Dark Medieval Music: Winter Solstice and Yule.

[@HeathenDance]

Consider supporting my music, by purchasing the album from which this song was taken, available on bandcamp: forgottenvalues.bandcamp.com/...

[@annoulamaraki5315]

Nice music ! And very interesting informations .

[@HeathenDance]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed both =)

[@SeikaGroves]

Just wanted to say Thanx for the music.. and to add a bit more information regarding Yule/Jol/Jul. . We (as in scholars and us archaeologists who study this period) do not actually know which gods/goddesses were revered at this time there are no written records... most likely unless you were the upper class you would have chosen Thor over Odin at your celebrations. That being said there are written accounts by Adam of Bremen (a Christian who made claims that a friend who spent time with the Norse saw these rituals) that you were expected to drink... and i am now translating from old text: "4 gallons of mead/wine over the 3-night celebration." So they enjoyed having a drunken good time :) The friend of Adam who was also Christian does state he refused to eat the horse meat but did agree to breathe in the steam from the freshly cooked liver. You were also expected to swear oaths. These were taken very seriously and if you did not follow through with them there were consequences. There are many other aspects of Yule/Jol/Jul for the Norse, but... I just wanted to add these interesting and little spoken of "facts" pertaining to their celebrations. "facts" - we are speculating based on eyewitness accounts of that time and the best information available to us at this time.

[@HeathenDance]

Hello, thank you for your comment! Very interesting and useful information that you add. You are right about Odin, and probably even Thor would be more associated to the upper classes. Also between the Ancient Times and Early Medieval Ages, the Norse didn't have access to wine, mostly. I will leave this text that I read (source link in the end), that you might find interesting: Folk Beliefs Since rural Scandinavians remained dependent on the forces of nature throughout history, it is hardly shocking that fertility gods remained an important part of folk belief. For these reasons, Freyja retained elements of her role as a fertility goddess, even in the rural Sweden of the 19th century. In the province of Småland, there is an account of how she was associated with sheet lightning: I remember a Sunday in the 1880s, when some men were walking in the fields looking at the rye which was about to ripen. Then Måns in Karryd said: "Now Freyja is out watching if the rye is ripe" [...] When as a boy I was visiting the old Proud-Katrina, I was afraid of lightning like all boys in those days. When the sheet lightning flared in the nights, Katrina said: "Don't be afraid little child, it is only Freyja who is out making fire with steel and flintstone to see if the rye is ripe. She is kind to people and she is only doing it to be of service, she is not like Thor, he slays both people and livestock, when he is in the mood" [...] I later heard several old folks talk of the same thing in the same way. Such beliefs were also common elsewhere in the Swedish countryside. In Värend, Freyja could arrive at Christmas night and she used to shake the apple trees for the sake of a good harvest. Consequently, people came to leave some apples in the trees for her sake. Likewise, it was dangerous to leave the plough outdoors, because if Freyja sat on it, it would no longer be of any use. www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Freyja

[@SeikaGroves]

Oh indeed Freya was important and from our research we find others were as well. It really depended upon where you lived as to who was important to your village or area. Thor was the common man's god of choice. Odin was reserved for the wealthy and upper class as war was Odin's game and the wealthy were all about warring to keep/take lands etc.. As for mead/wine this is coming from a Christian account so for them wine was indeed the go to drink of the time. It is likely that Adam of Bremen's friend would not have differentiated between the two and the translation to English from original Saxon text may lend to this mention of wine as well .. The offerings that are recorded in later times such as the apples to Freya etc.. these are what people believed would please her. Once again no historical evidence to say what an offering to any of the gods may have been at the height of their pagan culture. There is a few instances of human sacrifice to Odin described as one to be hanged from a tree and a spear thrown to kill the person. This may come from the story of a King asking for his punishment to be representative. The king was hanged from a tree by the intestine of a goat and the spear that was thrown was made of a reed. This would spare his life as the intestine was not strong enough to hold him and the reed would not harm him when he was struck but as all good stories go fate would have the intestine became a strong rope and the reed a spear. The King was therefore killed in the name of Odin. So many great stories.. all very intersting but we cannot take them as Norse truths. It is facinating indeed as is the history of Yule/Jol/Jul. My family are Norse and Scottish decent going way back to the earliest Roman records in Scotland so all these stories intrigue me as dot he customs and changes of such over the centuries. :)

[@luizguilhermemoreirasales3262]

Hello i am Brasil beautiful song

[@HeathenDance]

Olá =) Muito obrigado!