Hi, I'm Dr. Jackson Crawford, I'm an old Norse specialist who teaches at the University of Colorado, Boulder
It's been an unusually warm December here in Colorado . In fact it's December
17th or something as I'm filming this and the
snow has only just fallen for the first time this year.
Many cultures have a
celebration during the time of year around the end of December when the days began to get longer again.
And the Norse are no exception.
Their holiday was called «Jól» ,
which also survives in the form of an English word ‘‘Yule’’ which is cognate with the Norse word
In the modern Scandinavian countries the word has become «Jul» other than in
Modern Icelandic where the word is still «Jól».
This is a plural word and actually refers to a ceremony that took place over the course of three nights.
Beginning with Midwinter Night
(so December 21st or 22nd by our reckoning) and then continuing the next three nights
We know that the festival contained a lot of feasting and drinking
although the specific
actions that might have been undertaken are not so clear to us because
our main sources from Norse mythology such as the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda
talk about myths narratives and stories
but very rarely about things like rituals and festivals and prayers
However, we can gain some hints by looking at some of the sagas in which Jól is celebrated
such as «Hákonar saga
góða» the saga of Håkon the Good : one of the kings of Norway.
Now Håkon the Good was king of Norway in the mid nine hundreds and he was a Christian.
But he was not insistent about his religion. He wasn't a missionary.
He was fine with some of his people remaining pagan. He only insisted that
everyone in the kingdom celebrate a holiday in
late December
Whether that was Christmas or Yule didn't matter
But he did stipulate legally that there was a minimum amount of alcohol
that had to be consumed by each free man
to demonstrate that he was celebrating one of the holidays
and whereas
measurements in the sagas are not always very clear
or very strictly defined
this amount as near as I can figure would be about four gallons over the course of those three nights
so a pretty considerable amount
Leading to the only culture I'm aware of
in which you might have been pulled over by the cops for drinking too little.
Now we also know that horse meat was apparently a big part of this festival.
For instance in the Saga of Håkon the Good
he attends a Yule Festival thrown by one of his pagan subjects
and they insist at this feast that Håkon eat some of the meat of the horse : the horse's liver specifically.
Håkon is very unwilling to do this apparently because it's part of a pagan ceremony but after a while
with the help of a sympathetic pagan follower
he strikes a compromise and he simply
inhales the smoke off of the cooked horse liver giving a new meaning to ‘‘who inhaled?’’.
Theres a moose down there by the creek. I don't think I could show to you with the
With as small as it would look on this camera but that's cool.
Well the
sacrifice of horses of course is something that we know
was important in the practice of Norse religion based on the testimony of numerous
different sagas as well as
external sources and the witness of archeology.
Now the swearing of oaths was also apparently important during the Yule Festival
Many sagas feature oaths being sworn at this time and of course in this culture the oath is an
Ironbound thing no matter what, right, I mean so already many of these central conflicts of the Norse Sagas
center around someone's Ironbound oath that ends up being a bad idea it has to be fulfilled anyway.
Like Brunhild's oath
she would never marry a man who knew fear.
Or Ragnar Lothbrok's oath that he would conquer England with just two ships.
But an oath sworn on Yule was extra sacred.
Now this may remind you a little bit of
New Year's resolutions, right, these are similarly oaths that are
supposed to have a special force because they're sworn at about this time of year
but in this case since oaths were taken so seriously in this culture
you have to think of it like a New Year's resolution
that you could be punished by death for not fulfilling.
So if the idea of swearing that you're going to lose 10 pounds by March sounds like a good idea
and
you think that you'd be a little extra motivated if
someone could kill you in March if you know they broke into your house made you stand on a scale
and you hadn't lost 10 pounds then perhaps you could try something similar.
Sagas such as Hervarar Saga ok Heiðreks
and Sturlaugs Saga starfsama
feature oaths sworn at a Yule feast and in both of these cases the oath sworn is about
marrying or
sexually conquering in some other way a woman
and so Yule feast may have had in a special association with that kind of oath.
One interesting thing in particular is that uh
oaths at least in one
manuscript of Hervarar Saga ok Heiðreks and in one of the
the poems about Helgi in the poetic Edda
(which I'll also talk about a little bit more in a minute) involve touching
a boar that is brought into the proceedings in order to make these oaths.
Like swearing on a Bible but swearing on a pig.
So in the Poetic Edda there are three poems about the hero named Helgi
In one of these Helgakviða Hjovarðssonar, the Saga of Helgi son of Hjovarð
(the one that does not connect into the Volsung family)
says that an evening before Jól his brother Héðinn
was riding and he encountered a woman who was either a troll or witch,
riding a wolf using snakes for reins this is also something we see at
Baldr's funeral and in some art from the Viking Age
this is this trope of evil women riding wolves using snakes as reins.
And she asked if she could go along with him for a while, and he refused but when he refused her
she said that he would pay for this that night when men were swearing their oaths at Jól
because this was Jól Eve
Well he goes in to the feast at Jól and a boar is brought in and men are swearing their oaths
and Heðin under the influence of a curse this woman has put on him
puts his hand on the boar and swears that he will take his brother Helgi's lover Sváva
Well rather than fulfill this oath, which of course
he's obligated to fulfill if he remains in the kingdom he leaves. Goes into self-imposed exile
but some time later his brother Helgi tracks him down and asks him why he fled.
Heðin tells him about his oath
but Helgi says actually this is convenient
I'm about to fight a duel and
I know that I might die and if I
die I would rather leave Sváva to my brother
than wonder about where she's going to end up perhaps fall into the hands of my
enemies
He says something interesting at the beginning of stanza 33 here
Sakask eigi þú sǫnn munu verða ǫlmál, Heðinn, okkr beggja.
Don't worry about it, basically.
The words spoken while drinking are oaths made while drinking ǫlmál will be true Heðin for us both
So oaths made while drinking especially during Yule are especially important. Especially sacred and
during this winter season I'm hoping that your oaths and resolutions prove good and true.
And I hope that whatever holiday you celebrate as the as the days get longer
and the night's get shorter that it's a wonderful holiday full of joy and peace for you
And from beautiful Colorado I'm wishing you
Gleðileg Jól!