#972- Christmas Is NOT A Pagan Holiday

Oh bed of Bard, Hello, and welcome to the show.

This is the Cult of Conspiracy and I'm the Cage to Night And today we are continuing with our holiday season extravaganza, and today we are going to be talking about Chris Proper, and by that we mean the American traditions of Christmas that we all know and love. So let's just go ahead and get this out of the way now. There is a lot of controversies surrounding some of the traditions of modern Christmas, specifically among the Christian community.

But that's also a point of contention and argument because of the Julie calendar and the other calendar that yeah, they that actually the original solstice is actually the twenty first and twenty fifth, but it's.

The day of the month or the actual date because the sun is the shortest across the sky on the same day regardless of whatever day we want.

To call it the day of the month.

Actually, so you're saying on the Julian count well, it wouldn't be the Julians, the Gregorian, and the because the Julian is a three sixty five calendar, so like there's no months.

Here's the article that I actually gave to you.

It actually does talk about the specific solstice day, okay, and the old day and how it ties into each other.

Okay, Well, I'm excited to learn more about this. I got a couple of articles pulled up. Ravenly as a couple of articles pulled up, and we are going to be talking about all this in depth. How much of what we know about modern Christmas as far as American traditions go, how much of that is rooted in paganism, and how much of that is rooted in Christendom, Because, as we've said, there's a few things that are they're just fraught with misunderstanding, honestly, on both sides of that conversation.

Yeah, Christmas everyone.

Merry Christmas everyone.

We're gonna go ahead and get started here.

We're going to share the screen for anybody who would like to see what we are talking about rather than just hear about it. What you need to do is go to patreon dot com slash Cult Conspiracy Podcast. That is the only place where you will ever be able to see the video of all of our episodes. We have a couple of tiers for entry over there. If you go to that five dollars a month tier, only five dollars, that's a beer at a bar, that's one

We hope to see you there.

It's always a blast, it's always unhinged, and we will be doing it on the week of Christmas as well. Which of that episode, as you know, gets dropped in kind, that episode will be dropping as you're listening to this tomorrow, will be dropping on Friday. But anyway, let's get into a good cult members without any further ado. All right, So to get started here, we had this article pulled up yesterday as a matter of fact, but we felt like it would actually do better on tonight's episodes. So

It's tomorrow as of time recording.

Yeah, as listening to this on Christmas Day, which Merry Christmas to everybody, But yeah, we recorded this on the twentieth but uh yeah, so tomorrow is the solstice?

It is? It is.

Indeed, while in the southern hemisphere it's around June, ones create creating festive wreaths and lighting candles to welcome the return of longer days. From China to England, Guatemala and beyond, people embrace the season with traditional foods, lively festivals, and even more time honored rituals like sharing a cozy winter quote or two. So keep reading to learn all about the winter solstice, All right, cool, get reader to digest.

I absolutely love the lantern festivals. I thought it's so gorgeous. I thought the outlawed them because of all the forest fires and shit. I don't believe. I think some countries still have them. Some places still have them. They're beautiful though. When they actually do have them, they actually have biodegradable ones now, so that way they don't pollute anything.

That makes sense.

Yeah, they actually like kind of crumble with the water and it's a whole thing.

So hell yeah. So if anybody doesn't know what this is or doesn't know what it looks like, first of all, just come to patreon dot com slash could conspiracy and see for yourself. But if you've ever seen the movie Tangled, the.

Oh man, my favorite is that your favorite?

I love the love scene, the whole song. Oh yeah, I know.

I immediately almost was like, mm, don't mind me.

As soon as I saw it, I was like, oh no, But I'm also a sucker for romances, so I know I might not look.

At Ryder was kind of a piece of shit though, true, true, true, but I like super like the romance of the scene itself was really great.

Fair Fair Yeah, he was kind of a hot, flipping mess.

It'd be like that sometimes, you know, but then you know they change for the good ones where some do anyway, But anyway, So the Winter Solstice Lantern Festival British Columbia Vancouver or Vancouver, British Columbia. To honor the many culture cultural Winter Solstice traditions, Vancouver's Secret Lantern Society created the city's annual Winter Solstice Lantern Festival. Participants can attend workshops to create their lanterns. On the night of the Solstice,

Okay, I want to do that so bad.

I think it's cool.

I think it's such a cool tradition.

That means we'd also have to go to Canada for December though it's cold.

Yeah, that's like freezing. That's like negative forty degrees like it' to us.

It might as well be an Arctica. I know people in BC are gonna be like, oh, oh, you folcan Americans down there, you're so pussy. Yeah, okay, fine, fine, yeah.

But like they have special boots that their kids have to weird to get on the bus so that they don't freeze.

Listen if I have to shit.

I know this for a fact because my girlfriend lives in Alberta and no Calgary, excuse me, and she used to drive a bus and we talked to had a huge conversation. She's like, yeah, we have to go buy these the boots, And I was like, what boots? She's like every year we have to buy these, you know, expensive boots so that way the kids don't their feet don't freeze because it's so cold outside when they have to go get down the bus. And I'm like, no, no, listen,

If I got to wear a special face mask because the air going inside my lungs is so cold that it might collapse my lungs. Otherwise, I don't need to live there. That's that is that's psychotic, you know what.

There's a lot of awesome things though up there, but he has She has so many cool adventures and stuff that she goes and does. And I'm just jealous every time that she tells me all all this cool stuff.

But and don't think I'm just shitting on Canada. Chicago. They have to do the thing because the air is too cold and will collapse their lungs. Like I don't know why people live in Chicago either, So like, just so we're clear, I'm not just shedding on our neighbors to the Great White North. I'm talking about people even in certain states in America. I don't understand why people live that far away from the equator. It makes no sense to me. People live everywhere that again, I get it.

Sense to me.

Such a baby brow if you're literally fighting for survival to breathe, to breathe.

But God, where is it.

It's not Norway Finland probably them too well, know the ones that they leave all their babies out in the strollers and those cool little the little zip up things, and they all their babies that you can see like little strollers all over the place of the baby sleeping outside.

So they want their children to get kidnapped.

They have it does not happen.

They don't only have a lot of crime there.

Now you should really I forget where it's at. And I don't want to misspoke speak, but somewhere in the great white north of your over there, there's a whole cool thing you can watch about it like a whole bunch of babies are just see little strollers with all the little babies out there sleeping and the little vests and stuff. And they yeah, it's to help, like they actually change the body chemistry to be able to survive in the colder environments and they sleep better though, So to that.

Point, why would you live there if you have to like train your infant child to survive there?

Perhaps, but they actually all sleep way better like they do because of the cold your body. Have you ever been really cold in your house and under your blankets and you sleep so much? Sound like more soundly?

No, if I had my way, I would sleep in eighty degrees every night.

You're absolutely discussing. I am aware.

I don't do that because my children are like, it's so hot, and I'm like, you're in the south.

But is hot? Who sleeps? Who wants to sleep in eighty to.

Your weather under a thick ass comforter live in my best life?

You know what? Yeah, you're of the devil.

No, I am meant for tropical climates. I am just simply not meant for the cold, that's all it is. And for the record, I'm not Mexico. Their babies have to get a climated to the parasite when they get born because the water is so shit there, so like it's not the same thing that's even closer to the equator than us.

So I guess I don't know.

People are just people in the just complaining. Yeah, maybe I'm just bitching little bit.

What this is Christmas? These people want holidays. Yeah, but you're some cold weather. It's sorry, it isn't even affecting you. Not right now.

It's like eighty outside. It's wonderful.

Yeah it is.

It is actually really hot. Yesterday it was cold as balls.

Today it's hot because I'm telling you, the South is a hormonal like menopausal woman. Yeah, straight up. That's what's happening. Every two seconds is a hot flash. It's freezing cold, it's raining, it's not it's like you you have to pack everything in your car for whatever event might be happening with the goddamn weather down here.

So seriously, Louisiana, and I know that a lot of places have weather that swing's crazy. I get that Louisiana has when Ravenlee is very much on par here. So we have had sub freezing halloweens before, and we've had ninety five degree halloweens before. Now cut to December. We have had twenty degree decembers before. We have also had

No, no, like it's that hot. And then there's other times we're by the pool today, yeah, like the kids were playing in the pool because it was in the eighties and it was it was actually really nice weather though it was not too humid, it was not too hot. It was just the right temperature outside.

So but we're also in that time where the morning time will be balls cold.

Yes, it was forty No, it's like forty one degrees this morning, so forty one to eighty. Yeah, and it only it happens within hours, like you're talking like two hours. It can change and then all of a sudden it will rain sometimes and then all like mon soon, which, by the way, for the people that don't live in the South, that have never experienced an actual monsoon down here, I tried to explain it to people when I first moved to the South, I'm like, what kind of weather is happening right now?

For the days of the sky telling you to go fuck.

Yourself, I've lived in the rain.

Actually currently shout out to all of my Oregonians right now that are currently dealing with the flood. My family is actually dealing with a lot of flood issues. They're evacuating a lot of places. So I hope that you all are safe, and I hope that everything is working out now that it's been a few days from what's happening as of current right now, but as of right now it is flooding big time and organ and is expected to flood more. So hopefully you're all doing well.

And then we even have rain when the sun's out, like yeah, every day when the devil's beating his wife, and that's the expression in the South, when it's raining and the sun is shining.

That happens a lot every single day, though at about two o'clock. At about two o'clock, without fail, from two to four, you'll likely have it happen in the summer. In the summer, yeah, it just it will be what it is, and it will be nice outside. It might the humidity might not be too bad, but then that motherfucker rains, and then it's so god awful you can like taste it in your mouth. Oh.

The worst is whenever it's just a fifteen to twenty minute days and then it just lifts and the sun's out shining. It's just enough to make everything super wet and now superhumid.

It's some mosquitoes. It's some mosquitoes that pissed me off the most.

You got to make peace with them. You gotta make a deal with them.

No, they're bastards, like they should all die.

And then there's that chemical biological thing where some people just don't get.

Bit Yeah well I have that. I don't have that. I have that blood you got, I got that blood type. They're like hmm, it's all good girl, And I'm like, no, bitch, go away. Yeah, that's a thing.

That a thing anyway, All right, back to the Christmas conversation here. Christmas midwinter day in Antarctica, whyes on the solstice. Antarctica has a tradition believe it or not.

Wait, there's no settlements, so that are permanently They don't have permanent residence of Antarctica.

But they have had people working there quite some time. This goes back to eighteen ninety eight.

Eight turned narder Hurt in the year of all Old.

Indeed, on June twenty first, in the heart of Antarctica, which is their winter solstices in June, right the heart of Antartica comes alive with the winter solstice tradition of celebrating midwinter. For most national bases, this is the biggest event of the year, out shining even Christmas or other traditional holidays. The very first midwinter celebration dates back to eighteen ninety eight and is still a time filled with icy swims, gift exchanges, warm greetings, and plenty a festive fun.

Sounds like you just want to be there, no icy, icy swims.

I'm good, yummy.

So this is these people in Antarctica in the eighteen hundreds celebrating this. But I know it's ice wand nobody can go there, but whatever. Anyway, moving on, Saturnalia in Rome in Rome, which and you'll see on screen right now, these are people that are re enacting a Saturnalia parade for lack of better words, although they do not do the traditions of like the slaves and the masters swap

I actually thought it was Rome too, so I didn't know it was the UK.

Leave it to the British. Tell me more about your cultural appropriation anyway. Saint Lucia Day, okay. In Scandinavia, as with many modern celebrations, ancient festivals observing the winter solstice merged with the newer winter solstice rituals to create the holiday season as we know today. In Scandinavia, Saint Lucia Day, also known as Saint Lucie's Day, on December thirteenth is the solstice. By the old calendar, it marks the start

I don't know.

The Solstice, by the old calendar marks the start of the Christmas season. A procession of young women in white robes, red sashes and wreaths of candles on their heads lights the way through the darkness of winter, honoring Saint Lucia aka Saint Lucy. This festival incorporates pagan winter solstice traditions, marked by bonfires, ginger snaps, saffron flavored buns, and glog.

Glog is that like a grog. It's a it's an ale, okay, so it's a drink.

It's a drink, are traditionally served. Interesting Moving on, the dong Z Festival in China. So the dong Z Festival is a that is eight thousands. Yeah, it says a thousands, which is weird. So yeah, it's one thousands of years old festival that takes place between December twenty first and December twenty third each year. The day is celebrated with family gatherings and a big meal including rice balls called tang wan probably mispronounced it, my apologies. Thought to mark

I don't know if you've ever seen the festival and how they do it. It's not, oh, it's really cool people making like rice ball. Yeah, but they have a whole bunch of like cool stuff that they do with it, and the decorations are so vibrant and all out and stuff like that. So yeah, I know it's it's actually a really cool festival that's cool as hell.

And that's not really around the Chinese New Year, if I'm not mistaken. There's is like in was like September or something as the Chinese New Year.

I actually don't know. I just actually know that that festival in particular.

Google that because I want to misspeak on that, because I remember seeing Chinese New Year stuff every so often. It's like, wait, this is when they celebrate it and it's.

Not Stone Hinge.

Yeah, yeah, let's talk about this when the Stone Hinge gathering yet again.

England, I cannot wait to go, yeah to the festivals.

There's three festivals that they are.

They have now made such a big thing that you can actually travel to and I know a couple people that are going next year. Hell yeah.

So in England, although no one knows exactly why the ancient circle of stone Hinge was built, there's no denying it lines up with the movement of the sun. It's only it's one the global monuments built around the summer solstice. So we're talking about summer solstice and archaeological research suggests that winter solstice festivals happened there.

That makes sense. Oh it says the first day of the Chinese New Year falls on the new moon that appears between the twenty first of January and the twentieth of February.

Oh, I was off, I said September. So it's in January, but later in January it's the Chinese New year. H okay, fair enough.

So it says as of twenty twenty six, it will be February seventeenth.

Got you wow, middle of February. Yeah, that's interesting.

I don't know.

Sorry everyone, I interrupted the Stonehenge.

Sorry.

So they say that Winter Solstice festivals happened at Stonehenge as well. Historically speaking, modern rivelers have taken up the tradition gathering at dawn the day after the longest night to witness the magical occurrence of the sun rising through the stones. The best part, it's free of charge, although parking as limited. Visitors can even walk right up to the stones, an area usually roped off for the peaceful and sacred Winter Solstice celebration.

Yeah. So last year they had this really cool gathering that they did and they I watched the whole thing live while it was happening, and they were actually able to all go up to stone, the actual stones, and they had like about a thousand people gathered, and it was a really cool festival that they had, and they had one they had the certain performers that were being the stars of the whole festivities and stuff.

That's really cool.

Yeah, they all got dressed up everyone was in you know, garb. Everyone had their face painted and it was really cool.

Yes, indeed, hmm. So moving on, let's go into shab I Yalda in Iran. Okay, this's an ancient Persian festival, so this probably has its roots in Zoroastrianism rather than

I really like that. Actually, wow, I'm not gonna lie.

That's something I might want to adopt.

Eating watermelon for the solstice. Yeah, that's I didn't know.

Cool.

The pomegranates I could see, you know, that's that's definitely a thing.

Oh, hey, did you get the log? I did the poop dog will commence. I did. I did. I tell my kids all about it today. We actually I had pulled the article and they're like, Okay, we're pumped to do this, we need to do this.

I told my family about it, and they looked at me like I had a dick growing out in my forehead.

My kids were like, we wait, show me the picture. So I showed them the picture.

Not my kids, because we just came from a family get together, and I was telling my brother and my brother in law and my dad and they're like, they do what now? Shit out of this log knit poops, candy and presents and they're like, that's weird.

So I'm here for it though.

Even the article said the more you think about, the less sense it makes. Just roll with it, and they're like, nah, we're good, we're gonna I'm.

Like, I think we're gonna have to do tomorrow. Maybe we'll grab a watermelon. I think it's gonna have to happen if you can find one Walmart.

Does Walmart sell watermelons right now?

Probably they have no seasonal shit anymore. Really, they pretty much year round.

You can find chunks. I don't know if you'll be able to find a whole one, but you'll definitely able to find like chunks for sure.

All right, yeah, we'll make it, we'll make it. Oh yeah.

So if you eat summer fruits during the winter solstice, it will prevent you from.

What is it, kem burrow on the screen for.

Let's talk about that kaby bara toji, which is a festival in Japan the winter solstice in Japan called toji.

Do they eat them? Uh? Oh no?

Which you know, that's a thing that the Catholic Church had to give the blessing one.

To eat the kabby barro.

Okay, so tangent side tangent. This is so listen, listen, listen, listen, Linda. Okay, here's what happened. Everybody, listen, Linda, listen. So back in the day, back in the day when there was Jesuit missionaries that were working in Latin America Lent what happened and they had to get special permission to eat this animal during Lent because you're only supposed to eat fish. And they're like, listen, Pope, this animal spends more time in the water than on land. I think we should

Wild shit, y'all. Yep, I'm gonna leave that where it is.

Oh, it's ridiculous. It's fucking ridiculous. Although I want to try it, I'm assuming it tastes like neutra, which is delicious.

I don't know.

How are they nasty?

Is it the look they look like the beavers look better than they do.

They look like a stumptail beaver.

They just they crazy as shit looking.

They only eat fresh vegetation. They never eat anything rotten or bad.

It's just nasty looking. Every time I see when, I'm just like, oh, cru they're so tasty. They remind me. God, they remind me that movie where they had those big ash rats that would come across the screen. That's what they remind me.

Of, Princess Bride. Yes, yeah, all right.

I know, so sad, that's what it reminds me of, doing fucking nasty things. Anyway, So moving on here.

This is called toji in Japan, and it has a few interesting customs associated with it. Traditionally, a winter squash called kobacha is eaten, one of only a few crops that would have even been available in the days of old. You'll feel as if you were on a warm winter getaway after taking a hot bath with uzu yuzu uzu citrus frind fruits. So I guess it's like a their version of orange.

Okay.

The bath is believed to refresh the body and spirit, ward off illness and soothe dry winter skin.

It's actually really nice.

Apparently, rodents called kapy barrows love yu zoo bats as well, and in a modern twist on an age old tradition, some Japanese zoos will throw the fruit into the warm waters that the animals will soak in on the winter solstice.

Thank god they're not eating them, man, cause I mean Japan be and Japan was just out there for a second. I was like, oh God, they're like so beloved by the kids nowadays, and I'm like, oh real, Oh.

My daughter hates them because of what happened when we met them. Oh no, last Christmas or two Christmases ago. Excuse me. There was like this glorified massive petting zoo where you could also do pancakes with Santa, which for the record, I've never been to a positive pancakes with Santa get together.

There's none.

The pancakes are always super cold. There's always a massive line. You pay all this money to do this whole experience and then like it's it's yeah, it's kind of a waste. But the kids had fun for the most part. There was kapy bars and you could totally go up and pet them, and my daughter, having her long curly hair, was petting one of them and was kind of looking at it. Another one it came up and started eating her hair and it took a chunk.

Yeah.

Yeah, so she says, fuck those cat bonas.

So when I was younger, I went on a zoo trip to the zoo and I had really long hair, it was past my butt, and goats happened to super love long hair, and like I didn't have just one goat, I had multiple goats. I still don't fuck with goats. Well, I mean, I've worked with goats though that liked to scream at me while I was trying to clean horse stalls the entire time.

I don't know if you've ever heard goats screams.

They've gone viral multiple times. Yeh, No, but like obnoxiously. Like you hear the screaming goats, They're like, what cool? Unless you work with one.

You can't.

Even with death metal on, you'll hear this in the background non fucking stop, and it's like, okay, you shit, Yeah, it's the babies. Aren't even that bad, just certain ones. Alex Alex the goat. No, no offense to anybody named Alex, but yes, the goat was named Alex. His name is still Alex. He's alive, but yeah, he's a shit. Yeah, and I eat plastic.

My daughter does not fuck with kafy bars ever since then. But I mean to be fair with the Japanese culture of toji uh the whole kapy bar thing, that could have gone one of two ways.

I really thought they were gonna eat them.

But I saw the fruit. I saw them swimming in water. I'm like, oh, is that a pot?

Oh?

No, just eating just yes, shit, that's not the weirdest thing Japan has ever done.

Nope, you know.

But anyway, So now let's go to the next one, the Santo Tomas festival in Guatemala. Although the Catholic Church now observes the Feast of Saint Thomas on July third in Chichi Custennango, Chichi Cosenango. I think I might have killed it. Guatemala. The festival is still celebrated for a week leading up to the winter solstice on December twenty first. Why likely because it's a mix of the Catholic ceremony with the native Mayan rituals that may have been timed

I like this, good for them?

What?

Yeah? No, I like this, this is this is wonderful. Good job.

I don't want to try bungee jumping like that. That's crazy. I wanted to jump bungee jumping, but not just for the fuck of it.

I mean, it's for the festival. So you know, here we go, and.

There's no way of knowing if that pole, that rope is like stretchy or if it's just going.

To cut hard. That's just a you know, it's one of those fucker and find out moments.

Guatemalans are wild, Okay, hell yeah? Continuing on soil from the Hopi tribe, which very very interesting tribe as far as the Native Americans are concerned. The indigenous Hope people of present day the northern Arizona celebrate the winter solstice as part of their religious tradition honoring kachina or catsina,

I bet yeah.

The English be wild. They be doing a lot of weird shit.

They just be taking cultures from here and a little bit from there, and now it's British. It's not though, it's not. Y'all are just mixing and matching over here. They took over the entire world with all the spices and used none of them. But whatever, that's a thing, yo.

They eat some weird ass ship.

They just be boiling everything for the fuck of it.

Oh my god. Some of their food though, some of their food is just why. Yeah, I don't under don't understand, but that's I mean, that's every culture has a lot of weird shit. Though.

They put beans on toast and breakfast.

I was sitting here thinking about beans on toast, but I wasn't. The dishwashing thing, though, What you've never heard about the dish washing. Break it down, okay real quick before we get back to this. So they don't rinse their dishes after they wash them, after they wash them, after they wash them. Now, you guys might all think that I'm crazy. Go to fucking TikTok and Instagram and look at them tons of people.

Wait, when you get your dishes out of the dishwasher, you rinse them.

No, they're hand washing them. Oh, and they're not rinsing them. They're hand washing and not rinsing. They're ye like, let it.

Then, I'm trying. I'm trying to make sure I understanding yourself.

The leave residue on it, They leave the soap residue on it. And I've seen so many videos of people agreeing that this is what they do, and they're like, why are you guys crashing out about this? What the fuck you mean? Why are we crashing out about that? That's like the people that wash the chicken all weird and they like bleach it out or whatever. Yeah, yeah, that's you know, have you seen people make the Oh god, have you seen people make the lasagna in the dishwasher?

You listen, listen, oh white people, let's have a conversations, not.

Just why it's not just white people. I've seen what No, it's not just white.

Name a culture that's doing the other than the white people.

Well, this this is a mixed race, uh you know country and no time out, time out.

You're telling me there is black and Hispanic people that are making lasagna and dishwashers.

One of them that I saw was of a different ethnicity than white. So yeah, no, there's some wild shit going on.

What the only acceptable thing? And I will give a weird caveat to this. I've never done it, but I have seen it done, and I could maybe have this conversation steaming vegetables no soap, but you're basically running the dishwasher and you're steaming like a massive amount of vegetables at the same time for like a big party. It sounds crazy, but it does work.

I don't even understand now, but yeah, so apparently this is a thing that happens in England with some people. Now I cannot speak to being ever over there, so I don't know if this is like actually base, but I have seen a whole bunch of people and content creators say that this is a real thing. Then I read the comments of people from England being like, yet, no, I don't know why you're crashing out about this. I'm sorry, what.

What's that's a little absurd, Like they're just leaving giant clumps of like soap resident in the bubbles like on the side, and it just dries.

I guess I don't know any especially.

So just like diarrhea, especially especially you with like how crazy you are with your dishes. I can only imagine how you'd feel how.

Crazy I am with my dishes.

You No, No, I mean all of us are like cleanly about, but.

There's only a few things in my house I really care about as far as like cleanliness goes.

My mom is one of those people that triple wash their dishes.

Like she'll wash it, rinse it off, potentially wash it again, then put it in the dish washing And I'm like, white, why are you doing all that work? Mom?

No, I'll hand washed to get like the chunks off and stuff. But like that's and usually it's no soap unless it's needed. If it's a dish you have to hand wash or whatever. He's like, you know, a scrub Daddy will go hard and then like you put in the dish washer and it's good to go.

But anyway, I had to just tell you about that since we were talking about England and they're weird shit now for the England, because I know we do have English listeners, cult members, cult members, so if you can confirm or deny this is a real.

Thing, that would be great because.

Also for the Australian and New Zealand people, because so many cultural things from Britain have made their way and then there are certain very different cultural things. But just curious that this is the thing for Australia, New Zealand anything in the British Commonwealth.

Apparently it's literally own in English.

I should hope he we have Irish listeners too, Yo, hit us up in Ireland. Do y'all be rinsing your dishes when you're done because this is kind of a thing we need to talk about.

Well, I knew you're gonna have a fit about it.

I'm not having a fit. That's just it makes no sense, that's absurd.

Yeah, no, I get it.

These people just love tearing their stomachs up.

What about the rice thing about rinsing rice or not rinsing rice, that's a heavily debated topic about people.

So some people have issues with extra starch. I don't understand it.

But whatever, you know, there's a lot of different people do a lot of weird stuff, and include.

You know, washing the chicken. That is the thing that I didn't realize was such a cultural divide between white and black America.

I mean, I washed my chicken sometimes when it has that slimy residue to it. That's the only time I'll actually wash it. But I mean i'll cut the I'll cut the bad parts off of it and the fact I'll trim it up and stuff like that. But if it has like that weird feeling to it, I'm just gonna rinse it off real quick. I'm not gonna sit there and scrub my shit. I have seen people use dond dishwash soap online. I'm not joking you, Okay, I'm not joking. I've seen all sorts of weird shit.

Ye know, A squirt of lemon and then rinse it under the sink real quick before you wash. That's all it really takes, y'all. We don't have to do all this. Extorists. You don't need to use bleach. I saw the video somebody using bleach. I genuinely thought I thought it was satire.

I thought it was for the content. Yeah. No, I've seen a lot of stuff that I believe is actually fake and satire. But you see so many people do it over and over again. It's like, Okay, is that is that fake? Or is that not?

Because it's kind of confusing, But I don't know.

We fucked up someone.

Hopefully while you are eating your beautiful Christmas dinner right now. You are not having weird soapy food or you are not having weird bleached chicken either. You're having delicious, amazing food.

Like could you imagine?

Tell me what you're eating, by the way, like I want to hear what other everybody else? Yeah, because I've already currently I'm having a situation with a turn at my house because I'm cooking in Turkey tomorrow for the Christmas celebration, and somebody, not to mention names myself, I forgot to pull it out. So we're doing the rapid defrost situation right now.

And so what do you mean rapid defrost like in a pot of hot water.

In the bathtub?

Fuck it, I've done it.

I've done it before. Don't worry everybody. I cleaned out the bathtub. It's still in the wrapper. It's still on the wrapper. But I know. But people are like, no, I washed the bathtub first.

And then with all the we've talked about these people and soap, do not come at us for.

Apparently I forgot to put it back in the I forgot to take it out of the freezer. I thought I did, and then I was got home tonight and I looked at it and went, oh my god, I have like ten hours. Ah, so it's a vibe right now. But I'm doing the you know, deviled eggs and the cast role because I'm what, you know, I hate that I'm allergic to a because I used to so good then they're my favorite. I'm doing the rice crispy treats. I'm doing the cool Lot cheese. I'm doing the cheese.

And look at you assimilating to the culture. Wait where did you get it? This is important?

Oh?

I got it way out in like Port Vincent area.

I went. I went to like those little mom Paw shops and I was like, I don't.

Know it's called it's got a giant pig on the sign.

Yeah good, yeah, yeah. I was like, hey, you got some hoghead cheese? They had two blocks left, and I was like, oh, I got one, secured it. I love it.

For anybody who doesn't know what hoghead cheese is, you are missing out. It's also the same as saying like you don't know what budhan is, Like listen, you're missing out, and that's okay. If you ever come through Louisiana, you do need to try both. And it's it's uh, it's just the way it.

Just what about the blood, uh, the blood put it? Yeah, the blood pudding.

Uh so black black and white pudding, which is blood sausage and pork sausage. I'm gonna be honest with you. I've tried it. People make it out to be nasty. Shit's good, Shit's good. I fuck with it.

I've only actually seen it made twice by two different people.

I've never seen it made. Now, calm down, you mean cooked or you mean like like tubed up.

Like tubed up and like actually like made.

I don't want to know. I never want to see the sausage getting made. Just tell me if it's so.

I saw so. I saw somebody make it one time, and then I actually saw like the after like they just got done making it, and I was like, you know, it's it's one of those things where it's like I don't I don't think I canna like make my mouth not.

Stop watering, and you can't watch how it's made that us everything.

It does, it really does.

Now I've had some blood sausage to where it's like black pudding, uh to where it is a lot more sage heavy, and that's like all you can taste. And I've had some that's a little more on the blood side, and it's it's got more of a savory vibe.

Yeah, more of an iron tang to it.

It depends some of its dog shit, some of it's really good, depends on you.

Know, my dad had it.

Actually, my dad got it for us an Organ.

I believe it. You you're talking about how Organ is such an eclectic place. I could understand.

It has a lot of different cultures to it. And he loved like Polish dogs and all this stuff. So he would like find all these little weird places to get food in Washington and Organ.

And be honest with you, I put brought worst over kill bossa any day. That's just my Oh.

My dad was a brought worst fiend. I get down every every kind of sausage you could think of. He was like a connoisseur of sausage. So it was his whole vibe.

And then I also like on Dewey.

But actually like on Dewey but speaking of sausages, back to England, what a weird segue. I don't know. I don't know. I just think of like they would maybe potentially fuck with sausage. But oh yeah, yeah, I thought they did.

The Bangers show, that's why. And blood blood pudding is sausage.

Okay, see, okay, okay, fair enough.

So now getting back to the list here. Burning the Clocks in Brighton, England, fire needed to light the dark days of winter has traditionally been a part of winter Solstice celebrations. The modern day Burning of Clocks festival in the seaside town of Brighton took up that notion for its early or for its yearly Solstice parade, bonfire and fire show. Okay, a parade of bonfire and a fire

It's like a burning man for them.

It seems like, look, these are the lanterns. These are huge. You got a witch doctor over here. You got a hot air balloon, you got a Star.

You know what, that sounds really fun. I love all these different festivals that we've been learning about. It sounds like great times everywhere around the world.

It really does. I don't know when that started, but that's legit. Oh, this is one. This is one of my favorites. And as much as you want to go to the burn not burning man, I'm sorry for a stone in trecked, Yes, So as much as you want to go to Stonehenge, I want to go to New Grange.

Oh I know where this is, and yeah, I know what you're talking about. I know what this is.

So let's talk about New Grange and the gathering there in Ireland.

This tomb is so cool, by the way it is.

And oh, it's so amazing. Let's read into it. So the five thousand, two hundred year old New Grange Passage tomb and ancient temple are aligned to the winter solstice. I'm going to say that again for those in the back. This tomb predates the Pyramids five two hundred year old.

It is a really cool story to the whole background and history of it.

They have a really cool YouTube video all about this.

And they have a couple of different beliefs as far as what it may have been used for, right, they think it was a tomb. It may have like it said, it was a tomb and temple. I think it may have been used for multiple things over the years.

For sure, I think it was a temple, to be honest with you.

But there's also like little I don't want to call them cubby holes, but there's like little spots where they have found human remains. So are these the remains of whatever ruling family there was? Is this the remains of whatever high priest or high druid was there at that time?

Like there's so many killing off people to sacrifices.

Maybe the druids weren't known for human sacrifice, but it wasn't a thing that they They definitely did, but it wasn't like their main thing. So maybe I don't know.

Maybe they are special sacrifices, or maybe they are high priests and you know, high priests or something like that.

Yeah kings, I mean, who knows, who knows? But anyway, so this temple slash tomb in in Ireland, rather a small opening above the entrance fills with light on several sunrises surrounding the solstice gradually extending throughout the chamber to illuminate it. The dramatic effect lasts for seventeen minutes. Although the exact reason the tomb was created this way isn't known, it's speculated that it marks the beginning of a new

I've I've seen it in the inside and will I would totally want to do it and be able to see it. It's really cool for seventeen minutes, and it makes you really believe. I mean, it makes you really question, you know, why and how do they decide to do all these things?

And see this is using sacred geometry in building structures. I one hundred percent get down with this. So many people on the internet take sacred geometry to mean so many things that have no basis in facts whatsoever. When we have actual architectural buildings that still stand today that use sacred geometry.

Thinking geometry is really fascinating too. Really, I forget why I had to read into it. We did an episode with somebody base forg Yeah, and that's why I ended up reading a whole bunch into it even more because I kind of had a base knowledge of it, but I wanted to know more before went into that. It's super fascinating and I mean, it's interesting how it was used in the time periods in which it was used in and how they knew so much, and that kind of goes ties into how I feel like we've lost

Agreed, Absolutely, agreed. Moving onward. Illuminations California's mission churches, Okay, an illumination effect similar to that scene in Ireland's New Grange Tomb have been discovered halfway around the world in more recent though still old structures mission churches in California and Latin America, such as Old Mission San Juan Bautista, built by Spanish missionaries in the late eighteenth and early

The church appears.

The churches appear to have been built purposely to align with the sun's path and what could have been an effort to merge the indigenous people's reverence for the solstice with the Christian beliefs. Today, people gather at the churches to witness this recently rediscovered phenomenon and celebrate with the Native American and Catholic traditions.

You know what it reminds me of is Uh Indiana Jones. You know when they have to put the poll in and has the eye. You know how they put the pull in and with the eye and they have the mirror. Yeah, and the mirror and it comes through the light and it shows in. Yeah. It just I don't know, maybe totally think of that.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

Now, let's go to South Korea and let's talk about dong.

G It's like gridbeans and rice, isn't it.

It kind of looks like that, right. But also I think, are these of these dates and peanuts?

I think that's states and peanuts.

Yeah, interesting, Okay. In South three of the winter solstice is known as Donge. One of the winter solstice rituals includes eating red bean porridge called pot joke. Red is considered to be a lucky color, so the dish is meant to keep bad spirits away while embracing good wishes for the coming year. Other Dongy traditions include giving calendars, as Korean kings used to do, and socks. Okay, so the kings would give calendars, that seems like a weird gift.

That's a weird gift for a keen to give. But the socks thing makes sense because I give socks every single year for Christmas. Every year, without fail, I'm giving people socks. I don't know why either. It's been a thing though since I was a child. I got socks every year. I still get socks. And then I give my kids socks, yeah, and my mom. So I don't know, it's weird.

It's a weird thing that like this makes sand America too, for sure, the socks, But like the kings giving people calendars. Hell, I mean, there's a we have a family member that will make calendars every year for like the upcoming year, and like put and people all of the family members pictures on like birthdays and all this stuff. And that's like a really thoughtful gift. I'm not shitting on the calendar as a gift, but for ancient Korean kings, always.

To let them know that, like, hey, you have to work Monday through Friday, don't worry, but I extended every single day of the year. Yeah, just so you know that you have no days off.

And this is a day where Korean's wish for snow as cold weather on the winter solstice is said to bring a bountiful harvest. Okay. Interesting. And the last on this list is the Montola England in Cornwall, England. Jesus England, y'all love, y'all Solstice shit, I love this a reinterpretation of ancient Cornish winter Solstice rituals. The Winter Solstice festival of Montol, begun in two thousand and seven in the town of Penzance, celebrates the culture of England's westernmost peninsula.

Okay, so I guess we're gonna need to make a trip to England for all the Winter Solstice activities.

Yeah, but we're gonna have to be in four places at once.

Are they all on the same day, all on.

The Solstice the twenty first?

Well, I mean it's not like England's that big though. You can literally drive the whole thing.

That's very true.

And I mean, shit, we drove twenty four hours. We could make a three hour drive. It's like boom boom way, It's not that it's that big. I couldn't believe when so many they made a comparison of like how big this the country is versus how big a state is here, and.

I was like, no way, Yeah, well you could easily drive that bitch.

You could take the damn trains and like all in one day.

People in the schol Festival. If fuck, people in Europe don't really get like grasp how large America is, because I mean, if you live in France, you could jump on a train and be in three different countries over the course of a weekend and just go out and do your thing. In America, it's like, yo, it will take you give or take twelve hours to drive across Texas.

My god, I hate driving across Texas. I hate drive. I will say that again. I passionately hate with every fire room my being driving across Texas. I have been like it so many times.

There's so many BUCkies and so many as I hate.

I hate driving across that state. It just takes way too long. And I just it's never ending because.

They don't want you to leave. That's the point.

I I'm good. I'm really good. I'll say that though. I just I love all the little memes and stuff where you see people make on the internet of you know, of people from Europe and they're like, oh man, it's never ending. And they're driving across like one of our small estates. Yeah, and they're like so long, and I'm like, no, you're in and out in like four or five hours. What are you talking about.

I've been driving for three hours and I'm still in Delaware, Like, oh brother, oh man, you just made some traffic.

That's all. Yeah too.

Wait wait, till you get to some of the other states.

It takes so long.

So now let's go into the Pagan festival of Yule. And I do think this would be a good place for us to start before we start kind of peeling back the layers on some of these things. This is from the Orton Academy, which is a UK publication. Again UK doing the things.

Is this one I gave you yep, oh, okay, it's an eight minute read.

Okay, So the Pagan Festival of Yule. In our last post we dived into the debate about pagan origins of Christmas, but it's also illuminating and fairer to both Christians and Pagans to think about the festivals separately. So this week we are taking a look at the pagan festival of Yule. For Northern European Pagans, the season of Yule was a time for feasting and merrymaking vowels, ghosts and witches. The power of the spirits was at its height on Yule's Eve.

What that word was me either. When I read it, I was like, palm, I'm gonna have to look that up, but thankfully they gave us a translation.

So yeah, and it contains the phrase fruma Yules, which means either first part of Yule or before Yule. The Old English Martyrology The Study of Martyrs Wow, a collection of saints biographies written in the late ninth century, calls the twenty fifth of December the first Yule day. December is called former Yule, in January is called after Yule. Very interesting, Minnie. Pagans today celebrate Yule on the winter solstice.

Okay, so that so the Jewelian Yeah, yes, That's what I was getting at.

Very interesting. Bede's detor I'm not Gonna The Reckoning of Time, written around seven point thirty a d. Says that the lunar month of Guile corresponds with December and January, and that the English calendar began on the twenty fifth of December. Wow.

Yeah, So this dude, from everything that I can find, he is he is the one of two people that is commonly referred to the discussion of Yule is brought up, the Betty guy, and this other one is a monk that's been brought into it too. So there's two people that they've found the most literature about Yule and when potentially it could have been or could not have been started. And so you'll see his name. He gets brought up

And the Yule season absolutely predates the written documentation vibe.

I'm sure a long show goes into more about it. This is actually a really interesting read I found. But there's a lot of different ones that I did find of scholars arguing back and forth about the specific dates the Yule, its celebration itself and the festivities and what happened, what didn't happen, and if it's pre your post Christian influence.

Say, but that is what we are diving into on this very episode. Good cult members, so continuing here, says Beid Betty or beide No, I'm not sure how to pronounce that b E d E. He also mentioned the Pagan festival of mandrain Act, which is Mother's Night, which he says the Pagan celebrate on the eighth calends of January,

Wodin.

The English version of Odin was considered to be an ancestral chieftain from whom the Anglo Saxon Kings were descended, so much so that Beade includes him in his genealogy of the Anglo Saxon Kings. This is important because youll feasts are connected to the king in pagan texts in Helmscrilla heimskrilla Springla.

I've I am terrible with the saying this word. It's like heimspringler, Okay, something like that. Yeah, that's the it's the sagas. Yeah.

So this is a thirteenth century collection of sagas about Norwegian kings by Snorley Stirluson. We get a description of a ritual banquet. Quote. At this banquet everyone had to take part in the ale drinking. All kinds of domestic animals are slaughtered there, including horses, and all the blood that came from them was called halt, which is lot and what the blood was contained in halt bowls and

Yeah, And this guy actually did a lot of things, pissed off a lot of people because he forced Christianity on so many people in a really not pleasant way.

On his own people, let's keep that in mind his own tribesmen. Yeah, and I've so this.

Is the same dude we talked about the other day.

Yeah, that there's a lot of different debates about why he decided that this was like this is a fucking way, and let's destroy all of our actual beliefs that we've had for so long.

So I've looked into him. I can't find any evidence to say if this was a strategic move for him, and I absolutely understand that argument for sure. He didn't gain anything from it. He gained the favor of Rome, but that didn't help him in any of his endeavors. That didn't help his tribe or his nation get put on the map in any noticeable way. He didn't whenever he would call his banners to wage war on like

He could have just, I don't know, taken it upon himself to just be Christian then and leave everyone else alone to be able to practice the way that they want to practice their faith.

But you know they could have but the live and let live ideals of Christianity, that might be what the church was founded on. But then when you get to the Middle Ages, that kind of went by the wayside, And now we're at a level of Christianity now where we're kind of back to it by a lot of standards. There are those that are outliers that absolutely are trying to force conversions on people. I know this, but by and large, most Christians are not trying to force conversions

I don't think that's because they saw the light some of their friends.

Well, yeah, some of his friends. I don't think that's because they just saw the love of Christ and they saw the light by any means, And I don't they don't say that it was based out of fear either, but those are like his close croup, right, that's like his top dogs. I suppose the lower levels of his tribes they had a different experience for sure. So anyway,

I would say, so is hedonistic.

Eating horse flesh is not hethenistic.

It was viewed as such.

Well, if it was the horse that was sacrificed for this purpose, then like, okay, it's seen as like maybe tainted.

Yeah, I know that's they they sacrificed the sacrifice, it for.

The blood, and it's viewed as he's a inistic so he refused to partake, and at that point, like you're shitting all over your people and their customs, and yeah, fuck you.

But he's also a king and his power is the ultimate authority. So that's also kind of crazy that they were thinking of attacking the king during a Yule feast, which goes against the Nordic tradition as well of hospitality. You don't attack somebody at a feast.

Well, I mean, he pissed off enough people and like, I mean he was forced converting people, but was.

Racing them to not eat the horse. He just chose that he wasn't going to eat the horse.

True, but if you look into everything else he did, he pretty much told them that you will buy by Christianity, or you will pay a fine, or you'll die from Eventually he's he attacks his people that didn't convert.

So no, yeah, yeah, I mean to what all like went into that as far as like did he get to a point because it just says now at the next Yule feast, eight Norwegian chiefs resolved to root out Christianity and to oblige the king to offer sacrifice to the gods. Priests were killed and churches burned, and the king was told that he should offer sacrifice under threat of violence. So keep in mind this was the first Yule. He's like, nah, I'm just not going to take part

Sure, I mean when your entire I mean, we don't know the context, but when your entire way of life is being forcibly taken from you and told that you can't practice the way that you've practiced for generations. Because this one person decided to go convert to Christianity as it's spreading across.

But hold on, he wasn't taken away the Yule feast the very next Yule feast does.

Though, like after this, okay, but listen, but he says it says right here though that h he wants to change it so that it's in that it's the same time as the Christian people observed a Christmas. And then he's he's wanting to convert it into Christian holiday and not and take away from Yule.

But nothing about taking away sacrifices. He just said that he wasn't going to participate all these other kings.

When but then if you look at it, though, Odin and the king are tied and won, and so if you're not if the King is not participating, then it's basically saying fuck you to Odin and fuck you to his people.

But he's allowing everybody to practice in their own way.

But he is the he is the closest to Odin, and so that's it's basically like saying if it was a Catholic priest or you know, the pope, for example, saying if the Pope was like, you know what, fuck you God today, I'm not going to do the most sacred thing in our in one of our practices, and everyone else just has to like deal with it.

We had that with the last before he died.

Okay, but I'm I'm simply saying these people were very true, like rooted in traditions, and if you win against the gods, you brought bad luck and everything else to everybody. And they're very superstitious, and so for him, that is the closest to got to their one of their gods pretty much says fuck you, I'm not going to participate in this because now I decided to become a Christian and if you don't do what I want and do it at this time, then you're gonna have to pay a fine.

Is there any record to say that that happened between the mules, because all we hear is the first you when he got Christianized, he said he's not going to participate the next day violence.

So the one article that I read did go into him, I'll have to I could pull it up again, and probably that did talk about his reign, and he pretty much went from like it's okay, I'm Christian. This is what I want to do to every one of you have to be Christian, burn every single long house, do all of this note like this I could imagine. So no, this was before they attacked him, before they said this

So so this is all after or before the Norwegian chiefs resolved to route out Christianity and murder priests in their churches and burn them to the ground and force a cone to eat horse liver.

Well, maybe don't be a dick and try to erase your entire history.

I would like to see the dates to see. I'm not saying that you're wrong. I don't know this now.

I'm gonna have to look it up.

It's very possible that this did happen in that one year time span, but if you look at the entire reign of his time, this all could have taken place after he got Christianized.

Well, we will, we will look, we will. While you're reading, I will be looking up.

Yeah, yeah, let's do that. So next toasts, oath and the sacred boar, three important elements of the pagan festival of Yule. Where toasts, oaths and the sacred boar. There is evidence of this North literature the Helga helgakevita, Oh

Oaths, that people that they survived being able to take their boats in such dangerous waters. It blows my mind.

I mean a lot of that is towards the really crazy engineering that went into those So that's dope. But wait, wait is that what is that article source? By the way, because that looks very similar to the one we're going to read in a bit.

Oh, I'm just trying to find one that actually goes into his his reign, because there's there's two different one, two different Hakna or how you say his name. Yeah, so there's the one that we're reading right now, it's h a k o N. And then there's the last standing Norwegian Viking chief that is h a a k o N and he is like really renowned for being like the last stronghold of paganism and the vikings and stuff.

So yeah, not this guy, No, this guy.

So there's there's this, So there's different years in between when this happened and stuff.

So I'm currently trying to see exactly for this one.

I'm trying to remember the Norwegian king Hakone convert to Christianity in England.

Yeah, I didn't see his dates. I think that he's in the five hundreds. Maybe I need to see exactly. I'm trying to see when it was.

Do your thing, raven uh. The sacred Boar was an important part of the Yule festival. It was consecrated to Frere, the Norse got of fertility, prosperity, peace, sunshine, and good harvest. Okay, Frere rode on a boar called gul and Bursty. In a prose Eta or in the pros at A, a thirteenth century collection of Norse mythology associated with Icelandic historian and poet Snorley Sirlison. The Guilfen nae ning Yep says that Frere drove in his chariot with the boar called gold

So this does say that if this is the right correct person. Hawk On, son of Harold Finnhair, brother to Eric blood Axe, became king in nineteen thirties. His attempt to convert his subjects was met with such success that he actually ended up becoming a pagan again. Yeah, so I don't know if this is the correct one or not, so I'm trying to find more information on him. Okay, but it's possible that this is the same one. They

Enough, fair enough. So that's what I'm saying, is, if that is the guy which I don't think it is, honestly, because if that's the guy, you're telling me that he went on a mass raid and murdered a ton of his people, just convert to paganism at the end. That that sounds very unlikely to me. But Vikings be doing Viking shit, I don't know. One of the few vestiges of the sacred Boar of Yule today can be found

It didn't make lost sense either.

So it's saying that Christian men won't eat meat the day before Christmas because they feast on the following day. I guess that's what I extrapolated from that one. But all right, Glam a dead man who has become a restless spirit, became because he refused to follow Christian customs and committed evil deeds in his life. Uh, he lay not quiet, and his supernatural activity was all the worse during Yule. Glam took to writing the house roofs at night, so that he went nigh to breaking them in. Now

Old English is rough. Man, it is, it's rough to understand. Sometimes.

I've had to reread Dante's Inferno so many times just to make sure that I like got all of it, because it's written in such ways, and I'll have to stop and be like, all right, what the fuck is durst men? Like, are we talking Fred.

Durst Durstman fire up into the dale?

What the fuck is the dale? I don't know, actually, and I know people in the comment section, No, the dale is this you're so don't listen. I don't fucking know. I barely speak American English or right, calm down, But anyway, it is what it is, so continuing on, it, says today's Yules. Association with the supernatural can be seen in the English tradition of watling, which involves singing, drinking, bonfires,

Oh, there's just so much literature that I'm gonna have to like read through because there's like two different ones. But then they say one of them says that they're the same person, but the other ones say that that's two different people, two different kings.

Yeah, so what the source is?

And yeah, I would have to sit and read it. And I'm wanting to like listen to this, and so it's one of those scenes of if I misspoke, I might have misspoken. But from the one text that I did read was from Where Is She From? She's a scholarly lady that was talking about it, and she said pretty much that this person was seen as at first really good for his people, and then he converted. He decided to quote convert to Christianity. Then he went on a terror pretty much, and then I didn't really read

I mean we have to question this source as well, honestly like to say that, oh well, he didn't stop his people from participating in the ule sacrifices. He just wasn't going to do it himself. So I know, how incredible.

This is just one of like fifteen different sources I found just right off the top, and I picked it because it had a lot of different aspects to the mule traditions overall, because I thought it just brought in a lot of different characteristics. But I did read different stuff from different sources when we were looking the other day, and so it's kind of one of those scenes that there's certain certain things that everyone can say without a doubt.

So indeed, all right, so let's continue with this English. There are a lot of suggestions about the other pagan Yule traditions that survive at Christmas time today, but many of these are from oral narratives rather than historical texts. Vernacular narratives themselves are really valuable, but these pre modern texts can also help us to make an uh make help us to make a start in understanding the historical pagan festival of Yule.

H okay. And so then, like you'll see, they have like religious if you go back up going so fast, I'm sorry right there, no find out more, find out more. It has like religious studies, history, anthropology, it has like this doctor that talks about it. They have there's just all sorts of different links that you can keep clicking on and like throughout this this article in particular, they have links to go to like different things to learn more about stuff. And then it's it's one of those

In Sweden's backstory is completely different than Danish backstory.

It's it's interesting, yeah whose story, which story is correct or which version is correct?

So agreed. So now, good cult members, we are going to go to this article and I'm gonna be honest with you. It is lengthy, and I promise we are going to be stopping for some conversation throughout it. This is History for Atheists, which is the name of the website here, and it talks about pagan Chris Smith's.

Again now twenty twenty four.

This was written right, and so this is going to break down a lot of these myths that we've heard on the internet so many times about oh, this is clearly pagan in origin because dot dot dot, and there may be a kernel of truth to that statement. But then if you look at the historical context to it, it actually doesn't take from the Pagans. If anything, it was a Christian thing that might have been close to

So I think the problem is is the term pagan and the term yule. I was thinking about this earlier tonight about why this conversation kind of like irks me a little bit, is because I guess when you're talking about Abrahammick religions, they essentially have demonized anything that isn't pertaining.

Specifically to the way that they practice.

And Yule has been demonized as this you know, pagan potentially which satanic thing that has transpired, and so people have been persecuted and have been you know, even probably potentially killed. I'm not going to say outright, but yeah, but killed over this, over these one of these beliefs, and there seem to be demonic or you know, practicing Satanism or something like that because they aren't adhering specifically

It is because for the record, everybody, Yule is a season. It is it's like a calendar month. It's from like the middle of December to the middle of January, give or take depending on which calendar you're looking at. It's not the pagan winter fire festival or the time where they are summoning thor And it is literally a calendar date. It's a month. They'd be like saying, we're celebrating the month of February. You hear that it's the it's the

Doing with the camera? Oh, it's like it was like falling down. I mean, there's it's just it's interesting to me that this is something that has been And.

That's also why I don't like demonizing pagan cultures. There are some pagan deities that we can look at and say, you know what, that might be based in some sort

I just find it interesting that even now, you know, paganism in different forms of paganism, neopaganism is on the rise, and it's still being sought out after the I mean specifically I'll just use Christianity because that's the one that's like really pushing its agenda on social media platforms that this is of the devil. Anybody that practices any of

Wreaths are based in Christianity, they're literally based off the Catholic candelabra that they use on a yearly basis. That's where the wreath with the evergreens first started. That's insane that people think that wreaths are pagan or satanic for that matter.

Oh, I mean, you name it anything that is the eulog.

Friends, we're gonna I'm gonna get him out of itself. This article goes into all of it. But like I said, yeah, we'll get back to the article, but I'm sure we are going to be stopping to have a good little conversation about so many things that are brought up on this article. But like we're talking about here, even Halloween, right, and we talked about that on the Halloween episode.

A jack O.

Lantern, Well that's because the Pagans and that was skulls. The story of the jack O lantern is a Catholic who made a deal with the devil and he made a lantern out of a turnip. That's why his name was jack That's a very popular Irish treat. But somehow, yes, pumpkins are clearly satanic. People are fucking retarded.

Well, I mean that's the big push though the last few years the Christian Church has been against so against Halloween, and so many people have been turning away from Halloween. We don't celebrate it. It's of the devil, it's evil, it's demonic.

People do take it too far, And I'll give you that. Like, I mean, I'm not saying like you shouldn't have the blood and the guts and do whatever. Do who celebrated however the hell you want to. Okay, fine, if you are putting up demonic iconography and you're doing that to like lean that way into Halloween, then like okay, maybe not do that. Maybe, but also like do you as a free country, you do a joint? You can worship the devil freely if you so choose. It's your prerogative, you know.

I think it's just really frustrating to a lot of people that are struggling with wanting to be potentially in the church or they're shying away from the church because it's such man, they're just a bunch of judgmental that's the best way to say it. I don't know how to be nice about and politically correct.

I don't understand it. They're like afraid of losing their congregates even though Christianity is the number one rising religion on Earth right now, and it's not even close.

It's just very It's just I don't I don't know. They are so judgmental that so many of them, not all question all even no, I don't want it. I'm not going to use you know, whole terms of everyone is this now. There are some that are very judgmental, that are very.

Oh I've met Pagans that are super judgmental as well. I don't doubt it.

I mean, at this point, everyone's kind of out for their own religion and there's no just simple conversation of you know, hey, you believe what you want to believe. I believe what I want to believe. We can just kind of like chill and do whatever together and that just be what it is.

But that's also part of the human condition, isn't it. It's like everybody is seeking that validation like, oh, you claim that you're a Christian, well, how Christian are you? Oh you claim that you're a pagan, Oh how pagan are you? When's the last time you've dot dot dot?

Do you do this?

And it's they have that my own thing? But no, no, no, I.

Truly I truly just do my own thing. And I know that people have asked me. I've seen a couple of the comments ask me where I'm at, and I've kind of talked about it when I first took over and stuff. I just personally do my own stuff, and like I have no problem with whatever you know you want to do. It's just I just find it this conversation to be interesting because when I first because I came, I grew up in a very Christian home, and so when I first talked about doing pagan traditions, it was

And non Christian pagan by definition just means non Christian.

No, no, it's but for people that are raised in the Christian Church, and like that's what you've been brought up when at least in my in my instance, is that word in particular is synonymous with the devil, and you're you're definitely practicing witchcraft. You're trying to summon demons, you're trying to turn you're trying to sell your soul. Like you're just like completely.

Because there's a duality. There's either side of the light or the side of the dark. And if you're not of Christ, then you're obviously of Satan. And that's what people have been taught for centuries. So like, I get it, I absolutely do. But again, I think that a lot of the especially historic paganism, some of it you can see,

Yes, And to be fair though, I will say that blood sacrifice of animals and then putting the blood in does actually help grow plants. So like when they would sacrifice animals and they would drain their blood and they would take it out to their crops and they would feed the plants the blood, that actually does scientifically work. Yes, So I'm you know, now, do I say human sacrifices of the vibe? No, let's not human sacrifice people.

But then you get these people like, so what's the difference between an animal life and a human life? I'm like, there's literally a whole lot, Like you know, planes and cars and buildings and shit air conditioning.

I mean, there's a lot to be said between the two and stuff, but that's that. Conversation has been brought up on the cold a few times about souls, and we've talked in depth about it on lives and things like that. But yeah, no, anyways, to the Christian, Pagan Christians and Christmas again.

Let's talk about it. So the Pagan Christmas. Again, Every year, without fail, we find endless articles, memes, and claims on social media that about the supposed pagan origins quote unquote of Christmas. As with Halloween and Easter, anti theis or atheists activists find themselves in furious agreement with neo Pagans and even some evangelical Christians that the date and virtually all of the main customs of tradition and traditions of

So on screen, right now, we have an.

Image, right a meme mistletoe pagan fertility ritual. Tree decorations, lights and baubles are a Roman Saturnalia tradition. An angel on top of the tree derived from Greek and Assyrian gods. The tree pagan fertility symbol. The yule log symbolic of Mithra, god of the sun, most likely born in September. By the way, Jesus not December, dropped wholesale over the Roman Saturnalia festival was the reason for the season gifts Babylonian tradition.

All the things.

And we know that Jesus was born in September give or take probably, so why did they just decide on December twenty fifth. Let's get into it here. A remarkable number of these quote unquote pagan Christmas ideas are ultimately Christian in origin. This is because much of the Protestant tradition adopted the sola scriptura, which means by scripture alone position. Unless a doctrine or practice could be found in or based on something in the Bible, it was to be rejected.

Them, were very popular, particularly.

Ones involving the feasting and fun, so sometimes Reformers and Puritans had to go through great lengths to convince people that they were a bad idea. Christmas was certainly one example of something well established and very popular that the

Wow, uh.

Also they give the sources for this mercle Box Mithrus by Roger Beck, and they talk about the pages as well. There are simply no references at all to Mithris being born on December twenty fifth, or any celebration of his birth on that day, so Bromalia. A less common claim is that the date of Christmas derives from the ancient Roman festival of Brumalia. This fell, or we are told, on the winter solstice, so traditionally that is December twenty fifth,

So.

Anyway, so when we're looking at Roman history, they have a very long description on a lot of their gods, their their pantheon, how they worship them, all these things, and they have dates for specific fas. So this sixth century thing saying that it's a long standing ancient tradition when they have no record of it before the six hundredths ady, that kind of doesn't stand to water either.

Again.

Fitz Grafts discussion notes evidence mainly in Tertullian, that there was a celebration on the earlier Bruma, but shows the date for this was November twenty fourth, not December twenty fifth, or it perhaps ran until December twenty third. There's evidence of that one. But this aside. It seems that the more general use of the word bruma refers to the season of winter, which is what gave the later Byzantine

That's what we read in the other article. But then there is the month that brought it up too. I'd have to find exactly who brought it up. What was his name? I'll have to find it though.

But even a monk brought it up. Though that might be the text they're talking about. To be honest, it might be, But they're then talking about it being a seasonal thing. Which we have agreed is that was the name of that time of year. It was like mid November to mid December, and it was the month of Yule.

It was a jewel, and I left my notes at home. I had like seven pages of notes that I took on this too, that I did a lot of different research on. But the word it's jol joel.

But in the in the Nordic you had pronounced the jay like.

A y, right, So yeah, so it was mentioned before. I'm actually going to see if I can find the guy. But yeah, there's a lot of different Uh, there's him, and there's the other one of the b B bead yeah, med, Yeah.

That's the one that mentions. The five hundred tea theory.

Is right there, Okay, so let's get into it here. The next reference is what appears to be mules in the beds or beads on the Reckoning of Time from around seven thirty AD. So the first source you have is from the five hundreds. That's the first time Yule was ever brought up. The next reference is from seven thirty.

Okay, so this guy is the monk. Is the monk bead? Yeah? He monk? So the Pagan Temple website says medieval Icelandic sagas these stories were written down by Christian Icelanders in the twelve twelve to twelve to thirteen hundreds described pre Christian practices. The sagas mentioned Yule feast, sacrifices and customs. Even after it is written after Christianization, they preserve the pagan memories. It talks about poetry that was written down in some of the sagas that refer to Yule. It

Right, So like they said, this has a little more like legs to it. But then it goes on to continue it. So there is later evidence which complicates this. The Icelandic collection of sagas of the Swedish and Norwegian kings, which we talked about that in the last article, and I think is what you were just referencing talks about King Haken, which we're not going to go over it again.

We talked about this.

Already before that Yule was celebrated on midwinter night and for the duration of three nights. So the first issue here is when the account says Yull originally fell midwinter night, that Haken moved it to at the same time as the custom with the Christians. The latter was clearly December twenty fifth, which means that midwinter night must have fallen

Took So there's old boy hackeen Heiken whatever he was a king, then there was Earl was next, and then after that was Olfur or whatever that's who took over. So there's there's a certain time period in which they were all kind of in the same grouping.

But the principle that they just brought up as very accurate though, So they practiced the Yule celebration at midwinter. He made its way. They practice it on Christmas, which means that the December twenty fifth date for Christmas itself predated the mixture of Yule and Christmas, which is interesting. And they're debating on if it was a December fourteenth or January twelfth, because, like we said, the month of Yule or the time of Yule kind of spanned a

Right? And I get this.

So whichever it was, it was clearly not December twenty fifth. So the second issue here is the late date of this text and what it might mean. The Helmskrigla is usually attributed to the medieval Icelandic scholar Snowy Sterlson, who lived from eleven seventy nine to twelve forty one, though this has been disputed as the text never claims that he is the author. Even if true, we know that Sirlison reworked or drew on earlier texts and sources when

And how do we.

Square with the Anglo Saxon evidence already noted, which explicitly places Yule on December twenty fifth. It could be that the Hemskrigla author is completely mistaken. If so, it seems an odd element to include in the saga if it has no basis. Alternately, or alternatively, rather, the date of Yule proper could have been celebrated on different dates within the broader midwinter season, in different places and or in

No, I mean, it's the same conversation we've had before, just here in different parishes. What people do differently, how they speak differently, things like that, it's the same conversation. So I mean, you can't hell within the same town. You could say, within the same street, how does this little cool sack? How many people practice Christmas the exact same way? Do the exact same thing to each other?

So a third possibility is that the Hemskrigla account is accurate and something similar happened centuries earlier in the Anglo Saxon England, with the Pagan date being moved to coincide

The twenty fifth. He was born in September.

Why indeed, why indeed, Raven, we're gonna talk about that. So anyway, Soul and victis, this is another conversation that they always hear. Oh, it's just the celebration of Soul and Victis, the Sun God and his victory, and that's it was on December twenty fifth, So let's talk about

For anybody that would like to get.

A really good look at what those chariot races look like, look at the original Charlton Heston's Ben Hur. I think it's an excellent movie Juda Judah Ben which also like yo rewatching that as a kid, I'm watching this, like this is so cool. As an adult, I'm like, yo, these stuntmen like they might have actually died.

I'm convinced that some of them died. It's pretty intense, Like I don't know how they did those stunts without getting broken limbs and fucked up. It's it's pretty intense.

And I've looked into the chariot racing, like, yeah, gladiators were super big, super popular. No sport drew as much attention as the chariot races and they had and they're so brutal too though. They had four teams and like we talk about sports riots, right, like your team wins the Super Bowl, so you tear your town apart, Yo, that's nothing. Romans actually had like whole wars start because there was the Red, the Greens, the Whites, and the Yellows.

But then that's probably where the British and Irish got it from with their soccer teams.

What the British and Irish hate each other for other reasons.

But colors go yet yet No, I meant just like in the sense of, like, you know, they're so gung ho when it comes to soccer.

Yeah, yeah, Cooligan football firms or it's crazy. Have you ever seen Green Street Hooligans?

Yes?

Yes, I love the movie. I love it Death Anyway, I'm moving on. So it would make sense that the cherry races would be held to celebrate the birth of the Sun God on December twenty fifth, which was the traditional date for the winter solstice and the date thought to mark the lengthening of the days of the year.

I don't know why. My thought immediately thought about January sixth, the whole thing here in America, and I was like, there's some people where I was like, what are the coincidence? As soon as you said that, I was just sitting here listening to you. I was like, what are the odds that this is somehow tied together in some.

Way, shape or form. There are some connections that people have made before.

Now.

I don't think that the Ortho Bros. Were the actual masterminds behind the jan sixth, quote unquote insurrection, but it's it's funny to talk about, for sure.

I mean, I was just it was just random.

And when you read that date, I was like, hmm, that's a weird date to be coincidentally with that.

Yeah, it'd be like that. But he goes on to explain why other Christians hold that he was born on December twenty fifth, The reason why the aforesaid solemnity was transferred by the fathers from the sixth of January to the twenty fifth of December, they say was this, it was traditional for the Pagans to celebrate the birth of the Sun on this very day, twenty fifth of December. To further enhance the celebration of the day, they used slight fires, to which rights they were accustomed to invite

The short answer is, we really.

Don't know, but it is very possible that the word Nautilus in the calendar of Philic Caucus does not refer to a birthday but to the anniversary of an establishment.

Of a temple of a temple. Huh.

So the whole conversation about Soul and Victus and that's where Christmas comes from. When you look at actual Roman document documentary documentation, thank you. I was gonna say documentary, Yeah, yeah, num.

I can never say that word.

I get this mixed up.

I'm terrible with that word for some reason, and it just is a tongue tie for me.

Words are hard. We're gonna skip ahead a little bit. But long story short, the Sole and Victis conversation has no actual credibility outside of two sources that were clearly biased and trying to shit on Roman Catholicism.

Okay, so she and then it says right there that it notes that it's most most likely dating note earlier than two hundred and seventy.

Four eighty Yeah, excuse me, actually that so yeahs went for the December feast was not important. The thirty Chariots as a significant number, and all of that they agree and reinforce this idea that the festival is relatively new to seventy four a d. So okay, again, the whole Christian conversation as far as December twenty fifth predates that.

I am not sure.

To be honest with you, I thought that was a weird word too.

As early as the second century we find lively discussion in various calculations of these important events and their dates. We also find a variety of conclusions and a great deal of disagreement and debate. This is because the Gospels, the main source of information about jesus life, are not very detailed regarding dates and years, and actually contain confusing

Ye.

We then find an increasing acceptance of March twenty fifth as also being the date of Jesus conception. So this day is the date of the feast of the Annunciation or Lady Day, and virtually all Christian liturgical traditions. Not only was this date the traditional spring equinox, it also it's also regarded as the date of God's creation of the world, giving it multiple layers of tradition and significance. Now I don't know where they would pull that from.

The fuck are they going to know that? Well?

I don't understand that, but that is what these people believe. I think they're going to talk about it here in a minute. But anyway, not only was this the date of the true I talked about that already. It appears this date was arrived at via a long standing idea that holy men lived perfect and therefore highly symmetrical lives,

But how would you know the exact date to the day they know?

I mean, depends on the sources here. And that's what I wanted to go in on this one, because it's very thorough. Recent work by Thomas Schmidt has strengthened the argument made by Ferdinand Piper in eighteen fifty six and then in more detail by Lewis Duschen in eighteen eighty eight, that for Jesus it was a thought his symmetrical life meant that he was conceived and died on the same date.

Yeah, because that totally happens. There's no babies that are ever just late. Wait, you feel like that, no doubt, no doubt birth early.

But hear me out. Though, the idea of December twenty fifth is documented in the early two hundreds AD, so the conversation that the Christians threw it on that date because of this pagan or this group or this god or this feast or whatever they.

Did math to come to that.

It's a guestman though, it's a guestimate, but it was a Christian guestimate. It had nothing to do with pagan influences my point. Okay, Right, so we talk about the We can go more into this and all this, but essentially that is the conclusion as far as the December

Don't know, I mean, I have no idea. I wonder what they're they're gonna say. I mean, it just depends on who rates the history very true and goes from there.

So with lots of references to the pre Christian folklore of elves, yeah, I can see the elf on the shelf becoming a whole thing. Oh yeah, one thousand years from now, they're going to say that they brought back pagan worship in America.

Maybe, and it was a demon that was watching over the children, ready to take their soul to the fiery depths of hell if they didn't, you know, I don't know pray correctly.

It was said that they moved on their own at night and got into all kinds of mischief and all that.

Yeah. Yeah, they didn't have a they didn't have enough crucifixes on the walls.

Right, But we know the origin of this popular modern tradition. It was marketing. It was a marketing campaign for a two thousand and five American picture book.

Really two thousand and five, Yeah, I told you this was well, you told me, but I had no idea that it was. It was around then. Well, I mean, honestly, I thought it was sooner than that. I was like maybe like twenty ten.

It was a marketing campaign in the mid two thousands, but it didn't really take root and like get popular until like their early twenty teens.

Yeah.

Yeah, but anyway, our future pop folklores would be wrong. We have to be aware of superficial similarities and glib associations and pay attention to the evidence. So now let's talk about gift giving, which I think is to say that they the Christians started giving gifts because Pagans did it. That's ridiculous to me personally. I think we could probably skip over this because giving gifts is not a pagan practice. That's a that's a love language.

For a lot. I mean, that's everybody practice. So I mean you had chiefs give each other gifts, you know, as a sign of respect in all different types of cultures.

So yeah, so we could skip over the gift giving one. That's that's just extra for me, super long too. Oh yeah, shit feasting again, I think we could skip over. So you're telling me that you're celebrating something in you.

I can I can skim really quickly. So I mean to say, I'd like.

To say that we at the Christmas in American tradition, take away religious iconography for it, just the feast of Christmas. That's not taken from anybody. People are getting together for a Christmas party. Somebody's gonna throw some food on it. Yeah, there's gonna be drinks exchanged. Oh so pagan so.

Pagan, I think, how dare you make a turkey that that satanic part?

You see my point? You see you're baking a ham like Thor's ham. No, dude, what, No, it's a It's a fucking a giant piece of meat that feeds a party. What are we talking about here? So again to say that and.

Talks about practical jokes and gifts and amusement for people you know later. Uh, let's see it says Saturny game is sometimes claimed to be the origin of the later medieval Christmas traditions of Lord of Misrule or the Boy Bishop. Yeah, that doesn't sound wrong at all.

Yeah, this is that age like milk didn't it.

This is potentially possible, but it's hard to establish a.

Genuine line of derivation.

Sorry I can't. I'm like, I'm squinting my contacts. I'm like, okay, I'm squinting from the pagan Roman practice to the medieval Christian ones. So yeah, it just kind of talks about the.

Around for forever anytime it's a celebration.

Another seeing, it does talk about Yule feasting.

Okay, let's let's get to there.

So another Pagan Yule feasting story is found in the same book that we talked about earlier, the hem I Scriggler. I even watched. I even watched how to Say It No Joke, like fifteen times before, just so I got it right. I know, I'm terrible with names, yeah and saying stuff. So the hymn screw screw Screwler, I don't know. Anyways, it involves the good old Handkun guy and being unable to avoid eating some of the horse meat from the

And I have yet to see anyone try to claim eating horse meat at Yule is connected to any modern Christmas tradition. However, So again, I don't really know a.

Bunch of people to eat horse meat. I mean, we did did cover the other people that wore the horse head around the Walsh, but yeah, the Welish, but I don't think they were eating horse meat.

So I mean, so how pagan is eating and drinking on Christmas? There's no doubt Pagans did do some feasting at midwinter, and there is possibly our eating ham and pork at Christmas is a dim echo of Germanic sacrifices that you'll I did bring that up. But midwinter is also a logical time for people to stay indoors, eat and drink. The weather is colder, even in southern Europe. It is also a time when there are fewer major agricultural tasks other than repairing tools and waiting for the spring.

I have holly at my house and mistletoe as well.

Most Christmas celebrants do, regardless of what you call it. Most people at this time do that because that's a part of the iconography, especially in America. So let's get into it. This seasonal Origins of Christmas Customs article tend to be in agreement that the traditional use of holly, ivy and mistletoe as Christmas decorations has its origins in pre Christian times and emphasize any pagan association with them. Like we talked about holly, we are assured was sacred

The actually did have magic, and the Romans did not like it.

We're talking pre Christian. Romans did not like the Druids, and they sought to genocidally murder all of them. I mean, then the Christians took up the Mantelin continued, I'm not going to deny that fact, but that I'm just saying it started pre Christian anyway, so much better. It's not better. I'm just saying, like to say that it was the Christians that tried to murder all these people and it was their fault, like they were picking up the mantle

Yeah, I mean, they still did a lot of horrible things in youry so much history.

But the Druids also never wrote things down.

To be fair, though, I wonder if the Druids really did have like actual magic and or did had I don't know, maybe they were tied to the Nephelo, maybe they were, like I don't know, they could have been something really special for them to still, like at least their name and like the myth of them to still be around. Yeah. Something.

But it also kills me when I like neo pagans say oh I'm more into the Druidic practices of the Druidic teachings, no one has any fucking clue what those are.

I think it more Yeah, it mostly means that you're more of the land, that you're more connected to the more spiritual things like of of Earth is what I think a lot of people would bring.

What does that ri I've druid from is?

But is that what the druids believed? Because in these tribes, to be a druid was to basically have a doctorate degree.

So I mean, I think it's one of those things that again people don't have enough knowledge, and so they're filling in the gaps, like just at ie the Yule celebration and how it's been turned into a weaponized thing against people that is evil and demonic and and should not be practiced.

Glad you brought it up, because the Yule log's coming up here, we go, Oh yeah. Anyway, So Holly, we are assured, was sacred to the Druids as well, a group that are regularly invoked in these pagan origins claims, despite the fact that what we know about them from ancient sources could be written on a very small piece of paper. Suffice it to say, none of those ancient sources make any mention of the sacredness of Holly at all. Ivy we are also informed with sacred to the Druids

You do realize that this person is extremely biased when they're talking about stuff.

Right, but they're also showing their receipts. I know there is no ancient source to say that this whole duality of feminine and masculine with holly and ivy, that's that's made up. There's no historical background for that, Okay.

I'm just simply saying, like, throughout this entire article, you can definitely tell there's an extreme biased tone in this whole thing.

I see this, I do, okay, but it doesn't also take away from the facts.

True. But I mean having a yin yang when it comes to masculine feminine view on things like that's and that's not a just new hot tape. I mean many for cultures have believed in the ying yang of female and men, and.

Even ancient Mail and Brew alchemy talks about these divine feminine masculine qualities. I'm with you, But the conversation that holly and ivy are seen as that dualistic thing that has no basis in actual facts.

That's just assumed. Okay, So fair enough.

These claims appear to be a simply recent invention that we just get repeated endlessly. The most common claim is that the Romans merely decorated their homes with holly, ivy and mistletoe and hung up wreaths at Saturnalia, and this is the origin for our customary decoration. Unfortunately, if we search various references to Saturnalia customs and Roman sources, there's absolutely no references to holly ivy or missletoe or wreaths.

Yule logs.

Now, this is an interesting one, to be honest with you, because I didn't know what the origins of this was. Let's break it down. Yule logs tend to be a traditional element of Christmas, more referred to and included in imagery than actual practice these days. It was a tradition of finding and dragging a large log into the home, making sure it was one sufficiently large to burn from

Warm for the duration.

M I didn't know that, Honestly, I didn't either, But and that makes sense. Like as far as the decoration of the yule log, as we see people doing today, cool decorate your yule log, there's no problem.

But also I don't have well, I don't have anywhere, like I don't have a fire pit or anywhere to be able to burn the log sure for the time needed, and you're supposed to burn it for a certain amount of time. I have no place to do that. So normally what I do with my little log is I

Things, cranberries probably cranberries.

I have pomegranate. Yeah, I have pomegranate seeds. And I have one other thing too, it's a I don't know why, it's just skeep in my mind. It's another plant that's involved with mule. And I normally have it like set up all the way around it and stuff like that, and so that's kind of what I have is my little mule setup and what I normally do every single year, and it's on my counter because that's the only place I don't I don't have anywhere to be able to do the like the full tradition for it.

So sure, but sometimes I get the little goat.

I have two little goats too.

Those Scannadian goats, yet little scan and.

Even wooden goats. I have them, but I couldn't find them this year. Normally I have two of them that I put out on both sides.

Of it, So no doubt. But again, there's nothing endemically saying that the yule log practice has any pagan origin.

That's it's kind of disheartening.

Tradition.

I know, It's not like super disheartingment. It's kind of like ow all right, I mean, because man, it's like finding out Santa Claus is real.

Wait what yep, it's finally out. The elf on the shelf is a la boo boo. Anyway, So now let's talk about Christmas trees. So many people talk about these Christmas trees demonitory clearly so decorating.

Somehow a tree is gonna be of the devil it's gonna come and get you. It's going to drag you to hell. It's gotta be right.

And that's also crazy because we talked about this, I think yesterday's episode. In the Philippines, they do like mangoes and banana trees, yeah, they do. And somehow these evergreen trees, yeah yeah, but somehow in Europe, these evergreen trees, you mean, like the Nordics, Like, wait, stop, bro, what what I just.

It's just so wild to me, Like, I don't understand how so many themes have become so demonized and such a weapon against people of like you don't believe in this particular thing, and my blah blah blah blah. It's like wait, what so you could do frank and sense and murder and like feel some type of way about having that, but like we can't have some orange slices, bro, Like that orange slice is gonna get you. He's going to take you to hell.

This is my issue with it. But again, it's like anything can be done with negative or evil intent, and I think we could both agree with that, right. I don't believe that when you're putting out your yule log, you're trying to imbuse aatan no.

I mean, it's about rebirth. It's about starting your your new year in a better light. Like there's a there's a good tradition that a lot of people do where you write down all the things that you want for or you want to get rid of all the negative thoughts or all the negative things that have happened that year to you, and you burn them and release him, and then you plant you write down all this stuff that you want and then you plant it under a tree or any kind of plant you have in your house,

You So the idea that the ulog is a pagan thing and we're going to learn this later on as far as the Christmas trees are concerned as well, these are things that were based off of at least Christian culture and then was adopted by Pagans later on. Okay, because Pagans were losing so many members to the Christianization of Europe that they try to start acting like Christians for lack of better words, to keep their pagan people.

That's interesting because that's completely contradicting everything I've read. History is a bit of a lie. Sometimes well, I.

Mean, but these are by scholars that I've read.

We are quoting scholars, okay.

But you're also I mean, we just have read like multiple different sources.

Like I'm just so many scholars are going after the Christian faith because like, clearly Christians are the reason for all the bad shit in the world.

I mean, I at least from the by they didn't seem like they had biased tones in the ones that I've read in the last few days. It's simply and it even said that there's two sides of it. It talked about both sides and both opinions. This one in particular woman she's a doctorate, Her doctorate is in like two different things, and she pretty much goes into this is one this one side is believing all of these things.

Yeah, that's fair, honestly, And again, there are some of these traditions that I could see why certain assumptions would be made, and there are certain ones that like we honestly don't have much of a source.

It's just one of the things that came about.

I mean, Christmas trees are dramatic.

So Christmas trees are one of those things. It has become such a popular iconographal look of when you think of Christmas, you think of a decorated Christmas tree, right,

They cite.

The text sided here is Jeremiah ten two through four, and it is often given the King James version for the extra old world. Zing good people, I'm gonna I'm gonna break this down because I'm gonna jump ahead from what he's talking about here, but I'm gonna read the quote here. Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the sign of heaven, for the heathen are dismade at them, or

That's the thing.

Even in the Nordics, the traditional Yule thing of cutting down a tree and bringing it they didn't do that.

I don't know why they would, though. I would see them decorating a tree outside in the woods. In the woods, for sure, because they decorated a lot of the trees for the festivals, and they you know, they cut them down to be able to build stuff. But inherently you're more tuned with nature, So I don't see them just cutting it down and bringing it in for no reason. I could see them decorating the trees all outside, sure, and doing that kind of a thing.

Well, let's get into it more, says once again. However, it seems this custom is relatively recent, not ancient, and not pigging in any way. The earliest evidence for a Christmas tree comes from the forestry regulations from the Rhineland cities of Sulfon and Bergen dating to the thirteen hundreds, so we're talking about Germany. Now, these put limits on people's collecting fur trees or branches in the period around Christmas.

And again super Christian.

At this time in the thirteen hundreds, there was already multiple crusades that had taken place.

In all this.

It was done to where they couldn't bring in a tree taller than seven foot.

I forget, I actually looked into the tree thing long time ago, so I didn't actually look at any I knew you'd already have looked into this, but I remember the there is a story about where this actually came from, long long time ago, but it's a very it's a folk tale, so it's it's not. It's very obscure and most people don't hold me weight to it. But pretty

But and there may be something to that, especially in the in the northern Germany. I mean that there's all kinds of customs and traditions there that make no sense outside of that region. So I mean, who's to say it.

Was it was? I wish I would have. I wish I know the actual name of the story. It's been a long time. It was in one of those books, you know, back in the day when we actually had like borders, yeah, Barnes and Noble. I'm talking like years ago. I read this and it was a It was a honestly, it was like a two page story, so it wasn't anything crazy. But they're like, this is where we kind

Well, I mean, who's to say. It could be an old local folk lord it was.

It was a folk lore. It was to ward off I think, spirits, and it had like another it was it was this little cabin in the wood, Like the picture that it had with it was this little cabin in the wood out in the middle of nowhere, and it had to do with the spirits, and it had to do with like this little this little old lady and two kids, and it was just like this. It was a really interesting little story.

But and warding off spirits is not endemically Christian or pagan. All cultures have their own version of this. And if you question that, look at Gargoyle's on old Catholic churches. It goes across all cultural bounds, So if that is the origin story, it's not endemically one or the Other's just one of those things.

No. I think it was just it was from this little bitty town and they had a little blurp of the story that they heard that it had been passed down and passed down and passed down, and so they kind of wrote down what they had heard from the locals and they're like, maybe this is where it comes from. And that was you know, but it's it's been like, honestly, like two decades, so it's been a long time since I read it, so Continuous says.

By sixteen fifty seven, the practice have moved to private homes and was common enough for Protestant theologian Johann Conrad Donhauer to condemn Christmas trees as trifles and describe them as decorated with dolls and sugar. Exactly why the custom

I feel, I honestly feel like it's the opposite, to be honest with you, Okay, what do you mean? I feel that this is Christianity adopted paganism or pagan I wouldn't even see pagan I would say winter Solstice traditions that potentially could have had, like you know, using evergreens or using different types of things to decorate and converting it into trying to meld Christmas and Mule or winter Solstice practices together to draw in more Pagans to becoming Christians.

But was there any source, not even in that art or I'm asking you, is there any source to say that even the practitioners of Nordic paganism way back when, that they would bring evergreen trees into their homes, if anything, they would decorate him in the forest. And I agree one hundred percent with that. But the idea behind hell, the first Christmas tree properly decorated was done by Martin Luther.

I know, I was just looking at that.

Yeah, that's also pretty crazy. The first devout League guy to go against the Catholic Church is also the first dude to decorate a Christmas tree in Germany.

Yeah. A famous piece of folklore credits the sixteenth century Protestant reform Martin Luther with the first being the first to put candles on the tree after being inspired by the side of the stars shining.

Through an evergreen forest.

Is noted, though that there is no definitive proof that he was actually the first, but he was commonly credited with making the practice more popular, and also because I was looking for I was looking for that story, honestly, it says Count Odin Vaughan Gorgas. One romantic legend from the seventh seventh century tells us of a cold hearted nobleman, Count Oda, who fell in love with a fairy princess. She appeared to him in a room where a magnificent

But also decorating a Christmas tree with candles inside your home that is fucking wild.

It's not like they thought to probably put it in water, I mean, or had like a big enough pot to well, I mean they did, but they I don't think. They just were like, hey, you know what, let's put this pot of water to keep it alive. Bro Levage dries out so quick I.

Have thrown freshly cut trees on a fire. They still take the fuck off. That sap is both yea like ancient gasoline. So for him to put candles, and I understand thea they didn't have electric lights. I get that decorating it with stuff cool cool broke candles on an evergreen bro You fucking wild, Martin Luther Okay.

Allegedly, Apparently the Christmas tree in America really took off in New York City, the hub of Dutch and German and culture. Yeah, and tradition's final step for it, said, The tradition's final step for cultural practice to commercialize phenomenon came in December of eighteen fifty one. A woodsman from the Catskills called Mark Carr recognized the business opportunity and hauled two sleds loaded with fur trees to the street

Yeah, that's fair.

I didn't actually know that, to be honest with you. I didn't know when it really made its way over here and how that really got started.

To can continue on here this article from the Church Times. Here the Yule candle that is first mentioned in Scotland in eighteen oh eight, the Yule Games first mentioned in sixteen eleven, Yu'll log first mentioned in seventeen twenty five, and the Yule Tide is first mentioned in fifteen seventy two. All of these are super after the Christianization of Europe.

I think it's interesting. I think that for so long we've been told that the story, the narrative that's been passed down is that all of this is from paganism or from pagans, and that this is uh, you know, inherently not a good thing because it's not from the Church. Right.

And so I think it's a it's an interesting thing.

I mean, I really did not believe. Honestly, I did not know. I still think it's interesting that scholars don't believe inherently or agree with each other that there's two different sides to this. But also history is what is written down and by who is it written like, who wrote it down? What influences do they have? The bias the biases that they showed what their background was, what information information was pertinent to them versus what actually was

Other than what they believe in is just evil inherent.

I think it's we should all be practicing at least more customs that involve us at least recognizing that, you know, we we do belong here, and we do inherently live on earth, and we do connect with nature in many different ways, and so we should at least give some thanks to nature in and of itself.

I don't feel like that is evil in any way possible.

So no, same one hundred percent, even if you are a Christian acknowledging that nature is extremely important and extremely good for the soul. I don't think that takes away from your religious beliefs at all.

But that being said, I do enjoy decorating my Christmas trees.

I do have my yule logs out. I am a complex human being that likes to practicell different things, and I can't wait to put out the poop blog they bo. I'm so pumped about this damn pooplog. I think it's just like the best. It's so fun.

I do have a log for you, but it's not massive. It's like this big.

It's fine. We're gonna we're gonna make mini poop blog like it's gonna be great. It's baby snakes, little baby ones.

I'm gonna have a little little little.

Baby boo booz. I actually do have like a whole bunch of little babyluo boo booths. So I'm gonna have like the little ones coming out and like Christmas little Christmas hats on them like from the elves. That's gonna

You don't have religion. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm.

At with it.

Yeah, I mean I agree. Honestly, we have done multiple episodes on this show about the pagan origins of Christmas, and I and look any deeper, to be honest, like some of them like okay, sure, the trees, the evergreens, it's because of this there or the third I had never done any more digging onto it. This with the backing and the citations and all of this. And that's something that I want all the good cult members to take with them, not just with the Christmas traditions, but

Yeah, that being.

Said, you gotta take plenty of the elder with a grain of salt. Because as he was writing about the druids and they were cutting down missletoe and they were giving it to people to drink or whatever the case was, keep in mind he was Roman, so he inherently hated the druids. So although he might have a first person account of them cutting missletoe down, was he giving them their fair due? Did he understand what they were doing or why?

Clearly not.

So all this is why the word context gets me so fucking worked up, because it's so important to everything we talk about. I'm just saying, especially when we're talking about ancient sources or religious texts, including the Sagas and Eda's, the context really matters. If you're reading it like a bedtime story, then like fine, you're only going to take it as a bedtime story. If you're looking for the lesson learned from that story, it has a lot more

Let us know about it. The best place would be too Please.

Hit the five stars, hit the shares like scotch comments, leave a post of reviews, shares at the friends and family, shares that we're here's the deal. The more activity the algorithm seats across all of our listening platforms, the more we get promoted, more potential listeners who can then become potential court members. Actor rest of you, fine ladies and gentlemen,

Said, we wish you a merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, a happy Yule a happy I'm not go whatever the fuck you're celebrating.

We hope it's a goblin. And this happy Soltice whatever all of it blade when you read, when you hear this, it's seem to be blayed.

But yeah, yeah, happy, happy, happy joy, joy to all the festivities. And this was another beautiful episode of the Cult of Conspiracy.

And I am a Cajun night, I am ravingly.

And there's one very important, extremely vital piece of information media learn just as soon as human if possible, sp