Viking Midwinter Solstice

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Today is the 21st of December, the date of the winter solstice. By many, this is regarded as the middle of winter because it's the shortest day in the northern hemisphere. As of tomorrow, thank goodness, the days will begin to become longer again. And of course, we're only a few days away from Christmas. This time of year has been celebrated not just for centuries, but for millennia for various different reasons.

And in today's episode, we're going to look at one aspect of that in the medieval period and find out whether this was also a celebration that the Vikings took part in. And are there any traditions in our current Christmas celebrations or... especially those in scandinavia that go all the way back to the viking age to find out more i've invited along a cultural historian to gone medieval

Hailek Barclied, who's an associate professor at the University of Southeastern Norway. Thank you for joining me today, Hailek. Nice to be your guest. So we're going to be talking a bit about midwinter traditions and the... Viking Age especially but also a little bit beyond that and so you study some of these sort of cultural traditions and especially in Scandinavia so let's start then with this idea that

Christmas was originally a pagan festival. Is that correct? Yes, to a certain extent we can say that. In Rome, they had a feast called Saturnalia Festival about 2,000 years ago. And a lot of tradition that were... The practices there are very much like our celebration over Christmas.

serenalia was celebrated in december and the romans they gave gifts to each other and also they drank and ate a lot in the second century some christians were inspired by an Egyptian feast that was celebrated the night between the 5th and the 6th of January to celebrate a newborn god.

The Christians at this time then began to celebrate the birth and the baptism of Jesus at the 6th of January. But between 350 and 360, Jesus' birth was fixed to the 25th of December, and the Pope Liberius built a church, Santa Maria Maggiore, in Rome. as the center for the Christian celebration over Christmas. We do not know which date Jesus was born. So when it was fixed to the 25th,

December, it was of religious political reasons. In the Mitra cult, the 25th December was an important date. It was the birthday of the god Mitra. The god for the sun. So we may say that Christmas had a pepkin base and was inspired by the pepkin practice. Okay, so...

If we move forward then a bit to the early medieval period and especially looking at the Viking Age, I think... It might make sense to have a think about how this fits into the calendar and the year in the Viking Age. Do we actually know how the year was divided up in the Viking Age? Yes, a little bit. know that the year was, of course, divided in the two main parts, summer and winter. And in addition, it is told in the saga about St. Olaf.

that the people in Trøndelag also divided the year in another way. They divided it into haust, autumn, mid-winter, mid-jum-vetri. In old Norwegian, the middle of the winter and the summer. In the middle of October, they had haustblot. At the midwinter, they had... mitt vetra blot and in the middle of april they had sumar blot so this was a kind of dividing the year

So in these luts, they're sort of feasts, aren't they? And we can get back to the feasts in a moment. But so you mentioned one of the sagas there. What sort of written sources do we have to tell us about this in general? Do we have a lot from the Viking Age? No, we do not have a lot. We have very few. We have mainly two, I think. It is the Snorri Sturlausson Road. Heimskringla, the story of Norwegian kings in the Middle Ages. And we have also a poem that is called Haraldskvede.

The author is Thurvian Hornklover, and the poem was the author of the poem, about 900. So this is the main sources for the pre-Christian Christmas. or djur, as they said. So that's really not a lot. You have one poem that dates to the Viking Age, and then the other, Snodder, is actually... after the Viking Age, so it's not even a contemporary source. So really, we have very little material to go on. Very little exactly how the Vikings celebrated Yud or Christmas.

So you mentioned this idea of midwinter and sort of a feast and things in midwinter. Do we know if and how that time of year was sort of celebrated in the Viking Age then? Yes, a little bit. The poem Haraldskved, as I mentioned, in this poem, there is a phrase, ute vil jordrekka, in old Norwegian. So they drank Christmas or Yud. Beer was very important in the celebration of Christmas. Beer has been a very important part of celebration.

not only in June or Christmas, but also in weddings. They drank wedding. And we also have beer in funerals. So beer was very important in celebration. And also Håkon the Good. a Norwegian king from about 933 to 960 approximately. In his saga, it is also told that he rescribed that there must be beer to Christmas to Jude. This is very important. There is a question, when the Vikings celebrated Jude?

And this has been heavily discussed by the scholars. But in the saga about Haakon the Good, the saga as I mentioned, It is told that King Håkon made a law that told the Norwegian to celebrate Yule at the same time as the Christians, and not at Håkunått. Hawke in English, if we translate it, it will be chin, chin night. And this, he said, it's the middle of the winter. According to the tradition, the winter began.

the 14th of october and the summer began the 14th of april so then the middle of the winter should be the 13th 14th of january I think several squirrels agreed in this that the Vikings celebrated Yule at this date. As we all know, the curve of the chin has a turning point. And in my opinion, HK0 denotes when the winter turns and is coming to the half. So this is, in my opinion, that have been heavily discussed.

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According to Snorre, they practiced blot, animal sacrifice, at you in a heathen time. Snorre is telling about such blood at Mære in Trøndelag in Norway. To this blood, every farmer had to contribute with food and drink beer. and meat of sheep, goat, and horse. A drink should be taken around the fire, and the chieftain should bless the drink and the food. First of all, they drank to honor Odin.

for victory and power to the king. And next, they drank to honor the north god Njord and Frøy for good harvest and fertility and peace. Or as they said, till Års og Fridar, as the Norwegian said. Some drank also to Anne Brage, and some drank to Anne, their dead relatives. During the blow, they could make ceremonial promises called jolaheiti by putting the hand on the pig that was going to be sacrificed. According to the saga about Haakon the Good, they celebrated Yule for three nights.

It has been discussed a lot by the scholars what content the Heathen Yule had. Some of them claim that it has been to honor the dead and the ancestors. Other scholars think it has been celebrated to honor the sun. And lastly, some think it has to mark the end of a period of feast. There are not so very much we know exactly about the celebration in Heathen time, but there are, as we have mentioned, some sources that tell a little bit.

Yes, this gives an idea then that it's associated with the time of year. And it's certainly something where people come together and they make these sacrifices and offerings. They drink a lot of beer. I can see that being a sort of popular thing. And that's kind of what the... feasts were about, is that right? Yes, and also we assume that the celebration began in the private home and was continuing at social gatherings and we assume that and the social gatherings there was bloat.

Yeah, so that's really interesting, isn't it? It's a sort of quite a small scale. It's not a sort of vast big community event. It's kind of small family private home. So that says something more about the society, I guess, how it fits into society. That's really interesting. Now

Do we know, well, you've already told us that we haven't got a lot of other sources. So we don't really know then presumably much about traditions for that time of year before the Viking Age in Scandinavia, certainly. Do we think that this midwinter celebration? is based on earlier traditions as well? Yes, I will assume that. But I think we do not know so very much about this. But it is not unlikely, as I said, to assume that.

that the midwinter celebration is based on an earlier tradition. We know from a description from about 550 after the birth of Christ. There was a description written by the Roman historian Prokop that there were some customs connected to the sun. in scandinavia prokop writes that 35 days after the long winter nights some people were sent to the top of some mountains and when they could see the sun

They sent a message down to the people in the valley. Then there was a social gathering, and they celebrated that the sun was back. So this is from 550, approximately, yes. yeah so that's good then so there clearly is something there but it's so difficult if we haven't got other written sources archaeology can't really tell us about feasts and festivals in that way so i suppose it's impossible to know

Now, one important thing that happens in Scandinavia towards the end of the Viking Age is that it converts to Christianity. So we obviously already talked a little bit about those pagan... turning into Christian traditions, you know, prior to the Middle Ages now. But if we look at then places like Norway, Scandinavia, what happens to these midwinter celebrations when we move out of the Viking Age? In the saga of St. Olaf, the Norwegian king, we can read a little bit about this.

In the saga, it is told that the people in Trøndelag continued to celebrate midwinter with blood after they had converted to Christianity. King Olaf then punished them by taking from them the food to the celebration, inventory, and clothes. Beyond this, it is not so very much to fight about the mid-winter celebration. after the people converted to Christianity. But from the end of the 18th century, we know that the people say that the animal bear turned around.

to the other side in his sleep mid-winter. So this was to illustrate that the half part of the winter was gone. But midwinter seems to not have been celebrated so much after we got Christians. Then it becomes just a religion. It's not so connected to the nature and to sort of what happens with the season so much. It's very much just the religious calendar, I suppose. Yes, yes. Now, in terms of...

Some of those pagan traditions, though, are there any pagan traditions that continue in our celebration still today? Yes, I will say that. The Catholic Church was very diplomatic. and let the people continue to practice their old customs. But they gave the customs new content. Instead of drinking beer to honor the old gods in the North mythology, The people now drink beer to honor Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary. Still they drank to års og fridar for good harvest and fertility.

and peace and every husband and every wife had to drink the holy night and if they didn't do it they had to pay a fine to the bishop according to the gulating slogan Oh, I see. So there actually was punishment even in Christianity for not drinking at Christmas. Yes, it was. Oh my goodness. That was news to me. It's fascinating, really. Yeah. So when the Christianity...

came to Norway and Scandinavia, they met a well-established feast already. And I think that is the reason why Christian Christmas celebration was taken so soon. Today, we also drink beer. It's a Norwegian custom. But I have to say that we... do not have the ritual bringing to the gods. We are bringing beer even today. There is also another thing I want to mention. The name of the celebration or the feast.

Jule is also from the heathen time, pre-Christian time. When the Catholic Church came to Norway, they tried to introduce the name Christmas. or in norwegian christmas but they did not succeed so here in norway and scandinavia we can still call the feast jule in england i think it's uh otherwise there you have the name christmas so the name is also from the heathen time

Well, that's a very big part of it, isn't it? That's a big sign, I suppose, that in the community and society, there were people who still wanted to cling on to those traditions that they had already. And another thing I want to say is that, as I mentioned, in the hidden time, they started the celebration at home, the private home, and then they continued in social gatherings. And also in the... Our celebration today, we begin the celebration at home.

And later on, there are a lot of social gatherings. So there are also some similarities. Yeah, so there clearly are some things then that we can say about our current Christmas, and certainly in Scandinavia, I suppose, that can...

be traced back to the Viking Age. You've got the name, you've got this idea of it being a private family event as opposed to, you know, a big community event. And yeah, the sort of Scandinavian or Norwegian Christmas beer, which I think is probably a tradition that should... be brought into other countries as well, surely. Wonderful. Fantastic. Well, I love this idea that we still do cling on to a few small older tradition. Halek, thank you so much for joining me here today.

Thank you for being, Jörg. And have a very happy Christmas, or god jul, as we should say in Norwegian. Merry Christmas and god jul. Thank you so much. And that brings us to the end of this episode of Gone Medieval by History Hit. Don't forget to subscribe to our Medieval Mondays newsletter if you'd like more medieval information in your life. You can do that by looking at the episode guide on your podcast app.

And of course, come back again for more next week. If you haven't subscribed to the podcast already, you can do that as well in whatever app you are listening to. But for now, thank you so much for listening. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman.