What is the true meaning of this time of year? Not what you think…

 

Anyone who insists on everyone calling this season “Christmas” because of their own beliefs is sadly mistaken. It is not really about Christ, in fact; it has been adapted over the years. So when someone confronts you because you said “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” they need to do a bit of research. Most of the celebrations and symbols are direct adaptations of past traditions, and the Midwinter celebration of fire, light and long life is much older than the pastiche of Midwinter revelry it became later on.

It’s the season known by some as Christmas, a time when people often think back to the late Bronze Age science fiction sagas of Mary, Joseph, a donkey, and an impending humble birth. But of course, Christmas was not the original name for the almost two-week period starting on the night of 24 December. It took a great deal of time, planning and slow conversion of symbolism, but many very ancient traditions remain. It wasn’t always about that humble birth, but that particular symbolism served a very useful purpose. 

The early Church had a problem on its hands: there were so many huge festivals around the winter solstice that got in the way of its rising influence and threatened its authority. By using the symbolism of the season, it managed to legitimise the hijacking of the Midwinter festivities for itself and turn people away from their original purposes. It seems, though, that we are slowly coming full-circle and that we are abandoning the religious accessories. How many similarities are there between the traditions of today's Midwinter and those before the Christian interval, and what type of festivals were there?

Saturnalia:

There was the week-long Saturnalia that covered the solstice period, where gifts were exchanged, slaves were served by their masters, people swapped their clothes, and lots and lots of drinking and eating took place. Because of its midwinter setting, candles were given to symbolise light and warmth, and there were even post-Saturnalia sales where younger family members were given some money to go out and spend there. This particular festival was a prevalent feature throughout most of the Roman period, and was such an important event that only a handful of Roman emperors dared bring any changes. Some of the madder ones tried to reduce it to five days, or even to just one evening, but most people carried on regardless for the entire week, or even longer.

Brumalia:

This was also a Roman festival that carried on in one form or another until at least the 10^th century in some parts of the empire, mainly in the east, but had all-but died out by the end of the time of Justinian in 565 CE. It celebrated the Earth and all things to do with hunting and farming, such as sacrifices of pigs and goats, as well as the downing of wine.

These revels took place because it was the saddest, darkest time of the year and it was important to remember that the light was about to return. The celebrations meant people could say goodbye to the increasingly darker days and welcome in the longer evening light. Different parts of Europe had variations of these events, but they all pointed to the main tenets of the darkness leaving and the light returning, the finishing off of the autumn fruits that had by now turned into strong alcohol, and being with close friends and family.

Yule/Jul:

Further north, the winter festivities were not that different. The god Odin had various other titles, including Jölnir, from whom the name of the festival comes. Various toasts were made, such as for the success of the coming year's harvest, the rulers, the gods and the ancestors. The culmination of that festival in Anglo-Saxon England was known as Modraniht, or Mothers' Night, and was a night of fire and sacrifice. What they all had in common was that folk brought along the food they had left and shared it all out. The food, especially the meat, was blessed by the most senior chieftain and they all participated in the debauchery until nothing was left.

Adapting the old for the new:

And it was these types of festivals that got in the way of any form of coherent building of Christian societies.

What to do?

This was an easy question to answer, and one that Rome had a great track record of: adapt these pagan festivals through their symbolism, and absorb them into Christianity without too many drastic changes. The people had to be coerced into this acceptance rather than have their already centuries-old celebrations banned to introduce this novel idea.

So although many early Christian thinkers were rather critical of all the winter excesses, they set out to make the period both holy and at the same time jolly. And so the great Midwinter festivals carried on but over time they carried more of an air of religiousness and formality. 

(By the way, the word jolly was at one time thought to have come from Jul, but it is most probably from the Old French, meaning pretty or nice.)

The symbolism and the adaptation of traditional behaviour had to be perfect to convert the midwinter festivals into somehow representing Christian beliefs, and it was telling the story of the birth of Jesus and overlaying the imagery of his appearance that made it the most appropriate way of coaxing people away from their original beliefs.

Symbolism

1. Decorating houses and halls with winter foliage was a way of demonstrating that there was still life around, despite the regression of nature. Mistletoe, holly and ivy had different connotations: mistletoe was the symbol of peace and love, hence the kissing; the Green King’s crown and garments were made of holly, and ivy was the representation of death, the death of the past year. Being an evergreen, winter-hardy plant, holly was also the symbol of fertility and long life, but it came to represent Jesus’s crown of thorns and the red berries of his blood, and inevitably eternal life promised in his story. In order to substantiate people’s roles in the world, the holly was a male symbol of fertility, and ivy the melancholy female representative of death. These days, of course, that would be understandably unacceptable, but the two were and are synonymous with the season.

2. Wreaths, always round, symbolised the circle of life: winter-to-spring-to-summer-to-autumn and back to winter, as well as the life cycle of people and families. These wreaths had nothing to do with anything concerning God or infinity, and the candles in an advent wreath (or crown) were added to provide a visual countdown to Christmas. Midwinter was seen as the birth of the sun deities, such as Mithras and Sol, so it was just a matter of converting this into the coming of Jesus.

 

3. Midwinter singing and drinking took place to drive away the evil spirits. As Christmas was supposed to be a celebration, it was easy to incorporate this, although it was toned down a lot from the originally-intended decadent blowout that the Romans put on. The Anglo-Saxon Modraniht mentioned earlier was easy to incorporate, as it meant Mother's Night, and Mary was always going to be given the role of the venerated and highly-favoured lady.

4. Even the candles are pre-Christian in origin, symbolising the rise of the sun. Many traditions around the world have candle festivals to bring human light to the darkest time of the year, but the idea of Christ’s light (the people sitting in darkness seeing the light, as Matthew and Luke wrote) was too convenient a symbol to drop.

 

5. Gifts were given at Saturnalia at an event called Sigillaria. They were generally small wax or earthenware figurines of particular deities that would represent different things to different people. Again, the gifts the Three Wise Men brought to the manger would serve perfectly to subsume this tradition into this new hybrid festival.

 

6. Dressing up and theatrical performances were the norm at Saturnalia. Traditional roles, like masters and slaves, were reversed; men and women swapped stereotypical clothing; later on in the Middle Ages, mummers, or guisers, groups of actors, musicians and singers, would pass round houses and perform folk plays. And things like carols and wassailing also took place at other times of the year, and were greetings of the season. It was also easy to Christianise these traditions, like creating plays that told the story of Jesus’s birth, and carols that moved away from evoking paganistic aspects like holly, ivy, midwinter and snow, and instead talked of angels, virgin births, stars and a plethora of miracles.

7. Fasting was not the monopoly of Christians: the period before the great feast was given over to fasting so that it would be a much more rewarding celebration. This of course sat very well in the new Christian narrative to get people in the mood and looking forward to the coming festivities, even if they were now about something totally different.

One of the reasons there are a lot of fruity, unctuous dishes, often a prized part of an animal to eat, and a log to burn, were all to do with the season – something to look forward to in the middle of the darkness.

Continuity of pre-Christian traditions

Many of these traditions carry on today in some form or another: 

1. Pigs are big: In the UK and Ireland, North America and parts of northern Europe, it is common to eat a Christmas Ham. This came directly from the ancient sacrifice of the Yule Boar. Even in Sweden there are cakes shaped like pigs, all evidence of how far we have come since those days, but still a continuous line from two or three millennia ago.

2. Happy music: Carol singing and wassailing were for the entertainment of the guests, and this tradition of seasonal merriment in music is not exclusive to the English-speaking world in the form of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Twelve Days of Christmas. Other traditions have the same idea, such as the Czech/Moravian Bodejž se zbrunčila bába and Petit Papa Noël in France. There are plenty of non-Christian carols that have transcended the unsubtle Christian overtones and are staples of the period of the year.

3. Dressing up: Also in parts of Europe it is still common to cross-dress and enact stories to audiences, such as in the UK with pantomimes, where the main character is a girl dressed as a boy and his/her opposite number is often a mature man dressed up as a lady.

4. Cosy by the fire: The Yule Log was actually a whole tree that was cut up to provide warmth during the Midwinter festivities so that people didn’t get cold and could enjoy themselves in warmth. The fermented fruit would have helped...

5. Puddings and cakes: A lot of that fermented fruit was also mixed with the leftover ingredients, nuts, and any spices to disguise any dodgy flavours. It slowly transformed itself into something more “gentrified”, such as Plum Pudding in the UK, Julekake in Norway, Stollen in Germany, and Panettone/Pandoro in Italy. Some have alcohol or nuts in them, some not, but what they all have in common is the dried fruit and of course being served as dessert.

 

In the end, the meaning of this season is by far more complicated than I have laid out here, but one thing we can all say is however you reach this time of year, we should all try not to force our ideas of the festival on others, no matter which beliefs you have: relax, celebrate, enjoy the company of your friends and family, sing, eat, get drunk, and dress up how you want – so greet people in your own way and live and let live!

The Samhain Pagan tradition is a time to reflect on human impact on our planet

Samhain - pronounced sáwin - is the Pagan festival that takes place at some point around the end of October and beginning of November, and is often mixed up with Halloween. Although it is pretty certain Samhain spawned Halloween, the difference between the two is on one hand very different, and on the other hand strikingly similar. The Samhain tradition is a celebratory rite where we reflect on those who went before us, and where the curtain between the afterlife and this life is very thin, meaning there may be some overlapping of the two worlds. We also spend time contemplating our own lives. The deep autumn is an important time to understand who we are and where we are going; to remember why we are here and try to reach out to our ancestors for guidance. Understanding the past helps enormously in identifying our current paths. Halloween, as we shall read, is very far from this.

Paganism is, for want of a better metaphor, a very broad church. There are lots of weird Pagans as well as a lot of serious ones, which means we are often targets of derision by those from what we might call the established faiths. There are no real Pagan denominations as such, like in the Christian or Muslim traditions; they are more like independent franchises without the fiscal aspect, although everyone has the same goal: to see the divine in our surroundings, and to revere and protect it.

The divine is very easy to come across in our eyes: the similarly pentacular features of many flowers; the soughing of the trees in the wind; the tides of the sea; the passing of the moon overhead and the shadows it casts; the smallest insect and the largest mammal and everything in-between; the shooting stars and the spinning planets; the incredible detail on the wing of a butterfly; the majesty of bees going about their daily work. The list goes on.

Samhain is the time of year when we witness the dying of the summer flora and fauna, and the retreat of vernal fecundity to its winter sleep, ready for the spring awakening. How do Pagans celebrate Samhain? Any way they choose, but some things remain fixed: a meal to celebrate the harvest; a fire to summon the spirits; a walk in nature (clothes are optional, depending on the time of day/night and the location); an altar with some of the features of this time of year (e.g. the skull of a wild beast, pumpkins, brown leaves or nuts) and the remembrance of those who went before us.

Why are standing stones so important to us? Because they are the permanent legacy of our forebears. One thing we have in common with our pre-Christian ancestors is the marking of the seasons and celebration of the life-cycle of the Earth. Many standing stone circles are calendars, marking the time of year. In spring, the Earth is like a youthful girl, evident in the retreat of the snow and the arrival of hatchlings, calves, lambs, cubs, seedlings and all other forms of life. She blooms into full fertility by June, where the abundance of food and fecundity is all around us. By mid-August, the Lady gives us our harvest before her fertility ends. In autumn she recedes into her grand old age, and in winter she becomes the old crone before once again dying in midwinter, allowing a new life-cycle to begin.

We are reminded of our own mission on Earth: to live, die, and live again - we can never reappear, but we can make sure life continues to do so once we have long gone. This is why I have planted a great number of trees in my garden: they, or their saplings, will live on after me, but they will also allow the birds, insects and other flora to thrive.

Our mission to maximise our efforts to spread the positive effects of nature is misinterpreted by climate deniers or sceptics as needless do-goodery. In fact, what we are doing has absolutely no bearing on the climate change debate at all: we do it anyway, because it is the right thing to do. The recent extremification of weather phenomena is worrying for us all, especially with the recent UN report that gives us a little over a decade to sort it all out before it's too late.

What is disappointing, though, is the attitude of various politicians following an agenda either dictated by their voter base or their party's biggest sponsors. I find it abhorrent that, despite the overwhelming evidence, nay proof, there are people who choose to ignore the situation for their own financial or ideological gain.

If you want to know what is driving current politics, just follow the money. If you want to know our future, take a look at the past. And let us be honest here: it does not look very good. Samhain is a time to put our flora to sleep and help them survive the winter.

As I touched on at the beginning, Samhain often gets bundled together with Halloween. The former is a commemoration of the past, the latter is a commercialised corruption of it, which has, like all other Pagan festivals, been subsumed by Christianity and/or popular culture. Halloween is a shadow of Samhain. It has in fact become the total opposite. Samhain is about remembering those who went before us, lighting fires and sitting in quiet contemplation as befitting this time of year.

Halloween, conversely, is making loud noises, disturbing the peace, and dressing up in scary costumes. Although the spiritual aspect of Samhain spawned Halloween, it was far easier to turn it into a money-making racket as a prelude to Christmas. This is, of course, a total fabrication of the original. Many Pagan festivals have turned into corruptions of the originals, mainly by the Catholic Church - Easter, Christmas and Midsummer's (St John's) Day being just three. The Catholic Church always had an ulterior motive in wanting to do away with Paganism, so it came up with ways to distract the people.

In order to vilify Pagans, and bring people into their "flock", they used the same fake-news-style tactic that is used today - take their symbols and turn them into socially unacceptable things. For example, why does the devil have a red face? Why are horns and pitchforks associated with Satan? Could it be that people from the country, farmers who obviously used agricultural implements, were more likely to be Pagan and have ruddy-red faces from the cold wind, and place horned animal skulls outside their doors to ward off evil spirits? Why did St Patrick kill all the snakes in Ireland? Could it be that the snake, the symbol of Paganism in his day, was a way to use a euphemism to say that he killed all the Pagans?

Anyone, whether from a Christian denomination or not, who dares say we are satanic should do a little more reading, as equating us with evil is like saying apples must be alien because they're green. It says more about the naïvety of their flock to believe everything fed to them by their elders than it does about us.

Finally, I will not be celebrating Halloween this year, not because of any irrational fear of some so-called Satan fellow, but because it is not who we are.