ANST - New Year's -- God Jul

[Gunnora Hallakarva]

Meghann MacGuire asked:
>My niece just called me and asked if I knew what the medieval celebration for
>New Years was and about costuming for such an event.  She says she guesses it
>could be for any time period.  Anyone out there with the answers, cause I
sure
>as heck don't have them.  >


Many of our Yule and New Year's customs are derived from Germanic practice,
deriving from the Anglo-Saxons, the Danelaw, and from Continental Germanic
elements introduced to England by the British Royal Family after our period.

The most striking aspect of the pagan Germanic Jul (Yule) that resembles
our New Year's celebration is described in the sagas, where the prize boar
of the pig herds was led into the hall on Yule Eve (drugged, one strongly
suspects, to keep it docile) and people in the hall would lay their hands
upon his bristles and make oaths and boasts that must be fulfilled the
following year.  The boar was then sacrificed to Freyr, god of fertility
and plenty, taking the sworn oaths of the assembled company with him direct
to the ears of the god.  Feasting on roast boar followed.

Modern Norse pagan groups often bake a bread subtlety of a boar and glaze
it gold wity saffron, and use that for the swearing and then "sacrifice"
the loaf.

An interesting regional parallel that I discovered is that in some parts of
New England it is customary to obtain a pig figurine made entirely of
peppermint candy, colored pink, and at New Year's it is broken with a small
hammer (the hammer often comes with the pig) and everyone gets a piece.  I
haven't been able to discern whether the New years' Resolutions accompany
this ritual or not.

Appropriate costuming for this would be early Norse, Saxon, or continental
Germanic.  The custom may have survived in some form, but if it did I have
no idea how it was carried on between the Viking Age and today.


Wæs Þu Hæl (Waes Thu Hael)

::GUNNORA::

Gunnora Hallakarva
Herskerinde
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Ek eigi visa þik hversu oðlask Lofstirrlauf-Kruna heldr hversu na Hersis-Aðal
(Ek eigi thik hversu odhlask Lofstirrlauf-Kruna heldr hversu na Hersis-Adhal)

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