Now that it has been and gone for another year, did we once ask ourselves why we were celebrating? What’s it all about?
Charles Boyle did…
The English language is a living history of Britain, mixing Celtic, Latin, Germanic, Old Norse and French, with words from across the world, making it one of the hardest languages to learn.
Language is the voice of Culture, our shared identity that reflects generations of learning, experiences and events often consigned to the mists of time.
Consider Christmas, now the world’s most popular festival, it began in ancient Rome as ‘Christ’s Mass’, the first official spiritual celebration of Jesus Christ’s birthday – except that no-one knows Christ’s birth date as there is no record of his birth.
So why choose the 25th of December?
The answer lies with the Romans who governed Europe for almost 500 years. The original Pagan Romans celebrated ‘Sol Invictus’ the Birthday of the ‘Unconquered Sun’, soon after the winter solstice on 25 December, with feasting and games. But in 380 CE when Christianity became the Roman Empire’s official religion, Emperor Constantine proclaimed 25 December as Christ’s birthday, replacing the sun with Jesus, the ‘Light of the World’.
And December?
For millennia northern European Celts celebrated the Winter Solstice as the return of the sun in the icy depths of winter. In ancient Britain and elsewhere the celebrations honoured the Horned God, Cernunnos, ‘Father Nature’, god of wild things, virility and the cycle of death and rebirth. The sun’s return was a time for giving thanks, sharing gifts and communal singing (ie carolling). The symbols were the Yule log and evergreens: holly, mistletoe and pine.
Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Germanic peoples knew the winter solstice as Yule, one of the world’s oldest festivals and Christmas is still known as Yuletide. Vikings believed Yule was when the god Odin led supernatural beings across the sky on the ‘Wild Hunt’ battling the forces of darkness. During the Wild Hunt Odin bestowed good fortune and gifts on those he favoured.
When Vikings also embraced Christianity, around 950 CE, King Haakon the Good decreed that Yule and Christmas must be celebrated together on the same day, the 25th of December.
The monuments of Stonehenge and Newgrange bear witness to thousands of years of ancient Celtic mid-winter celebrations. All details of their traditions are long forgotten, but these sophisticated neolithic constructions are precisely aligned to the solstices with astonishing accuracy.
Celtic culture
With the passing millennia, conquering invaders forever changed Celtic culture. Four hundred years of Roman occupation introduced Christianity, firmly establishing Christmas Day as December 25th.
The following three hundred years of Viking rule imposed King Haakon’s law combining the mid-winter solstice (Yule) and Christmas celebrations on Christmas Day. These enduring laws imposed by ancient invaders still define Christmas today.
Hiding in plain sight, the shape-shifting Cernunnos, Horned God of the prehistoric Celts, survived seven hundred years of invasion to become Britain’s own remarkable contribution to the universal Christmas tradition. Cernnunnos now older, quieter and lacking his signature horns – had indeed survived and was now known as Father Christmas.
Not to be confused with Santa Claus, Father Christmas has a long white beard, carries a Yule log and wears a crown of holly. Like the old Cernunnos, Father Christmas is tricky, mischievous and playful, encouraging promiscuity, general debauchery and festive disorder.
He was only concerned with corrupting adult merry-making and had no connection to children. His lewd influence offended Christian piety until in 1640 Christmas celebrations were banned throughout Britain for twenty years. But shape-shifting Father Christmas survived the Church’s banishment, and by the Victorian era, he had morphed into the familiar jolly old virtuous fellow, bringing magical gifts to all good children.
Did Father Christmas become Santa Claus?
The name Santa Claus derives from St Nicholas, a 4th century Christian bishop, who is the patron saint of children.
St Nicholas’s renowned generosity and secret gift-giving to those in need transformed the memory of the modest Turkish bishop into a mythical Dutch character called Sinterklaas, and the tradition of gifting on St Nicholas’ day, December 6, spread to Dutch colonies across the empire – including New Amsterdam, later known as New York.
It was in New York the fusion of Dutch tradition of Saint Nicholas and the Britons Father Christmas combined in the creation of Santa Claus – the jolly red suited character the world loves today. A far cry perhaps from the ancient Horned God of the winter solstice. Yet infinite drops of water flow together to form an ocean; while it is impossible to know the journey of every drop of water, the ocean itself is irrefutable.
Many believe Cernunnos still moves among us on the winter solstice as of old, spreading peace, love and joy to all the world.
Whether true or not, the choice between the sad truth or a good story is all yours.
Merry Christmas to all and Blessed be!
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