full
A drop of blood on snow
That shows us our humanity
That fruit from which we grow
Maddy Prior Winter: Red & Green
Christmas is a season of custom and tradition, never more so than in the countryside. If you peer beyond the tinsel, tat and commecialisation of Christmas you will find traditions that stretch back centuries. Some of them hold echoes of times and beliefs that precede the current christian festival. The Winter Solstice on the 21st December is a pivotal point in the natural year that is marked in many cultures, and its celebrations overlap and combine with Christmas.
The Winter Solstice
The Winter Solstice is a pivotal part of the year, midwinter, when the sun appears to stand still on the shortest day of the year. This astronomical event has been observed, marked and celebrated for thousands of years. In Ireland one of the most striking ancient sites is Newgrange, a 5200 year old megalithic structure, known Síd in Broga or Brug Mac ind Óc in the earliest written records, and today a UNESCO world heritage site. The great passage tomb was built precisely on an alignment that allows the midwinter sunrise to shine along the central passageway. We can only guess at the ritual and significance surrounding this event, but the Winter Solstice must have been one of the most important times of the year as countless monuments are aligned to it.
The sun on the midwinter sunrise shines through the opening above the doorway and illuminates the passage beyond
Farming and the pastoral cycle
Farming started in the neolithic, instigating a seismic shift in society, hierarchies formed that allowed classes of rulers and priests to organise tribe and family. Important points in the pastoral year became celebrated as festivals, such as harvest and lambing. The solstices and equinoxes were observed and celebrated as fixed points in the year .
All of the great stone monuments and earthworks that still dominate our landscape were built by those early farmers. Maybe they were staking out their dominance of the natural world? Rather than the warm and fuzzy new age concept of our ancient ancestors as guardians of Mother Nature, maybe they were busy imposing their control over the land, rivers and heavens? Maybe that sunlight pouring down the passageway at Newgrange symbolised their capturing and control of the natural cycle?
Whatever their motives were, the evidence point to huge feasts and celebrations. The remains of thousands of pigs and cattle are concentrated at these sites, and later bronze and iron age burials often featured huge cauldrons for cooking. The Irish myths celebrate feasting and complex rules of hospitality.
The Romans knew how to throw a party
In Ancient Rome Saturn was the god of farming, and his festival of Saturnalia ran for a week from the solstice. Being great fans of booze and orgies the Romans went hell for leather all week. The modern office party seems a proud and natural successor to those revels. No doubt they brought these high jinks to their outlying territory of Britannia, and the native midwinter celebrations received a fresh influx of customs.
Romans getting jiggy with it at Saturnalia
Yule
After the Roman period Britain was a melting pot of cultures, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norse and of course the existing British Celtic society that still survivied on the fringes of the Romanised world. The pagan midwinter festival was called Yule, the roots of the word being in the Old English word geol, and the equivalent word from Old Norse, jól. The Venerable Bede mentioned this celebration in the eigth century ‘They [the pagans] began the year with December 25, the day we now celebrate as Christmas’. The pagan celebration of Yule was associated with fertility and natural fecundity, these concepts didn’t go down all that well with the prudish christians so they edged those aspects out as quickly as they could.
The word ‘Christmas’ is actually Anglo-Saxon in origin – Cristesmæsse, first recorded in 1038. The early church pursued a policy of gentle evolution, taking over religious sites and festivals and rededicating them to Christ, so the solstice celebration, midwinter revels and Yule became Christmas, all those nasty associations with sex, fertility and the old ways were soon replaced with celebration of the birth of christ.
We still enjoy the pagan custom of the Yule Log, even if it’s a slightly underwhelming chocolate cake. Originally the Yule Log would have celebrated the returning light and the rebirth of the land, it’s exact meaning and significance is lost, but it stands still as one of the traditions of fire, feasting, friendship and being thankful for the year that has past and hopeful for the one to come.
Mistletoe, Holly and Ivy at Christmas
It’s not hard to see why holly, ivy and mistletoe became revered at the darkest time of the winter. Evergreen plants were the only splash of colour and holly berrries, along with haws and rosehips, were a welcome relief. In the depths of winter it would have been a pretty monochrome world, bringing green boughs in to the house would have had a positive effect. We tend to think of mental health and ‘wellness’ to be a modern thing, but many of our folk beliefs and traditions are about finding hope and light in the dark, an assurance that there is an order and structure to life.
Many beliefs surround the power of these plants to see off malicious spirits, witches and hexes. Mistletoe has connections with love and friendship in Norse belief and in Celtic myths it has a huge importance with the Druids raving over its poweres – not that we actually have much evidence for this. Interestingly, the church really didn’t like mistletoe anywhere on the premises, presumably due to these folk beliefs and it’s connection with snogging.
The Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree has a convoluted history, suffice to say it was the Victorians that made them fashionable in Britain. What was good enough for Victoria and Albert was good for the masses. But it must have originated from somewhere, and for some reason, after all there’s no other time or celebration for which we cut down a whole tree, drag it in the house and decorate it. There is also scant symblism in christianity for a decorated fir in the lounge. It is always an evergreen, again colour in the bleak midwinter. Or are they perhaps a distant reminder of the sacred tree and grove, a time when sacred rites were enacted outside under the stars. Couls there be a connection to the mythic world tree Yggdrasil of Norse myth? The world tree that connected the worlds, heavens and underworld?
Wassailing
The Twelfth day of Christmas is the 5th of January, the eve of epiphany in the Christian calendar. Wassailing was one of the revels that was connected to this date, and is a decidedly un-christian banishing of evil spirits and propitiation of fertility in apple orchards.‘Revellers typically visited local orchards and fruit trees, sang songs, made a hullabaloo (often by banging pots and pans) and were rewarded by the orchard’s grateful owner with some form of warm, spiced alcoholic beverage from a communal wassail bowl or cup’. And who doesn’t like a mulled wine or cider?!
