Thematic Images for Yule or Yuletide
Merry Yule
The present Yuletide (an archaic term for Christmas) winter season in North America started on the December 2024 Winter Solstice and ends on the March 2025 Vernal Equinox. The Winter Solstice is the time when the light is reborn from the darkness of the womb of Winter.
Yule or Yuletide ("Yule time") is an ancient Pagan indigenous midwinter festival (based on Norse mythology) observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of Christmas. In modern Germanic language-speaking areas and some other Northern European countries, Yule denotes the Christmas holiday season. The earliest references to Yule are in the form of month names, where the Yule-tide period lasts somewhere around two months in length, falling along the end of the modern calendar year between what is now mid-November and early January. The festivities of Yule are generally held to have centered on Midwinter (although specific dating is a matter of debate), and feasting, drinking, and sacrifice were involved.
The Neopagans, who borrow from Germanic folklore and customs, also call the Winter Solstice season "Yule" or "Yuletide." In most forms of Wicca, this holiday is celebrated at the Winter Solstice ("Solstice Night") as the rebirth of the Great horned hunter god, who is oftentimes called the "Sun King" and is viewed as the newborn solstice Sun.
Thematic Images for Yule Greetings
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Thematic Images for Yuletide
Norse Yuletide rituals
Thematic Images for Yule Night, Longest Night of the Year
Yule/Winter Solstice Night
Yule/Winter Solstice Night ritual
Thematic Images for Yule Santa Claus
Thematic Images for Yule Holly King and Mistletoe King Santa Claus
Thematic Images for Yule Holly King
The folklore archetype of the Holly King is model for our modern Santa Claus.
Thematic Images for Holly, Ivy, Oak King and Queen
Holly King & Ivy Queen
Oak King & Queen
Holly King & Queen
Holly Queen
Holly King
Yule Holly King & Ivy King
Yule Holly King and Ivy King
Thematic Images for Holly King & Oak King
Yule Holly King & Oak King
Yule Holly King & Oak King
Yule Holly King & Oak King
Yule Holly King & Oak King
The Holly King hands his crown to the Oak King
In the Northern Hemisphere, Yule marks the shortest day and the longest night,
signaling the end of the Holly King's reign and the beginning of the Oak King's dominion. This transition symbolizes hope and the return of light.
Thematic Images for Yule Goddesses
Yule Holly Goddesses
Thematic Images for the Spirits of Yule
Thematic Images for Neopagan Yule
Thematic Images for Celtic Yule/Christmas
Celtic Yule/Christmas Druid Father
Celtic Yule/Christmas Mummers & Morris Dancers
Mummers At Christmas in the Olden Time
Celtic "Hunting the Wren" Festival
Hunting the Wren
Embassy of Ireland Wrenboys in Malta
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St. Stephens Day Wrenboys (December 26 in Dingle, Co Kerry)
"Hunt the Wren Day" also known as "Wren Day," "Wren's Day,"or "Day of the Wren," is celebrated on 26 December, St. Stephen's Day, in a number of countries across Europe. It is primarily a traditional custom carried out in Ireland called "Wren Day" (Irish Gaelic: Lá Fhéile Stiofáin or Lá an Dreoilín) and on the Isle of Man (Manx Gaelic: Shelg yn Dreean). Traditionally, men and boys hunted a wren, which was revered as the "king of the birds." They beat the bushes and hedges with sticks, and when a wren flew out they tried to down the bird by throwing sticks, stones and other objects at it. Whoever killed the wren was believed to have good luck for a year. They placed it on top of a staff decorated with holly, ivy and ribbons, or displayed it in a decorated box on top of a pole. This was paraded around the neighborhood by a group of "Wrenboys" (or "Droluns:" lucht an dreoilín) and "Mummers" (or "Strawboys"), who typically dressed in straw masks or suits, greenery and colorful motley clothing. They formed music bands, played songs, and paraded through towns and villages in exchange for donations. This was meant to ensure prosperity for the coming year. The people afterwards held a funeral for the wren and danced around the "wren pole" or "wren bush."
Like many traditional seasonal festivals, Wren Day gradually died out following industrialization, but the custom has been undergoing revival since the late 20th century (although the wren is no longer hunted and a stuffed wren is used instead). Wren Day has survived or been revived in a few towns and villages, mainly on the Isle of Man and in the southern parts of Ireland, such as in Dingle, County Kerry.
The Celtic "Green Man"
The Green Man of Yule/Christmas
The Green Man is believed to symbolize the cycle of life, death and rebirth. The symbol of Godhood within the male and its relationship with the transcendent life force of the Goddess, the female expression of divinity. He is a Pagan symbol who heralds Spring after a long winter and the renewal of lush vegetation. The Green Man is a feature of much of the pastoral lore in the Celtic countries, including Great Britain and Ireland, where he's been a constant for thousands of years. (He can even be seen on many Gothic cathedrals among the gargoyles.) The Green Man also appears in during Winter Solstice and Yule as another form of the traditional holly, ivy, and oak kings.
"Happy Christmas to you" (Irish Gaelic)
Thematic Images for the Pagan Origins of Christmas
Thematic Images for the Pagan Dying-and-Reborn Sun/Son Gods
It is estimated that he rites of the Winter Solstice go back 25,000 years in the human past. These rituals had to do with the archaic worship of the rebirth of the sun at Winter Solstice. Thus the Winter Solstice was the turning point of time and the birthday of the sun, the moment of new beginnings. Winter Solstice observance of our ancient ancestors was a special time when the community could renew its connection with nature and its seasonal cycles; when people could come together and share in the great mystery of “the rebirth of the sun (or light) out of the womb of winter's darkness."
In Christian culture, this same great mystery became known as the birth of Jesus Christ, the birth of the "Light of the World;" Jesus "the true light." (Gospel of John). However, long before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the celebration of the return of the Midwinter sun held a central place in civilizations throughout the ancient world. It is now fairly well documented that many aspects of the Christmas tradition have their roots in pagan religion, notably Celtic and Roman religion and custom. Christmas, as the birth of the Son of God, was designed to replace the earlier pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice, notably the rebirth of the sun. Thus, the Winter Solstice was overlaid with Christmas.
The seasonal connections with the pagan festivals of the Winter Solstice relate them to archaic times, when many of the earth’s inhabitants were sun worshipers. In later times, when the sun became personified, the worship was transferred to sun gods; to those solar deities who have come to be known as dying-and-reborn gods, such as Tummuz, Osiris, Horus, Dionysus, Adonis, and Attis.
The pre-Christian myths of the solar dying-and-reborn gods had them born at Midwinter, specifically at the Winter Solstice, which, according to the Roman Julian calendar, was approximately the 25th of December. (When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar in 45 B.C.E., December 25th was approximately the date of the Winter Solstice. After the advent of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, the solstice falls on December 21st or 22nd.) This date was the birthday of the solar savior deities such as Sol Invictus (the "Unconquered Sun"), Mithras, and Dionysus-Bacchus.
Therefore, behind the Christian sacred event of the birth of the Son of God, is the older births of the pagan dying-and-reborn Sun gods.
Modern depictions of the ancient Roman Sol Invictus
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
The Roman festival that celebrated the birthday of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), the sun god, on December 25th of the Julian calendar. Sol Invictus was the main divinity of the Roman pantheon. (The epithet, Sol Invictus had been utilized for several Roman solar deities from the 3rd century B.C.E. Before this time, there was the Roman sun god "Helios" or "Sol.")
Sol was the solar deity in Ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult re-appear with the arrival in Rome of the Syrian Sol Invictus, perhaps under the influence of the Mithraic mysteries. (Mithras, born on December 25th, was the savior god of the greatest and most popular religious cult in Rome before the coming of the Christian cult and became its main rival.) Today, SOL is still the main word for sun in Romance languages. SOL is used in contemporary English by astronomers and many science fiction authors as the proper name of the Sun to distinguish it from other stars which may have their own planetary systems.
Christus Helios, the vault mosaic ceiling detail of Sol in Mausoleum M, of the Julii, which is interpreted as Christ-Sol (Christ as the Sun). Representation of Christ as the sun-god Helios or Sol Invictus riding in his chariot. Early Christian and pagan beliefs are combined in this third-century mosaic of Christ as a sun-god.
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Jesus depicted as the sun is a common motif in Christian art. In this artwork, from late 15th-century Germany, the Christ child and Virgin Mary are surrounded by billowing rays of sun. "The Crowned Virgin and Child as The Apocalyptic Woman Clothed in the Sun." (Germany, late 15th century illustration.)
Pagan Dying & Reborn Sun Gods
Mithras as Sol Invictus
Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the bull-slaying god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice remains debatable. The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from the 1st to the 4th century CE.
Numerous archaeological finds, including meeting places, monuments, and artifacts, have contributed to modern knowledge about Mithraism throughout the Roman Empire. It has been theorized that Mithraism was the pagan belief system that shaped the Christian world. (Recent research has shown that an astronomical code based upon astrological cycles of the Zodiac was the central secret of the Mithraic mysteries, one which consisted of an ancient vision of the ultimate nature of the universe.) The iconic scenes of Mithras show him being born from a rock, slaughtering a bull (the tauroctony), and sharing a banquet with the god Sol (the Sun).
A little humor on the origins of Christmas through Christian co-optation of the pagan Winter Solstice/Yule
Saturnalia, the Predecessor of the Twelfth Night of Christmas
Saturnalia
Many of the wintertime customs in Western Europe descended from the ancient Romans. The primary one from which the Christmas season descended was Saturnalia, an ancient Roman holiday celebrated at the Winter Solstice. This was a public holiday each year from December 17th to the 24th. It honored Saturn, the god of the harvest. The Romans believed that their harvest deity, Saturn, had ruled the land during an earlier age of rich crops, and so celebrated the Winter Solstice on Saturn’s promise of the return of the sun with a Saturnalia. This was high festival of public rites, gift-giving, role reversals, and a general mood of revelry and licentiousness. (The role reversals of Saturnalia, such as masters and slaves switching places, becomes a recurring pattern in later European seasonal festivals of "social inversion," popularly known as "turning the world upside-down.") Riotous merrymaking took place, and the halls of houses were decked with boughs of laurel and evergreen trees. What had originated as a feast day later expanded into a weeklong festival full of music, dancing, banquets, drinking, games, and bonfires. The customary greeting for the occasion was “Io, Saturnalia!” (io, pronounced “yo,” being a Latin interjection related to “ho,” as in “Ho, praise to Saturn”).
Thematic Images for the Twelve Days of Christmas & the Twelfth Night
The Twelve Days Of Christmas, Christmastide, & The New Year
The Twelve Days Of Christmas are probably the most misunderstood part of the church year among Christians who are not part of liturgical church traditions. Contrary to much popular belief, these are not the twelve days before Christmas, but in most of the Western Church are the twelve days from Christmas until the beginning of January 6th (the 12 days count from December 25th until January 5th), with January 6th being a "thirteenth day" in some traditions and languages. In some traditions, the first day of Christmas begins on the evening of December 25th with the following day considered the First Day of Christmas (December 26th). In these traditions, the twelve days begin December 26th and include the Epiphany on January 6th. January 6th is also sometimes considered Twelfth Day/Twelfth Night with the Twelve Days of Christmas actually after Christmas Day from December 26th to January 6th. For many Christian denominations (e.g., the Anglican Communion and Lutheran Church) the Twelve Days are identical to Christmastide, but for others (e.g., the Roman Catholic Church) Christmastide lasts longer than the Twelve Days of Christmas.
The origin and counting of the Twelve Days is complicated, and is related to differences in calendars, church traditions, and ways to observe this holy day in various cultures. In the Western church, Epiphany is usually celebrated as the time the Wise Men or Magi arrived to present gifts to the Christ child. Traditionally there were three Magi, probably from the fact of three gifts, even though the biblical narrative never says how many Magi came.
In some cultures, especially Hispanic and Latin American culture, January 6th is observed as Three Kings Day, or simply the Day of the Kings. Even though December 25th is celebrated as Christmas in these cultures, January 6th is often the day for giving gifts. In some places it is traditional to give Christmas gifts for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas (hence the popular song). Since Eastern Orthodox traditions use a different religious calendar, they celebrate Christmas on January 7th and observe Epiphany or Theophany on January 19th.
By the 16th century, some European and Scandinavian cultures had combined the Twelve Days Of Christmas with (sometimes pagan) festivals celebrating the changing of the year. These were usually associated with driving away evil spirits for the start of the new year.
In the Elizabethan period, "Twelfth Night" was a festival celebrated with music, masked balls, misrule and general revelry. The Twelfth Night is January 5th, the last day of the Christmas Season before Epiphany (January 6th). In some church traditions, January 5th is considered the eleventh Day of Christmas, while the evening of January 5th is still counted as the Twelfth Night, the beginning of the Twelfth day of Christmas the following day. Many European celebrations of Twelfth Night included a King’s Cake, remembering the visit of the Three Magi, and ale or wine. (A King’s Cake is part of the observance of Mardi Gras in French Catholic culture of the Southern USA.) In some cultures, the King’s Cake was part of the celebration of the day of Epiphany.
Twelfth Night in European traditions often meant riotous merrymaking, which included continuous feasting, music, and the election of a "Lord (or King) of Misrule" (a custom that is probably a survival from older pagan customs, including the Germanic Yuletide and the Roman Saturnalia, where the social order was "turned upside-down"). The entire merrymaking company was often known as the "Lord of Misrule & the Twelfth Night Revelers."
Aion, god of the ages with zodiac
Kore, The Maiden
Kore & Aion of the Twelfth Night
(Picture: "Aion, god of the ages, in a celestial sphere decorated with zodiacal signs, between a green and a dismantled tree, representing summer and winter. Before him is the mother-earth Tellus, the Roman Gaia, with four children, the four seasons personified.)
Aion or Aeon was a Hellenistic deity associated with time itself; time unbounded or infinte (as in our word eon; time in the sense of ages). He was imagined as an orb or circle encompassing the universe. He was thus a god of ages, a cosmic deity.
Aeon is meintioned in a second-century descrption (by the Christian writer Epiphanius) of the celebration that took place on the night of January 5th/6th (the "Twelfth Night"), at which time there was a great festival. It was in honor of the mystery of the midwinter birth of the savior sun-god (as annually observed in Rome).
“They stay up the, whole night singing songs and playing the flute, offering these to the images of the gods; and, when the revelries of the night are over, after cock-crow, they go down with torches into a subterranean sanctuary and briny up a carved wooden image, which is laid naked on a litter. On its forehead it has the sign of the Cross, in gold, and on both its hands two other signs of the same shape, and two more on its knees; and the five signs are all fashioned in gold. They carry this carved image seven times around the middle of the temple precincts, to the sound of flutes and tambourines and hymns, and after the procession they carry it down again into the crypt. But if you ask them what this mysterious performance means they answer: Today, at this hour, the Kore, that is to say the Virgin, has given birth to the Aeon.”
What the Christian writer interprets as "Virgin" is a misnomer (not another "Virgin Mary"). Kore, or Persphone, was actually known as "The Maiden," who, along with her mother, Demeter (Earth Mother), was celebrated in the famous Hellenistic Eleusinian Mysteries.
