Winter solstice. When we have the shortest day and the longest night.
There are many winter festivals and they all emphasise the importance of light. Diwali, festival of light, for example, may sneak into the end of autumn but is as easily linked with dark winter as are the twinkling fairy lights with which we decorate Christmas trees.
Related Useful Fact: some plants respond to day length and some to warmth to stimulate growth.
Strictly speaking it’s not so much day length, as length of absence of day, ie how many hours of darkness there are. Did you know that plants grow when they sleep, just like humans?
The winter solstice celebrates the longest night of the year and the rebirth of the sun. For our ancestors it was a time of hope and a cause for festivity, even today many gather at Stonehenge to greet the dawn on the shortest day. Evergreens and mistletoe were used for decoration as they reflected the eternity of the gods, being ever young (or ever-green). It was an excuse for a ‘knees up’ in the cold, dark part of the year.
The Yule log of medieval times was a continuation of this tradition. A huge trunk rather than a small log, it would be chosen from among the oldest trees, preferably ash. It would be dragged back to the hearth and lit with a sliver of the previous year’s log which had been kept especially for this purpose. It would then be kept burning throughout the yule tide season, also known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.
Many of the plants we still think of as being part of Christmas festivities relate to these older Yule traditions, for example, holly and ivy are both evergreens; pine was used as decoration or burnt as incense.
Yule and Winter Solstice – Rural Communities
The Anglo Saxon calendar in the eighth century called the modern December and January geola or giuli, from which we probably derive ‘yule’.
Many of the Northern European and North American Christmas activities hark back to the early Christian rites or even earlier, when the Oak king would fight the Holly King and win the favours of the Goddess until the summer solstice.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that for much of recorded history everyone, even those who lived in the towns, were aware of the changing seasons and the effect this had on the food supply. There were or very few no street lights until an hundred or so years ago; at night the light was from the moon and the stars, so long nights were very noticeable.
Meat was not as large a part of the average diet as it generally is today; people would have kept chickens, or shared a pig, but animals need feeding too, so when you knew food was going to be in short supply you kept minimum livestock overwinter. For the ordinary family with their vegetable plot or kitchen garden behind their cottage, winter could have be one long bowl of cabbage soup had it not been for Christmas and Yule feasting.
Recognising the longest night of the year with feasting and light is not just a northern European celebration. In ancient Persia, Yalda, the winter solstice, was recognised with night long festivities and the eating of fruits stored from the summer harvest.
This keeping of the best of the harvest to be eaten at midwinter Yule festivities is found time and again in rural communities. It can be seen as having religious significance, as an offering and reminder to whichever god or gods that this is what the people need – a good harvest. It can also be seen on a more secular note, as an opportunity for a family and community to get together and support each other and to share cheering food and drink.
Hogswatch day, as celebrated on the Discworld in the Terry Pratchett novels, is a delightful parody of many of these winter solstice celebrations. It nevertheless manages to give an inkling of how important food and being able to grow and store food over the winter, was to a predominantly rural population. A scenario we may feel we are cushioned from in the 21st century, but actually, we’re not.
Yule and Winter Solstice, where to find more
There is more about Yule and winter solstice festivals in our eBook “In Your Winter Garden with Plews Garden Design” And for those of you who like Christmas – why not download our eBook “Christmas and Yule in Your Garden“? Both eBooks are available to download from Plews website – for yourself or as a gift
Or if you’re looking for a Christmas gift with a difference, why not ask about our bespoke Gardening Lessons, where your classroom is actually your own garden? We can help with both gardening basics and more ‘expert tasks’, carry out worm and other experiments and for example, also show you how to plan a wildlife friendly ornamental border.
For further gardening advice and inspiration, check out Plews Potting Shed blogs, including the selection below and our monthly Tipsheet – You could come and find us on Instagram Pinterest and Facebook too.
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