JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans. Join now (it's free).
Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.
Blog Posts by Tag
In the past 7 days
Blog Posts by Date
Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: yule, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 3 of 3
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: yule in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
The winter solstice settles on 21 December this year, which means it’s the day with the least amount of sunlight. It’s the official first day of winter, although people have been braving the cold for weeks, huddled in coats and scarves and probably wool socks. It’s easy to pass over the winter solstice because of the holidays; however, many traditions center around the solstices and equinoxes, and even Christmas has borrowed some ideas from the midwinter celebration. Below are a few facts about the winter solstice and the influence it has had on religion.
1. The winter solstice occurs when the sun at noon is in its lowest position in the sky, which puts it over the Tropic of Capricorn (22-23 December).
2. The astronomical solstice is 21 December, but midwinter or Yule covers a few weeks during the time of the solstice. During medieval times, this period would stretch from the feast of St. Nicholas (6 December) and Christmas Day, then from Christmas to Epiphany or Candlemas.
3. It is most likely untrue that Christmas is the birth-date of Christ. However, it was likely set on 25 December to coincide with the already well-established Pagan holidays. In ancient times, the winter solstice was celebrated as the birthday of the two gods Sol Invictus (the invincible sun) and Mithras.
4. In contemporary Paganism, Yule celebrates the rebirth of the sun with the winter solstice, as it is the darkest time of the year with the days get longer after the solstice.
5. The Christmas traditions of gift-giving, candles, mistletoe, evergreens, holly, yule logs, Old Father Time, red and white colors, and others all come from Latin and Germanic yuletide celebrations. The word “yule” is thought to have originated from the Anglo-Saxon word for “yoke,” although it is possible it is connected to the words for sun in Cornish and Breton.
Ah, the holidays. A time of leisure to eat, drink, be merry, and read up on the meaning of mistletoe in Scandinavian mythology…
Taken from the Oxford Index’s quick reference overview pages, the descriptions of the wintry-themed words above are not nearly as simplistic as you might think — and even more intriguing are the related subjects you stumble upon through the Index’s recommended links. I’ll never look at a Christmas tree the same way again.
ICE-SKATING
In its simplest form dates back many centuries, [done] with skates made out of animal bones….
→Sonja Henie (1912 – 1969)
Norwegian figure skater. In 1923 she was Norwegian champion, between 1927 and 1936 she held ten consecutive world champion titles, and between 1928 and 1936 she won three consecutive Olympic gold medals. In 1938 she began to work in Hollywood, in, among others, the film Sun Valley Serenade (1941)…
→Sun Valley Serenade
… Such was the popularity of the Glenn Miller Band by 1941 that it just had to appear in a film, even if the story was as light as a feather…
YULE
…The name comes from Old English gēol(a) ‘Christmas Day’; compare with Old Norse jól, originally applied to a heathen festival lasting twelve days, later to Christmas…
→Snorri Sturluson (1178 – 1241)
Icelandic historian and poet. A leading figure of medieval Icelandic literature, he wrote the Younger Edda or Prose Edda and the Heimskringla, a history of the kings of Norway from mythical times to the year 1177…
CHRISTMAS TREE
It is generally assumed that this indisputably German custom was introduced to Britain by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, but this is only partly true. The British royal family had had regular Christmas trees since the days of Princess Charlotte of Mecklenberg Strelitz…But it was certainly due to active promotion by Victoria and Albert that the fashion for trees spread so remarkably fast, at least among the better-off…
– a control room or cockpit’s panel of indicator lights, green (good) and red (bad).
FATHER CHRISTMAS
– …Gives news of Christ’s birth, and urges his hearers to drink: ‘Buvez bien par toute la compagnie, Make good cheer and be right merry.’
– There were Yule Ridings in York (banned in 1572 for unruliness), where a man impersonating Yule carried cakes and meat through the street.
→Clement C. Moore (1779 – 1863)
…Professor of Biblical learning and author of the poem popularly known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel (Dec. 23, 1823), widely copied, and reprinted in the author’s Poems (1844). The poem’s proper title is “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”
WASSAIL
– A festive occasion that involves drinking.
– It derives from the Old Norse greeting ves heill, ‘be in good health’.
→Christmas
… The date was probably chosen to oppose the pagan feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti by a celebration of the birth of the ‘Sun of Righteousness’…
SNOWMAN
(1978) Raymond Briggs’s wordless picturebook uses comic‐strip techniques to depict the relationship between a boy and a snowman who comes alive in the night but melts the next day….
→Abominable Snowman
A popular name for the yeti, recorded from the early 1920s.
→Yeti
A large hairy creature resembling a human or bear, said to live in the highest part of the Himalayas…
…comes from Tibetan yeh-teh ‘little manlike animal’.
MISTLETOE
– Traditionally used in England to decorate houses at Christmas, when it is associated with the custom of kissing under the mistletoe.
– In Scandinavian mythology, the shaft which Loki caused the blind Hod to throw at Balder, killing him, was tipped with mistletoe, which was the only plant that could harm him.
– ‘The Mistletoe Bough’ a ballad by Thomas Bayly (1839), which recounts the story of a young bride who during a game hides herself in a chest with a spring-lock and is then trapped there; many years later her skeleton is discovered.
→Evergreens
A high proportion of the plants important in folk customs are evergreen — a fact which can be seen either in practical or symbolic terms. Folklorists have usually highlighted the latter, suggesting that at winter festivals they represented the unconquered life-force, and at funerals immortality.
GINGERBREAD
Cake or biscuits flavoured with ginger and treacle, often baked in the shape of an animal or person, and glazed.
→Gingerbread
The gilded scroll work and carving with which the hulls of large ships, particularly men-of-war and East Indiamen of the 15th to 18th centuries, were decorated. ‘To take some of the gilt off the gingerbread’, an act which diminishes the full enjoyment of the whole.
GIFT
– …gifts have importance for tax purposes; if they are sufficiently large they may give rise to charges under inheritance tax if given within seven years prior to death (see potentially exempt transfer).
– A gift is also a disposal for capital gains tax purposes and tax is potentially payable.
– Friends, like kin, could be called upon in any emergency; they could be expected to display solidarity, lend general support, and procure co‐operation.
– Friends were therefore supposed to be alike: a friend was ideally conceived of as one’s ‘other self’.
SNOWFLAKE
The result of the growth of ice crystals in a varied array of shapes. Very low temperatures usually result in small flakes; formation at temperatures near freezing point produces numerous crystals in large flakes.
→Ice crystal
Frozen water composed of crystalline structures, e.g. needles, dendrites, hexagonal columns, and platelets.
→Diamond dust
Minute ice crystals that form in extremely cold air. They are so small as to be barely visible and seem to hang suspended, twinkling as they reflect sunlight.
Georgia Mierswa is a marketing assistant at Oxford University Press and reports to the Global Marketing Director for online products. She began working at OUP in September 2011.
The Oxford Index is a free search and discovery tool from Oxford University Press. It is designed to help you begin your research journey by providing a single, convenient search portal for trusted scholarship from Oxford and our partners, and then point you to the most relevant related materials — from journal articles to scholarly monographs. One search brings together top quality content and unlocks connections in a way not previously possible. Take a virtual tour of the Index to learn more.
