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A Yule Story for your enjoyment
Dec. 21st, 2004 10:07 amSeveral years ago, I decided to put together a collection of traditional folktales (from Grimms and other sources) organized around the theme of the Wiccan sabbats. I opened my collection with a tale that screamed "Yule!" at me from the moment I read it.
Here is the introduction I wrote for it. ... I'll put the story itself under a cut.
Yule
Yule falls at the time of the winter solstice, when the powers of darkness are at their height. For three long months, night has been more powerful than day. Many animals have retreated into their dens to hibernate, and so too with the fields -- the final harvest has long since been gathered, and the winter wheat has been sown, its life hidden in the depths of the earth.
But Yule is also the turning point, when the sun once again begins its ascension. Like a newborn child, however, its life is still fragile and must be encouraged and protected. For centuries, people have lent magical aid to the young sun with the lighting of fires and festooning of the houses with wreaths of pine, holly, and bay - round, like the sun itself, their evergreen leaves symbolizing the eternal life we wish for the sun.
When I first read Mother Holle, the story I've chosen to represent Yule, I was struck by the strong winter solstice motifs woven throughout the story. The heroine, like the Sun Child, begins the tale in a world of cold and dark, the thread she must constantly spin lost to the depths of the earth. As Patricia Monaghan points out in her book O, Mother Sun! A New View of the Cosmic Feminine, spinning is one of the most enduring symbols of northern European sun goddesses. "Fiber and whorl - both of these spinning symbols are connected with the sun goddess. The round sun is like a spindle, anchoring the strands of light; light rays jut from the sun like hair or yarn" (106). Leaping after her lost spindle, the heroine enters a fertile, womb-like paradise where the goddess figure of Mother Holle presides over her healing and rebirth, sending her back to earth golden and shining. The rooster even announces her return - crowing as he would at dawn.
The conversations with Mother Holle over the dinner table and the aftermath of the adventure are my own additions (as are the specific names for the characters).
Work consulted:
Monaghan, Patricia. Mother Sun! A New View of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom, California: The Crossing Press. 1984.
( Mother Holle )
Here is the introduction I wrote for it. ... I'll put the story itself under a cut.
Yule falls at the time of the winter solstice, when the powers of darkness are at their height. For three long months, night has been more powerful than day. Many animals have retreated into their dens to hibernate, and so too with the fields -- the final harvest has long since been gathered, and the winter wheat has been sown, its life hidden in the depths of the earth.
But Yule is also the turning point, when the sun once again begins its ascension. Like a newborn child, however, its life is still fragile and must be encouraged and protected. For centuries, people have lent magical aid to the young sun with the lighting of fires and festooning of the houses with wreaths of pine, holly, and bay - round, like the sun itself, their evergreen leaves symbolizing the eternal life we wish for the sun.
When I first read Mother Holle, the story I've chosen to represent Yule, I was struck by the strong winter solstice motifs woven throughout the story. The heroine, like the Sun Child, begins the tale in a world of cold and dark, the thread she must constantly spin lost to the depths of the earth. As Patricia Monaghan points out in her book O, Mother Sun! A New View of the Cosmic Feminine, spinning is one of the most enduring symbols of northern European sun goddesses. "Fiber and whorl - both of these spinning symbols are connected with the sun goddess. The round sun is like a spindle, anchoring the strands of light; light rays jut from the sun like hair or yarn" (106). Leaping after her lost spindle, the heroine enters a fertile, womb-like paradise where the goddess figure of Mother Holle presides over her healing and rebirth, sending her back to earth golden and shining. The rooster even announces her return - crowing as he would at dawn.
The conversations with Mother Holle over the dinner table and the aftermath of the adventure are my own additions (as are the specific names for the characters).
Work consulted:
Monaghan, Patricia. Mother Sun! A New View of the Cosmic Feminine. Freedom, California: The Crossing Press. 1984.
( Mother Holle )
