Authors: Bryanna L. Hebenstreit and Ania Boutin
In the Northern Hemisphere, we descend into the wintery months of the year. It’s when frost glazes windows, there’s a dusting of snow in the morning, the sun sets at 4:30 p.m. or earlier and we bring out our coziest sweaters and blankets to fight the chill. Across the globe, the Danish concept of ‘Hygge’ (“Hooga”) has gained immense popularity with its meaning incorporated into personal practices in many nations. In the United States we tend to think of the concept as synonymous with ‘cozy’: getting in our favorite soft ‘at home’ outfit, curling up by a heater or fire, lighting a candle, and doing something that makes us feel comforted. This version is heavily commodified in the United States with an influx of “Hygge” brands (CNBC Segment "Hygge"). But that’s not exactly what Hygge means: “The word hygge dates back to around 1800, at least in the meaning it has today. However, various definitions of hygge can be traced back to the Middle Ages, where a similar Old Norse word meant “protected from the outside world” (Denmark.dk). This concept of protection from the outside elements, protection from the supernatural, and having a time for retreat from the outside world to focus on spending time with loved ones is central in many festivals across many cultures in the winter season. Many of these themes are also paired with a sense of outside supernatural threat, which often personifies death. Other festivals recognize and engage in the idea that all things have their cycles and death is a natural and expected organizing feature of the year. Without it, nothing can rest and thus cannot later in the cycle grow and bloom. We will explore these themes through the discussion of the Wiccan/Neopagan worldview, religious holidays of the season, and folklore practices that persist today!
Geographies of Folklore
What remains consistent in each mid-winter celebration in the Northern Hemisphere is that there is an association with the Winter Solstice, or the day that has the least amount of sunlight, the longest shadows and the longest night of the year. What unites us then is the geography and natural progression of Earth’s rotation and angle away from the sun. When these natural phenomena are observed through the lens of human meaning-making and our inclination towards narrative (Novitz, 1989), various cultural groups will have different ways of marking such occasions as significant. Sinnhuber (1957) was one of the first in Western folklore literature to make an argument that people are active shapers of their geographies and we can find that folklore and how beliefs are communicated are also part of those geographies. George Reville (2014) writes, “Conceptions of folk culture not only inform long-standing themes of landscape, region, and place within cultural geography but also speak to more recent concerns with identity, habit, indigenous knowledge, diaspora, heritage, authenticity, and hybridity.” The passing of the seasons and the time of year those seasons occur is a larger organizing feature of how the celebrations marking those changes are understood and participated yearlong. In this blog, we’re concerned with how winter is celebrated in different places and spaces, and its associations with death.
Yule, Midwinter, or Winter Solstice
Yule is one of the eight sabbats in the Wheel of the Year for those of Wiccan and many Neo-pagan beliefs. According to Llewellyn’s Sabbat Essentials, Yule occurs on the longest night of the year which occurs between December 21 - 23. The day is alternatively called the Winter Solstice because the sun seems to stand still at its shallow zenith above the horizon. The Latin term is broken down into ‘Sol’: sun and ‘Sistere’: which means ‘to cause to stand still’.
After this night, the days begin to lengthen and the nights shorter. Evergreen boughs are brought into the home to remind revelers that life has endured through the winter and there is light on the horizon.
Winter is often associated with mothers and women; carrying the spark of life within them despite the harsh conditions. Women in this season have, through myth, represented nurturing life, measuring the length of life, and even bringing about death. Powerful and fierce depictions which personify the fierceness of winter.
Mid-Winter Celebrations (Religious & Cultural)
Christmas - Christianity
Dec. 25: celebrates the birth of a savior meant to save people from death and hell
Popular traditions include caroling, Christmas pageants reenacting the birth of the savior, and decorating evergreen trees
Decorating Christmas trees has pagan and Germanic roots; originally, it represented rebirth and welcoming back the sun (Society of Ethnobiology).
Candlelight church services on Christmas Eve: in Christian theology, Jesus is known as the Light of the World. The lighting of the candles represents the hope that his birth brought into the world (Candlelight service for Christmas Eve).
The advent wreath: involves the lighting of 4 candles, one every week counting down to Christmas. The four candles represent hope, peace, joy, and love (Christmasphere).
People give their friends and families gifts on Christmas, which are placed under the tree.
Hanukkah - Judaism
An 8-day celebration in late November/December: celebrates the miracle where a small amount of oil lasted eight days while persecuted Jews rededicated the Temple. It is also known as the Festival of Lights (History: The Hanukkah Story).
As a tradition, every night of Hanukkah, a candle is lit on the nine-branched menorah, called a Chanukiah (Jewish Holidays: Chanukah). This represents the miracle of the oil in the Temple lasting for eight days.
Eating fried foods, such as latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts) honor the oil used in the miracle at the Temple.
Jewish children will often play dreidel, a game that involves a 4-sided spinning top.
Gelt: the gifting of money or chocolate coins to children, a tradition believed to have started due to the proximity to the gift-giving of Christmas (Jewish Holidays: Chanukah).
A celebration of the longest night of the year, Dongzhi occurs on Dec. 21 or 22 each year. There are themes of reuniting throughout the celebration which welcomes the progressively longer days ahead. The holiday is marked by a large warm meal with family which consists of several hallmark dishes; e.g., mutton hot pot and dumplings. Tangyuan, glutinous rice balls cooked in a sweet soup or savory broth, symbolize reunion. Older customs required people from the same clan or those with the same surname to gather at their ancestral temples to worship, followed by a large shared meal.
Personifications of Death - Winter Folklore Characters
There are not only holiday celebrations that mark the longest night of the year and the death of the year with new beginnings on the horizon, but also personified figures who act as supernatural harbingers of the winter, death and the return of the light. Additional themes are the rewards for prosocial behavior and also the threat of punishment for poor behavior in the prior year mostly focused on children’s socialization and tests of adolescent mettle but also focusing on the morality of the powerful.
Yule Cat
Popularized in Icelandic poet Jóhannes úr Kötlum’s work Jólin koma (Christmas is Coming), the Yule Cat is a figure that threatens punishment, though the behavior sanctioned is for either not receiving new clothing at Christmas time or not wearing one’s new clothes gifted at Christmas. The punishment is being eaten alive by the Yule cat, a giant cat that roams the land in search of those not wearing their new clothing.
Frau Holda/Holle & Frau Perchta
These are similar figures from Germanic folklore who represent the same thing: death in winter and rebirth in spring. They are goddesses who differ in the regions they preside over: Frau Holda/Holle in the Northern regions of Europe and Perchta in the Alpine and Southern regions of Europe (Motz, 1984). The meaning and powers associated with these figures vary across regions but generally they chastise or punish the poorly behaved, especially lying children, and reward those who are good. Food offerings traditionally consist of fish and dumplings. They roam the nights between Christmas and Epiphany (the 12 days post-Christmas) driving out the ‘evil spirits’ from the village or town. Traditionally, this was done door to door but the Perchtenlauf or Perchtenjagd in Austria is now a public parade where masked figures wear terrifying masks, don costumes of black fur and drum their melody throughout the village.
St. Nikolaus & Krampus
Though similar in practice in ways to the Perchten, St. Nikolaus and his subordinate Krampus are associated with Dec. 6, which is known as St. Nikolaus Tag. The region where this pair is celebrated is much larger than that of Perchten and has been popularized globally via Social Media. A critical difference between the two is that St. Nikolaus and Krampus come out of Christian beliefs and are focused primarily on the morality of children. Those who were good and performed their prayers were rewarded by St. Nikolaus and those who were bad and did not do what they should have were threatened with switches and possibly even abduction to Hell by Krampus (Carter, 2016). The Krampusse (plural of Krampus) can be seen with St. Nikolaus parading through the town center or at Christmas markets in public displays. In München, Germany, Krampusse gathers from all over Europe for the Krampuslauf, an event where the public can actively participate in the festivities and watch the assorted Christmas demons rattle their chains and ring out their cowbells.
Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”
Charles Dickens’ novella brought to the fore the cruelty of the upper class in 19th Century England. In the first of his “Christmas novellas” the story is centered on the values of Repentance, Prayer, and Charity with an ability to have a Change of Heart. Dickens himself was a deeply Christian person who wrote from that perspective. The character of Scrooge is presented as a despicable figure; selfish, capitalist, and lacking in warmth. Scrooge is visited by his former partner Marley, a ghost himself rattling chains in the night, who prepares him for the visitation by three ghosts; Christmas Past, Christmas Present, & Christmas Future. Each shows the errors in Scrooges’ morality, with the last a spectre of death itself, showing Scrooge his future (an early grave) if he continues with his misdeeds. This story sets up Christmas as a time of reflection and generosity, acknowledging the possibility of a change of heart.
Celebrating in The Time of the Long Nights
When the days become shorter and the nights longer, when the temperatures drop and snow comes to blanket us, when the wilderness seems more wild and filled with monsters than usual, this is when communities join in celebration to keep in the warm, rest and recover from the year and reflect on all that has been in anticipation of the new year to come.
Happy Holidays and a Joyous New Year!
Works Cited
Carter, M. (2016). Perchten and krampusse: Living mask traditions in Austria and Bavaria.
Carter, M. (2016). Perchten and Krampusse: Living Mask Traditions in Austria and Bavaria (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sheffield).
Chey, O. S. (2005). China Condensed: 5,000 Years of History and Culture. Times Editions-Marshall Cavendish.
CNBC Make It (Jessica Leibowitz). (2019, November 25). How Hygge Took Over America [Video recording]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljb-PkxscNc
Karlsson, Á. G. (2020, December 17). The Yule Cat – Icelandic Folklore. https://icelandicfolklore.is/the-yule-cat/
Llewellyn, & Pesznecker, S. (2015). Yule: Rituals, Recipes & Lore for the Winter Solstice. Llewellyn Worldwide.
Motz, L. (1984). The Winter Goddess: Percht, Holda, and Related Figures. Folklore, 95(2), 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/0015587X.1984.9716309
Novitz, D. (1989). Art, narrative, and human nature. Philosophy and Literature, 13(1), 57-74.
Reville, G. (2014, February 25). Folk Culture and Geography. Oxford Bibliographies. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199874002/obo-9780199874002-0092.xml
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Traditional Chinese Festivals—China.org.cn. (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2024, from http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/Festivals/78308.htm
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