December 21, 1934 page 7 How the Ancient Germans Celebrated Christmas _____ Shouldn't the German recognize in Christmas, that most beautiful celebration so thoroughly imbued with the Christian spirit, as a legacy of Germanic ancestry? Indeed, one of the sciences totally divested from folklore has denied the existence of an old German celebration which could correspond to Christmas. However this opinion was given up long ago and now we know that there's a very close connection between the old yuletide celebration and today's Christmas. A very eminent expert on international feast customs, the Swedish folklore Professor Martin P. Nilsson, once stated that Christmas customs, which emerged in northern celebrations, "only appear as pale whitewashings upon which entirely different customs were superimposed." It seems as though almost all of the ancient and pre-Christian concepts continued to exist and became incorporated into the Christmas tradition. Central to this ancient Germanic mid-winter feast we encounter the mysterious word Yule. Jacob Grimm already suspected that it dealt with a description for the sun wheel. In later times, especially through the research of Hermann Wirts, this was proven. Yuletide was a holy time of the year, permeated with mysterious forces from around November until January, in which the Germans of distant days long ago celebrated their highest feast and paid homage to the victory of a growing sun defeating darkness by worshipping the light, quite similar to what happened in the Mithras Cult, which so sharply worked its way into the Christian celebration of Christmas. The Yule Season, like Christmas, was the designation for the entire festive season; and like Christmas Day, Yuletide was the first and main feast day, followed by another 13 to 21 days of feasting. During this time all work requiring rotational motion was forbidden, especially spinning. Wheels were left motionless until the divine sun wheel gained renewed power. In German folk customs this ban on spinning was linked to the Germanic deities, Frau Holle (Lady of the Light) or Frau Perchta (The Terrifying Witch.) Since we do not have written chronicles of the ancient times, we must rely upon the sparse references of foreign historians. The most important source is a note from the Byzantine historian, Procopius from the 6th century, who described Yuletide as follows: "During their long winter nights the northerners send messengers on the 35th day to the summits of their highest mountain peaks to seek out the returning sun, and when they see it they loudly proclaim that after five days the new light will penetrate into the valleys. Then there's exuberant rejoicing and they celebrate with a huge feast, the feast of the joyous tidings." More than 200 years after Christianity was accepted in Iceland, the most important Icelandic historian, Snorre Sturlason, wrote around the year 1300 that pagan Norsemen celebrated three great sacrificial feast days a year, one at the beginning of winter, one in the middle of winter "for germination", and the third at the beginning of summer. These feast days were supposedly established by Odin. The law enacted by the Gulathing (Old Norse Assembly) established the midwinter fertility festival, offering the farmers a banquet in celebration of Christmas to honor Christ and the Virgin Mary and to hope for a good and fruitful year. Faith in the beneficial power of the sun was closely linked to this hope for renewed fertility. Snorre also wrote about the Norwegian King Haxon the Good (934-960,) who attempted to convert his subjects with little success by ruling "that people should begin celebrating Yuletide around the same time as the Christians celebrated, and as long as Yuletide lasted, each farmer should have a measure of beer without having to atone for it." Earlier the feast was held on Hökku Night, a midwinter night sometime around January 12th. The feasting took place over three nights. Then the Germanic Yuletide feast and the Christian Christmas celebration were united. Now people drank in loving memory of the old gods, a practice which usually was followed with a sacrifice, and in honor of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. The spirit of Yuletide was thoroughly infused into the Christian feast and lent it a mystical blessing. In the Norse Sagas, Yuletide was the haunted season in which demons rampaged through the dark of night, the savages hunted, the armies of lost souls swarmed around human dwellings, and the powers of darkness surrounded the powers of light amid the howling winter storm. The Germans weren't counting the days, they were counting the nights and that is why there are a number of holy nights, and the German language calls Christmas "Weihnachten," meaning nights of devotion. People attempted to appease the spirits and the gods through sacrifices. The month before "Weihnachten" was a time for slaughtering livestock, mainly swine, because the arrival of snowfall in the forests meant food would not longer be available, thus sacrifices had to be made due to lack of adequate supplies of fodder. Rich, fresh meat gave cause for feasting. A residual effect of this is the preference for pork at nordic Christmas meals, and the continued existence of yule boars and other animals in the form of festive baked goods. It's been suggested that the Germanic slaughter and sacrifice feast extended from October and November well into December due to the continual expansion of farms cultivating meadows, which increased hay harvesting and enabled the feeding of animals in stalls. There was no longer a need for immediate slaughter when pasturing season was over. Thus Yuletide feasting united with the slaughter feast in December, which in turn made it easier to meld it with the Christian Christmas celebration.