Yule- the Winter Solstice Norse Style

Introduction

Merry Christmas, Good Yule, and Happy Holidays to all!
I am hoping everyone has had a good winter season so far, and that it only gets better as we go into the New Year. In today’s blog post, we are going to be talking about Yule, the celebration of the Winter Solstice as we currently practice it, and the research into how it was celebrated by our ancestors.

I’ll be splitting this blog post into two sections along those lines: first, I will go into what we know of the old ways, and then I will get into how we do things inside our clan.

Ancient Norse Yule

From what I have read and been able to decipher in the Viking Age, Yule was celebrated as the longest night of the year, the ending of the previous year, and that Fenris hadn’t swallowed the sun.

The Wild Hunt which appears in both Norse and
Celtic mythologies is a precursor to Santa. As is Odin himself.

The celebration itself would last until the sun rose, and the time was spent feasting and drinking. Specifics on how the ancestors celebrated are scarce, as with many things. All we can do is count on secondary sources to get an idea of what may have been. We do know from historical sources that many of what are now Christian traditions have their start in the way the Norse used to celebrate Yule: things like the Christmas Tree, holly as a decoration, Santa’s ride around the world, and even stockings all have a start in the Norse traditions.

By looking at these traditions, we can sort of build what a Yule celebration might have looked like, but mostly it has a lot to do with celebrating the meaning of the Blot as best we can, in a way that -to us- honours the gods and our ancestors.

Our Yule

For our clan’s celebration of Yule, we mix traditions created by us with others taken from historical records, combining the two to create something that means family and winter holidays to us. The worry on Yule has always been that the Ragnarok has come, that with the setting of the sun Fenris has risen and Fimbulwinter has at last begun, so we gather the clan and prepare for what may be. While we wait for the sun to return we feast, drink, and game the night away!

It is now time to choose our champions! We create challenges of Strength, Skill, and Wisdom. Each

Norse children would leave snacks for Sleipnir in their boots
and in exchange Odin would leave them sweets. This
became the stocking tradition.

year, a new challenge is chosen by the previous year’s champion to represent what games have always been: playing to have fun, while also training and preparing for anything life throws at you.

Our Test of Strength is almost always as much about endurance as actual strength, a way to display our prowess as a clan, and to cheer on our kin as they compete to be the best. Since the previous year’s champion picks the challenge, we have had a really wide variety of tests throughout the decade: everything from planks to wrestling to shot put, each one adding to the atmosphere of festivities while also giving us the chance to show off and brag. I can’t think of anything more Norse than that!

The Test of Skill is a little bit more finicky, since skill can be highly subjective: for one champion it may be a test of agility; for another, a test of aim; and for another still, juggling. These are often the most entertaining to watch, as people are essentially learning a new thing to try and win! This last year we did Nerf gun duels, and in the past we’ve had knife throwing, darts, juggling, and even parrying Nerf darts with lightsabers! The physical tests give us something to gather around and watch while we wait for the food to be served, and it gets everyone talking and laughing.

The final test is the Test of Wisdom, which is almost always some sort of puzzle or riddle challenge that people can submit their answers to the Goði. The first person to submit the correct answer is declared the winner. In the past we have also done a riddle contest in the style of Odin and Vafthrudnir, with questions being passed around until a person can no longer answer and then they are removed from the game, until only one is left standing. I favour this kind of contest or chess riddles because they give everyone the opportunity to learn and grow.

After the challenges are won, it’s time to feast. We like to do a potluck so that the clan comes together as a whole to feed everyone. To me, this also plays into that idea of family and hospitality, that we are all in this together and here for each other. As the hosts, my wife and I usually provide a roast pork shoulder or similar, as well as breads and salad. Each of the other guests bring things that they enjoy, or that show off a special recipe or dish. This leads us to a very international feast with a huge variety of foods, and there’s always more than enough to eat. When the feasting is done, everyone helps to clear the table and we all prepare for the next activities.

After feast, we gather in a circle and each tell tales of our wins and losses of the previous year. We also review the boasts that we made to allow the clan to decide if we had succeeded or not. These are a big portion of the night, and they happen after the tale-telling, representing improvements that we want to make to ourselves or adventures we wish to embark upon before next Yule… sort of a bucket

Christmas trees come from the tradition
of decorating wild trees during the winter time. This
practice is even spoken against in the Bible.

list before the world might end, and a New Year’s Resolution all combined into one. Once we have gone over the boasts and tales of the previous year, the Goði stands and blesses the horn. Our tradition is to sing the Song of Odin by Karl Donaldsson, but we have also taken this time to read a passage from the Eddas or Hávamál that might be meaningful in the coming year.

The horn itself represents an oath to the clan and to the people who share the blot with us. It says “I am here and you are my chosen kin.” When you are part of the clan and the circle, it means that you don’t have to go it alone, whether that means help moving, an extra push to complete your boast, or a couch to sleep on because life has become hard, we are all in it together. Family was one of the cornerstones of Ancient Norse life, and it's just as important to us.

When the horn is blessed, we pass it around, each person making their boast for the coming year. A boast should be a specific task that you will complete before the next Yule, and to make sure you do, you also state before the clan what the consequences will be if you don’t. Our Goði is fond of suggesting people shave their heads as a consequence, but oftentimes people choose things that give back to the clan as a whole. One person offered, should they fail their boast, to give a certain amount of rides uber-style to members of the clan. Things like this reinforce the idea of us all being in it together, and gives you the motivation to push through and complete your boast.

A sample boast:
I, Rurik Ulfhamar, boast that by next Yule I will have gathered enough savings to cover three months of my bills. If I fail to do so, I will sell off two of my collector’s edition books to add to my savings.


This isn’t the most exciting boast… it involves making responsible choices and working hard. It is, however, an important boast to me and to my family after the last couple of years of financial hardship. It creates accountability towards the goal that I want to achieve, and produces hard consequences should I fail.

Another example:
Before next Yule, I will run a marathon. If I fail, I will take the clan out to dinner at Flannigans.

Clear goal, clear consequence. These types of direct boasts are best because they give you a defined end point.

Now, you don’t need to boast to drink from the horn; it’s a good thing to do but not a requirement. Drinking from the horn is creating a bond to the clan; making an oath is making a promise to yourself. Once you have made your oath and drunk from the horn, you pass it to the next person in the circle until everyone has had their turn. Then the Goði pours out some of the horn for our ancestors and those who could not be there, and then finishes it himself, sealing the pact.

We then spend the rest of the night playing games and spending time with our kin who we don’t get to see nearly often enough given how hectic life can get. We don’t usually stay until sunrise, but it's a pretty close thing. Usually the Godhi, the wife,  and I stay hanging out with the last stragglers until 4-5 in the morning.

In our house, a sort of odd morning-after tradition has begun to take shape over the last 3-4 years. As many of you know, we have three daughters, and the morning after Yule they wake up extra early and make it a point to clean up the entire house and do the dishes so that we don’t have to worry about it.

Leaping over the Yule log is a test of bravery, and
is supposed to bring good luck in the coming year.

It was a huge surprise to my wife and I when they did it the first time, and the fact that they have continued makes it even more impressive, especially since the older two are hitting the teen years pretty hard and often don’t even want to clean their room!

There are a couple of traditions I am wanting to add in future years, one I can’t do until have a backyard of my own, and another from Iceland I intend to start this coming year. The first is the leaping over the Yule log. I currently don't have anywhere to make a proper and decent sized bonfire of a log for people to jump over! During the Viking Age, jumping over the Yule log was supposed to give you good luck for the coming year, but for now we will make do with a Yule log on the TV while the boasts are happening.

The second tradition I’d like to start is based on the jolabokaflod, the Yule Book Flood! This is a tradition in Iceland where books are exchanged on Christmas Eve and then the evening is spent reading them. For the Clan Book Flood, my idea is to do a Secret Santa style event where each person gives one other person a book of their choosing. This way we can share books that are meaningful to us, and everyone gets more books, which everybody knows is really the reason for the season!

Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed this glimpse into how we celebrate Yule, and an example of how you can build your own Yule traditions. Let me know how you celebrate it in the comments below, and if there are any traditions you think I should look into, share that too!

References

http://paganpoet.com/library/an-asatru-viewpoint-of-yule-customs-and-traditions/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule
http://www.asatru.org/holidays.php
https://9gag.com/gag/aeN4Qjb/irrefutable-proof-that-santa-is-odin  (pretty funny and partially true)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1fy3d3HhKg Odin's Song by Karl Donaldsson

Hearth

Introduction

This post is going to be a little different than some of my others. I want to talk about something that, while important to being Asatru and a Norseman, it doesn’t really tie into my research or my journey in the SCA. Instead, it sort of ties in with the camping posts I have been making, because it is about home. Home
is something that is incredibly personal, not just in what it physically is, but also in what
it represents. To some cultures, home is the extended family all living in a single building; to others, it is just a little apartment that you have gotten on your own. In the 10c, home was a homestead, a small farm with several buildings where an extended (possibly, but not confirmed multigenerational) family lived and worked.  To me, my home is a place where my nuclear family lives, but the extended clan that I am a part of can gather for holy days. As a family of 5, finding an ideal space that doesn’t break the bank in Miami is heartbreaking. Too often you find yourself priced out of any home that makes sense for your family, and this is just talking about rentals, we aren’t even attempting to buy at this time.

I provide this as a bit of background information to give an idea of where I am and why I am writing this. Regular readers may remember that for about three years I owned a game store and it took a lot out of me. My wife and I sacrificed a ton to try and keep it open, including our home. We were never without shelter; I am very fortunate that my mother was able to take us all in and give us a place to live while we kept at the store. Eventually, the store closed despite our best efforts, but we remained living at my mother’s as we figured out our next step. We lived there for just under 14 months, which gave me a ton of time to think and ponder the meaning of home. This past weekend, we finally
moved into a townhouse, and while it wasn’t a storybook move, it already feels like home.

Home vs Shelter

We are all raised with sayings like “a man’s home is his castle”, “home is where the heart rests’ etc. These things all speak of this feeling of safety and belonging that not everyone gets: for so many people, the place where they live is under threat or so far from ideal that they never feel like they have a home. I spent the last 14 months homeless, but I was not without somewhere to live. I was incredibly lucky that I had a roof and a warm bed. That's a lot more than many people have, but I didn’t have a home. Oddly enough, this is a distinction I might not have noticed a decade ago, when I was younger and in my first marriage. I had never really had that sense of safety: we moved around a lot and never really set down roots. It wasn’t until I moved in with Beatrice that I realized how much a home means… to have a place that you can come home to and rest and feel safe.

Shelter is a place that protects you from the outside; it’s one of the first things that survival manuals tell you to focus on, and one of the base Maslow needs. It keeps you safe, but it doesn’t nourish you and it doesn’t allow you to recharge and grow. A shelter might be an apartment you rent that was all you can find, but it's in a bad neighborhood or maybe the price is just out of your range so you are always in danger of losing it. In my case, my shelter for the last 14 months was actually my childhood home, a beautiful house that my mother still lives in. The problem was that it couldn’t be “our home” due to differences in opinion and the crowding of space. My mother was welcoming in every way she could be, but in the end neither of us were really raised to have a multigenerational home and the house wasn’t suited to it. This caused clashes in the raising of the girls, the use of common areas, and so much more. Add to that the simple idea of having known your own space and privacy and now not having it, and it became a strain to bear.

Our Journey

The last time my little family really had a home that wasn’t under threat was before the store opened, nearly four years ago. We had just moved into a small townhouse, but everyone was excited about it. We made that place our home, and you could feel it.  We had started to buy our furniture for it, and overall it felt like we had gained some stability, or as Maslow would put it security. We weren’t totally there but it felt like we were on our way. When we felt like we were doing well, we made the choice to take the risk of opening our own business, and that security was the first thing we sacrificed.

Along the way, we had to move two more times before we ended up at mom’s, and each place felt like a stopping point. They didn’t feel like home, each for their own reasons, but the main cause of the lack of security was the lack of solid stable income. We were always scared we were going to lose everything.

Over the three years of all this instability, it has caused us as a family some spiritual damage. We are all scared now of losing the things we have, we are all worried about every bump in the road. Our girls, who are still too young for such things, understand entirely too intimately that money is finite and that we as a family don’t have as much as some others. We do try and teach them that while there are always people who have more, there are also people who have less, and that we should be grateful for all the things we do have. This is a tough lesson to learn for a preteen who wants to have the newest clothes or accessories to fit in.

Our New Home

Six months ago, after the store closed down, I was fortunate enough to have help finding a job by a good friend of mine. I was scared to go back into the workforce, especially into a corporate position of this nature, but it has done wonders for me. I have time off, I can be with my children and not just around them like when they were at the store with me. More than any of that, I have a stable paycheck. This has been the start of us rebuilding our lives, a stable job that allowed us to save enough money to finally begin the long search to find our new home.

Our family preparing for a hurricane. 

At first, the search was disheartening: everything was too small, too far, or too expensive. In Miami, the cost-of-living-to-wage ratio is among the worst in the nation, and even though we both work very hard to earn enough money, the last thing we wanted to do was live outside our means and have our home remain under threat.  Finally, after months of either searching on our own or with unreliable realtors, we were very lucky to meet Anthony Maiello (https://www.facebook.com/Anthony-Maiello-a-Real-Estate-Empire-Group-Realtor-101903754549059/), a realtor who genuinely cared about our needs and wanted to find us the perfect home for our family, not just a shelter for us and a commission for him. With his help we were able to find our new townhome. It isn’t the perfect place (I doubt we will find that until we buy our forever home), but it is certainly a great beautiful place for us to build a home and take the next steps in our lives.

The Move

I spent the weeks leading up to the move in a ball of nerves. I was worried we would get denied at the last moment by the landlords. I was worried that we wouldn’t have the money for the last of the down payment. I was terrified that the girls wouldn't like the house or we wouldn't be able to fit our needs in it. I was worried that things just wouldn't go the right way. The week of the move, I was so worried about not being able to move everything properly that I went to work everyday in jeans and a t-shirt (instead of my usual business attire) so that I could run out and head to storage to take another load of things to the house. My wife, while not understanding why this move had me so nervous, did everything she could to help ease my fears. She was also going to storage every day and grabbing things, but more importantly she and her mom set up our daughters’ rooms so they would move into their new space as if it was their old space and better. Anything to make the move smooth for everyone.

The day of the move, only a few of our friends were able to help. This led to more panic in me, but the truth is that the Stophers’ are some of the best people I know and with all their help we moved faster and more efficiently than ever before. By 4pm, everything was in the new house and we were all on the couch pondering our new aches and pains. It was done, at least the first step… now, to turn it from a shelter to a home. I imagine that will take a few weeks, but I already feel better.

The Girls

To me, the scariest part of the move was that even after everything was done and the girls were in the new house... they didn’t feel safe.You could see it in the way they reacted: it wasn’t the innocent joy of when we moved into that home all those years ago; it was a tentative and cautious thing, unsure yet if this was their home. That’s the hardest part to me. So now, it's time to give them that safe space, build it up again so they know they have stability. Our core needs are met, now we need to build security.

Conclusion

Too often we settle for shelter, or are forced to settle for it. We have lost sight of how important an actual home is. Home is where the heart rests, shelter is where the body rests. If you don’t have both, you will start to feel rundown and tired, and how will you continue to best the struggles of life when
you lose sight of what you are fighting for?

Remember that as long as we keep stepping forward, we will get to our goals. Christopher Reeve said it best “ So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”