The Feast of Saturnalia-A Roman Slave’s Carol— The Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2024-‘25

 

The Feast of Saturnalia--A Roman Slave's Carol is a festive tune from the Asholean Latin Inscriptions project and members of Oxford University Faculty of Classics. 

Today marks the first day of Saturnalia, the famously lascivious Roman harvest and solstice festival.  It was first celebrated on this date—accounting for a couple of changes of calendars—in 496 BC.  Saturnalia was the Roman Feast of Saturn, the god of Harvest, and a dies festus, a legal holiday when no public business could be conducted.  At various points during the Republic and Empire festivities extended over seven, three, and finally five days. 

For a long time, all I knew about Saturnalia was that when I was in Cheyenne East High School the Latin Club nerds plastered the school with posters reading Io Saturnalia! Which roughly translated to “way to go, big fella!” or something.  They also had a slave auction fundraiser in the lunchroom where leering gym teachers bought the comeliest girls and likeliest boys draped in their mothers’ bed sheets.  Kind of creepy, when you think about it.

Saturnalia cavorting in a Roman wall fresco. 

But as a student of all things religious, I have since learned a thing or two about it.

Saturnalia is just one of the many festivals common in Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere around the period of the solstice.  Unlike others, it was a harvest festival, which seems strange until you remember that Rome not only had a pleasant Mediterranean climate but was in a period of historic warming prior the Little Ice Age, the onset of which helped plunge the continent into the Dark Ages.  But that’s another story.

                                                    Saturn Eating his Son by Fracisco Goya. 

The public ritual of the holiday was observed at the Temple of Saturn, one of the most important buildings in the Forum.  A lectisternium, a ceremonial couch, was set up before the Temple and the statue of Saturn was unbound—the rest of the year he was tied up because of his unfortunate habit of eating people.  He was depicted as a semi-depraved old man caring a harvesting scythe.  Christians would later adapt that image to Father Time associated with the celebration of the New Year.   A feast was laid out for the god before the couch so that he wouldn’t get hungry and revert to his nasty cannibalism.

The public ritual and spectacle aside what made Saturnalia especially popular with Roman plebeians and the large population of slaves were the carnival-like traditions.  Customs from the earlier Greek Festival of Dionysus—the Roman Bacchus—were incorporated into the celebrations.

Public cavorting and sexual hijinks were notorious features of Saturnalia in a painting by Ernesto Biodoni.  A good time was had by all.

Social norms of the rest of the year were set aside.  Private parties and public revelry were the order of the day.  Restrictions on gambling were loosened and even slaves could try their luck at games such as casting knuckle bones, many trying to win enough money to buy their freedom.   Exchanging small gifts—saturnalia et sigillaricia—either made by hand or purchased at special holiday markets was a highlight.  Slaves were exempted from punishment by their masters, in theory at least.

The most telling was the turn-about feature of the celebration.  Slaves and common laborers were supposed to be served feasts by their masters and were free to express disrespect.  Sometimes complete role reversal was practiced.

A fresco of another popular Saturnalia tradition--gambling--was found in the buried ruins of Pompeii. 

With the rules of public decorum suspended, it was a very good time for wine merchants and public drunkenness was common.  So were sexual hi-jinks, including usually forbidden mixing among classes, master and slave.

After 250 AD Saturnalia was subsumed into the new Festival of Sol Invictus decreed by Emperor Aurelian in celebrations of a Sun cult.  The return of the sun on December 25 was a high point of the multi day celebration.  Although the original Saturnalia ended before that date a confusion about the two Roman holidays led to the popular misconception that the early Church "stole" December 25 for it celebration of the birth of Christ.

Around 250 AD Emperor Aurelian created the new official cult of Sol Invictus, a Sun deity which may have borrowed from the Persian warrior cult of Mithra, ans celebrated the return of the Sun on December 25, just after the conclusion of Saturnalia.

This led to the often told tale is that the early Christians, still persecuted, hid their celebration of the Feast of the Nativity during Saturnalia to avoid detection.  The trouble was that the date for that celebration was not yet fixed.  In fact, it was often celebrated in the Spring—the lambing season when shepherds would have been in the fields on the lookout for wolves.  Even when Christmas was settled on December 25, it was two days after the customary end of Saturnalia but did coincide with the feast of Sol Invictus.  Later Emperors began to suppress the Sun festival with the rise of Christianity, around 390 AD.  The first written reference to a festival of Natalis Invicti was the Philocalian calendar of 354.  But a spring celebration of the nativity persisted more generally for another 100 years by which time the Festival of Sol Invictus was banned and reduced to a rural folk celebration.  

The early Church did seem to want to mount a feast or festival that competed with the pagan solstice festivals and to which locals could adapt some of their beloved customs.  At the same time, the Church went through periods of vigorously trying to stamp out vestiges of those same pagan festivals.  For this reason, the exchange of gifts was outlawed through much of the early Middle Ages.

But customs did persist.  Although most of the trapping of Christmas were borrowed from the Nordic Yule, Celtic, and Druidic customs, the cultural influence of Rome’s long occupation of Britain can be seen in the carnival-like observation of Christmas there up to the Puritan era  which included the same role-reversals, public revelry, and drinking.  The vestiges of it can be seen on Boxing Day, when masters give presents to servants and often serve them meals on the day after Christmas. 

Today’s song, The Feast of Saturnalia–A Roman Slave’s Carol was created as a tongue-in-cheek joke by the scholarly Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project and members of Oxford University Faculty of Classics.

Ring Out Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2023-‘24

 

                                                         Ring Out Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull

Call it Solstice, Yule, Meán Geimhridh, or any name you choose, to it is the shortest day and longest night of the year—the official beginning of winter. Tomorrow the Sun begins its annual return. Despite claims otherwise, Solstice is the Reason for the Season—the overt or disguised inspiration of most Northern Hemisphere Festivals of Light clustered around this date. To celebrate we turn to Jethro Tull’s classic 1977 album Songs from the Woods, Ian Anderson’s turn from jazz-infused rock to an embrace of his English roots and folk identities is a fitting carol for the day.

Today, the Solstice—the moment in the Northern Hemisphere when has its maximum tilt away from the Sun will occur at 9:27 CST.  You can calculate it for your time zone.

                            The Holly King rules in the Germanic Yule celebration at Solstice.

In most so-called pagan traditions around the Northern Hemisphere there were two ways to celebrate the Solstice.  Some lit fires in the darkest night to summon the return of the Sun.  Others gathered at dawn to in some way capture the first light of that return.  The latter often involved human construction on or in which that light would strike a significant stone or altar.  Think pyramids in Egypt and the pre-Columbian Americas, Stonehenge, Greek temples, medicine wheels, certain Medieval Cathedrals, and far simpler wooden structures in Northern Europe and Siberia.  Either way, those who observe or re-create such rituals have found a way to do so.

Even if you do not observe the pagan doings—or shun them as the devil’s work—chances are that you to have been or will be celebrating the solstice yourself. 

Buried in traditional folklore, swathed in symbolism, and steeped in metaphor, Christmas and Chanukah share the same impulses as Yule and its Celtic and ancient British cousins, Meán Geimhridh and Meán Geimhridhh beloved by contemporary neo-pagans of one stripe or another.  At their core there was in each of them a physical or metaphorical re-kindling of the light at the darkest hour of the year offering a glimmering of hope at a time of cold and starvation. 

                                The Moon Goddess is the spirit of Solstice in Celtic-based modern neo-paganism.

Archeological evidence shows that the event—the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun’s daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest—was marked, often using physical constructions to capture the rising sun, in Neolithic times across widely separated cultures in Europe, the Near East, Asia, and North America.  Stonehenge is just the most famous example.  

While the trappings of Christmas—the Yule log, the holly and the ivy, the Christmas tree, mistletoe, wassailing and other customs are commonly known to be borrowed from pagan celebrations, the metaphor of the birth of the Son, bringing light and salvation to the world is often overlooked.  Among still nervous orthodox Christians, drawing parallels to pagan belief is still actively discouraged.

English Druids and other neo-pagans celebrate the winter solstice annually at dawn at Stonehenge.

The early Church actively squelched efforts to confabulate the Feast of the Nativity with the Festival of Sol Invictus, introduced to the Roman Empire in the Third Century under the Emperor Elagabalus.  It was a religious revolution that briefly upended Jupiter as the primary Roman God and put in his place the Invincible Sun, which combined the characteristics and cult practices of several sun gods including Syrian Elah-Gabal, the Greek Apollo, and Mithras, a soldier god of Persian origin.  

The late Roman cult of Sol Invictus celebrated it Solstice Festival on December 25.  The Catholic Church ultimately adopted that date for the Feast of the Nativity to co-opt the pagan celebration which remained popular in the Mediterranean region.

The feast was set on December 25, during the Roman holiday period following Saturnalia.  Later, under the Emperor Aurelian as Christianity grew in influence and importance, attempts were made to incorporate worship of the Christ child into the cult as an incarnation of Sol.  When the Church became ascendant in the Empire, it did all it could to squelch the festival, but like many popular pagan customs, it was so integrated into many daily lives that it inevitably influenced how Christmas, by then assigned to the same calendar day, was observed.  

 

Ring out Solstice Bells was included on Jethro Tull's 1977 album Songs from the Woods featuring Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson is a Scottish born multi-instrumentalist and singer best known as the creative force behind the innovative and influential British folk/jazz/fusion/progressive rock band Jethro Tull.  Many of the band’s best known songs evoke a magical, even mystical spirit.  That is certainly the case in Ring Out Solstice Bells featuring percussion and Anderson’s signature flute.

The Feast of Saturnalia-A Roman Slave’s Carol— The Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2022-‘23

The Feast of Saturnalia--A Roman Slave's Carol is a festive tune from the Asholean Latin Inscriptions project and members of Oxford University Faculty of Classics. 

Today marks the first day of Saturnalia, the famously lascivious Roman harvest and solstice festival.  It was first celebrated on this date—accounting for a couple of changes of calendars—in 496 BC.  Saturnalia was the Roman feast of Saturn, the god of Harvest, a dies festus, a legal holiday when no public business could be conducted.  At various points during the Republic and Empire festivities extended over seven, three, and finally five days.

For a long time, all I knew about Saturnalia was that when I was in Cheyenne East High School the Latin Club nerds plastered the school with posters reading Io Saturnalia! Which roughly translated to “way to go, big fella!” or something.  They also had a slave auction fundraiser in the lunchroom where leering gym teachers bought the comeliest girls and likeliest boys draped in their mothers’ bed sheets.  Kind of creepy, when you think about it.

Saturnalia cavorting in a Roman wall fresco.

But as a student of all things religious, I have since learned a thing or two about it.

Saturnalia is just one of the many festivals common in Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere around the period of the solstice.  Unlike others, it is a harvest festival, which seems strange until you remember that Rome not only had a pleasant Mediterranean climate but was in a period of historic warming prior the Little Ice Age, the onset of which helped plunge the continent into the Dark Ages.  But that’s another story.

Saturn had an unfortunate habit of eating humans as depicted in this 1637 painting by Peter Paul Rubens.

The public ritual of the holiday was observed at the Temple of Saturn, one of the most important buildings in the Forum.  A lectisternium, a ceremonial couch, was set up before the Temple and the statue of Saturn was unbound—the rest of the year he was tied up because of his unfortunate habit of eating people.  He was depicted as a semi-depraved old man caring a harvesting scythe.  Christians would later adapt that image to Father Time associated with the celebration of the New Year.   A feast was laid out for the god before the couch so that he wouldn’t get hungry and revert to his nasty cannibalism.

The public ritual and spectacle aside what made Saturnalia especially popular with Roman plebeians and the large population of slaves were the carnival-like traditions.  Customs from the earlier Greek festival of Dionysus—the Roman Bacchus—were incorporated into the celebrations.

Public cavorting and sexual hijinks were notorious features of Saturnalia in a painting by Ernesto Biodoni.  A good time was had by all.

Social norms of the rest of the year were set aside.  Private parties and public revelry were the order of the day.  Restrictions on gambling were loosened and even slaves could try their luck at games such as casting knuckle bones, many trying to win enough money to buy their freedom.   Exchanging small gifts—saturnalia et sigillaricia—either made by hand or purchased at special holiday markets was a highlight.  Slaves were exempted from punishment by their masters, in theory at least.

The most telling was the turn-about feature of the celebration.  Slaves and common laborers were supposed to be served feasts by their masters and were free to express disrespect.  Sometimes complete role reversal was practiced.

A fresco of another popular Saturnalia tradition--gambling--was found in the buried ruins of Pompeii.

With the rules of public decorum suspended, it was a very good time for wine merchants and public drunkenness was common.  So were sexual hi-jinks, including usually forbidden mixing among classes, master and slave.

Around 250 AD Emperor Aurelian created the new official cult of Sol Invictus, a Sun deity which may have borrowed from the Persian warrior cult of Mithra, which celebrated the return of the Sun on December 25, just after the conclusion of Saturnalia.

After 250 AD Saturnalia was subsumed into the new Festival of Sol Invictus decreed by Emperor Aurelian in celebrations of a Sun cult.  The return of the sun on December 25 was a high point of the multi day celebration.  Although the original Saturnalia ended before that date a confusion about the two Roman holidays led to the popular misconception that the early Church "stole" December 25 for it celebration of the birth of Christ.

This led to the often told tale is that the early Christians, still persecuted, hid their celebration of the Feast of the Nativity during Saturnalia to avoid detection.  The trouble was that the date for that celebration was not yet fixed.  In fact, it was often celebrated in the Spring—the lambing season when shepherds would have been in the fields on the lookout for wolves. Even when Christmas was settled on December 25, it was two days after the customary end of Saturnalia but did coincide with the feast of Sol Invictus.  However later Emperors began to suppress the Sun festival with the rise of Christianity, around 390 AD.  The first written reference to a festival of Natalis Invicti was the Philocalian calendar of 354.  But a spring celebration of the nativity persisted more generally for another 100 years by which time the festival of Sol Invictus was banned and reduced to a rural folk celebration.   

The early church did seem to want to mount a feast or festival that competed with the various pagan solstice festivals and to which locals could adapt some of their beloved customs.  At the same time, the Church went through periods of vigorously trying to stamp out vestiges of those same pagan festivals.  For this reason, the exchange of gifts was outlawed through much of the early Middle Ages.

But customs did persist.  Although most of the trapping of Christmas were borrowed from the Nordic Yule, Celtic, and Druidic customs, the cultural influence of Rome’s long occupation of Britain can be seen in the carnival like observation of Christmas there up to the Puritan era   which included the same role-reversals, public revelry, and drinking.  The vestiges of it can be seen on Boxing Day, when masters give presents to servants and often serve them meals on the day after Christmas.

Today’s song, The Feast of Saturnalia–A Roman Slave’s Carol was created a tongue-in-cheek joke by the scholarly Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project and members of Oxford University Faculty of Classics.

 

Yule by Lisa Thiel —Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival

                                            Yule  by Lisa Thiel.

In the United States the exact moment of the Winter Solstice as defined by scientists—when the Sun is shining farthest to the south directly over the Tropic of Capricorn—occurs at 9:59 am Central Standard Time today.  You can figure out its arrival in your neck of the woods. The fact is that last night was the longest night of the year and today the sky will begin to grow light earlier each day.

In most pagan traditions around the Northern Hemisphere there were two ways to celebrate the Solstice.  Some lit fires in the darkest night to summon the return of the Sun.  Others gathered at dawn to in some way capture the first light of that return.  The latter often involved human construction on or in which that light would strike a significant stone or altar.  Think the pyramids in Egypt and the pre-Columbian Americas, Stonehenge, Greek temples, Native American medicine wheels, certain Medieval Cathedrals, and far simpler wooden structures in Northern Europe and Siberia. Either way, those who observe or recreate such rituals have found a way to do so.

The Winter Solstice is the pivot--equal light and dark on the way to the gradual return of the light/Sun.

Even if you do not observe the pagan doings—or shun them as the devil’s work—chances are that you to have been or will be celebrating the Solstice yourself. 

Modern neo-pagans celebrate the striking of a key stone at Stonehenge on Solstice morning with what they imagine a Druid ceremony might be like.

Buried in traditional folklore, swathed in symbolism, and steeped in metaphor, Christmas and Chanukah share the same impulses as Nordic Yule and its Celtic and ancient British cousins, Meán Geimhridh and Meán Geimhridhh beloved by contemporary neo-pagans of one stripe or another.  At their core there was in each of them a physical or metaphorical re-kindling of the light at the darkest hour of the year offering a glimmering of hope at a time of cold and starvation. 

One pagan story of the Winter Solstice is the assentation of the the Holly King in the Germanic and Norse celebration of Yule.

Other celebrations were connected to the Solstice or mid-winter including the Feast of Santa Lucia as it is celebrated in Scandinavia, St. Stephen’s or Wren Day, New Years, and even Kwanza.

While the trappings of Christmas—the Yule log, the holly and the ivy, the Christmas tree, mistletoe, wassailing, and other customs are commonly known to be borrowed from pagan celebrations, the metaphor of the birth of the Son, bringing light and salvation to the world is often overlooked.  Among still nervous orthodox Christians, drawing parallels to pagan belief is still discouraged.

The early Church actively squelched efforts to confabulate the Feast of the Nativity with the Festival of Sol Invictus, introduced to the Roman Empire in the Third Century under the Emperor Elagabalus. It was a religious revolution that briefly upended Jupiter as the primary Roman God and put in his place the Invincible Sun, which combined the characteristics and cult practices of several sun gods including Syrian Elah-Gabal, the Greek Apollo, and Mithras, a soldier god of Persian origin. 

The  Roman celebration of  Sol Invictus on December 25 was adapted by the early Church as a mass for the Son of God--Christmas--on the same date.

The feast was set on December 25, during the Roman holiday period following Saturnalia.  Later, under the Emperor Aurelian as Christianity grew in influence and importance, attempts were made to incorporate worship of the Christ child into the cult as an incarnation of Sol.  When the Church became ascendant in the Empire, it did all it could to suppress the festival, but like many popular pagan customs, it was so integrated into many daily lives that it inevitably influenced how Christmas, by then assigned to the same calendar day, was observed. 

Lisa Thiel is an artist and ceremonial singer whose healing song prayers and chants are among the most popular in the women’s spiritual movement today. Originally a holistic healing professional in Los Angeles, California, her spiritual path led her to study many of the world’s spiritual traditions and her teachers were yogis, shamans, Tibetan lamas, and wise women of the Goddess tradition.

The connecting thread throughout was the practice of sacred song for healing and empowerment, and an emphasis on the Sacred Feminine found in all traditions in one form or another. Lisa's songs are shamanic healing—medicine. Her songs have become a feature of women’s spiritual music and sung in circles around the world. 

Contemporary feminist singer/songwriter and shamistic healer Lisa Thiel is a mainstay of women's music and Goddess worship.

Yule comes from her 2005 album Circle of the Seasons.

Ring Out Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull—Murfin’s Carols for Corona and Winter Holiday Music Festival

                                            Ring Out Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull.

Note—Today we will feature a two-fer!  First, in honor of the Winter Solstice and a second post honoring the Christmas Star planetary convergence this evening.

Call it Solstice, Yule, Meán Geimhridh, or any name you choose, today is the shortest day and longest night of the year—the official beginning of winter. Tomorrow the Sun begins its annual return. Despite claims otherwise, Solstice is the Reason for the Season—the overt or disguised inspiration of most Northern Hemisphere Festivals of Light clustered around this date. To celebrate we turn to Jethro Tull’s classic 1977 album Songs from the Woods, Ian Anderson’s turn from jazz-infused rock to an embrace of his English roots and folk identities is a fitting carol for the day.

Today, the Solstice—the moment when in the Northern Hemisphere when has its maximum tilt away from the Sun will occur at 4:02 CST.  You can calculate it for your time zone.

                            The Holly King rules in the Germanic Yule celebration at Solstice.

In most so-called pagan traditions around the Northern Hemisphere there were two ways to celebrate the Solstice.  Some lit fires in the darkest night to summon the return of the Sun.  Others gathered at dawn to in some way capture the first light of that return.  The latter often involved human construction on or in which that light would strike a significant stone or altar.  Think pyramids in Egypt and the pre-Columbian Americas, Stonehenge, Greek temples, medicine wheels, certain Medieval Cathedrals, and far simpler wooden structures in Northern Europe and Siberia.  Either way, those who observe or re-create such rituals have found a way to do so.

Even if you do not observe the pagan doings—or shun them as the devil’s work—chances are that you to have been or will be celebrating the solstice yourself. 

Buried in traditional folklore, swathed in symbolism, and steeped in metaphor, Christmas and Chanukah share the same impulses as Yule and its Celtic and ancient British cousins, Meán Geimhridh and Meán Geimhridhh beloved by contemporary neo-pagans of one stripe or another.  At their core there was in each of them a physical or metaphorical re-kindling of the light at the darkest hour of the year offering a glimmering of hope at a time of cold and starvation. 

The Moon Goddess is the spirit of Solstice in Celtic-based modern neo-paganism.

Archeological evidence shows that the event—the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun’s daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest—was marked, often using physical constructions to capture the rising sun, in Neolithic times across widely separated cultures in Europe, the Near East, Asia, and North America.  Stonehenge is just the most famous example.  

While the trappings of Christmas—the Yule log, the holly and the ivy, the Christmas tree, mistletoe, wassailing and other customs are commonly known to be borrowed from pagan celebrations, the metaphor of the birth of the Son, bringing light and salvation to the world is often overlooked.  Among still nervous orthodox Christians, drawing parallels to pagan belief is still actively discouraged.

English Druids and other neo-pagans celebrate the winter solstice annually at dawn at Stonehenge, but alas not this year as England enters a near total Coronavirus lockdown.  Folks will have to witness the Sun shining through the key stones on the BBC.

The early Church actively squelched efforts to confabulate the Feast of the Nativity with the Festival of Sol Invictus, introduced to the Roman Empire in the Third Century under the Emperor Elagabalus.  It was a religious revolution that briefly upended Jupiter as the primary Roman God and put in his place the Invincible Sun, which combined the characteristics and cult practices of several sun gods including Syrian Elah-Gabal, the Greek Apollo, and Mithras, a soldier god of Persian origin. 

The late Roman cult of Sol Invictus celebrated it Solstice Festival on December 25.  The Catholic Church ultimately adopted that date for the Feast of the Nativity to co-opt the pagan celebration which remained popular in the Mediterranean region.

The feast was set on December 25, during the Roman holiday period following Saturnalia.  Later, under the Emperor Aurelian as Christianity grew in influence and importance, attempts were made to incorporate worship of the Christ child into the cult as an incarnation of Sol.  When the Church became ascendant in the Empire, it did all it could to squelch the festival, but like many popular pagan customs, it was so integrated into many daily lives that it inevitably influenced how Christmas, by then assigned to the same calendar day, was observed. 

Ring out Solstice Bells was featured on Jethro Tull's 1977 album Songs from the Woods featuring Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson is a Scottish born multi-instrumentalist and singer best known as the creative force behind the innovative and influential British folk/jazz/fusion/progressive rock band Jethro Tull.  Many of the band’s best known songs evoke a magical, even mystical spirit.  That is certainly the case in Ring Out Solstice Bells featuring percussion and Anderson’s signature flute.

 

2019 Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival—Ring Out Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull

Ring Out the Solstice Bells--Jethro Tull

Call it Solstice, Yule, Meán Geimhridh, or any name you choose, today is the shortest day of the year and the official beginning of winter. Tomorrow the Sun begins its annual return. Despite claims otherwise, Solstice is the Reason for the Season—the overt or disguised inspiration of most Northern Hemisphere Festivals of Light clustered around this date. To celebrate we turn to Jethro Tull’s classic 1977 album Songs from the Woods, Ian Anderson’s turn from jazz-infused rock to an embrace of his English roots and folk identities is a fitting carol for the day.

In most so-called pagan traditions around the Northern Hemisphere there were two ways to celebrate the Solstice.  Some lit fires in the darkest night to summon the return of the sun.  Others gathered at dawn to in some way capture the first light of that return.  The latter often involved human construction on or in which that light would strike a significant stone or altar.  Think pyramids in Egypt and the pre-Columbian Americas, Stonehenge, Greek temples, medicine wheels, certain Medieval Cathedrals, and far simpler wooden structures in Northern Europe and Siberia.  Either way, those who observe or re-create such rituals have found a way to do so.

Even if you do not observe the pagan doings—or shun them as the devil’s work—chances are that you to have been or will be celebrating the solstice yourself.  

The Holly King or Winter Sage and a Solstice goddess are male and female personifications of Yule in modern neo-paganism.

Buried in traditional folklore, swathed in symbolism, and steeped in metaphor, Christmas and Chanukah share the same impulses as Yule and its Celtic and ancient British cousins, Meán Geimhridh and Meán Geimhridhh beloved by contemporary neo-pagans of one stripe or another.  At their core there was in each of them a physical or metaphorical re-kindling of the light at the darkest hour of the year offering a glimmering of hope at a time of cold and starvation. 

Archeological evidence shows that the event—the shortest day and longest night of the year, when the sun’s daily maximum elevation in the sky is the lowest—was marked, often using physical constructions to capture the rising sun, in Neolithic times across widely separated cultures in Europe, the Near East, Asia, and North America.  Stonehenge is just the most famous example.  

English Druids and other neo-pagans celebrate the winter solstice annually at dawn at Stonehenge.

While the trappings of Christmas—the Yule log, the holly and the ivy, the Christmas tree, mistletoe, wassailing and other customs are commonly known to be borrowed from pagan celebrations, the metaphor of the birth of the Son, bringing light and salvation to the world is often overlooked.  Among still nervous orthodox Christians, drawing parallels to pagan belief is still actively discouraged.

The early Church actively squelched efforts to confabulate the Feast of the Nativity with the Festival of Sol Invictus, introduced to the Roman Empire in the Third Century under the Emperor Elagabalus.  It was a religious revolution that briefly upended Jupiter as the primary Roman God and put in his place the Invincible Sun, which combined the characteristics and cult practices of several sun gods including Syrian Elah-Gabal, the Greek Apollo, and Mithras, a soldier god of Persian origin. 

The feast was set on December 25, during the Roman holiday period following Saturnalia.  Later, under the Emperor Aurelian as Christianity grew in influence and importance, attempts were made to incorporate worship of the Christ child into the cult as an incarnation of Sol.  When the Church became ascendant in the Empire, it did all it could to squelch the festival, but like many popular pagan customs, it was so integrated into many daily lives that it inevitably influenced how Christmas, by then assigned to the same calendar day, was observed.  

Ring out Solstice Bells was featured on Jethro Tull's 1977 album Songs from the Woods featuring Ian Anderson.

Ian Anderson is a Scottish born multi-instrumentalist and singer best known as the creative force behind the innovative and influential British folk/jazz/fusion/progressive rock band Jethro Tull.  Many of the band’s best known songs evoke a magical, even mystical spirit.  That is certainly the case in Ring Out Solstice Bells featuring percussion and Anderson’s signature flute.