Gone Medieval - Viking Midwinter Solstice

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

For many of us, our Christmas traditions have been passed down generations. Whether we realise it or not. But where could some of these traditions originate from, and could some go back to the Viking age? In today’s episode, Cat is joined by cultural historian Herleik Baklid to discuss midwinter traditions and cultural practices, especially those from Scandinavia. Will you be partying like a Viking this holiday?If you’re enjoying this podcast and looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit.To download, go to Android or Apple store Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman and I'm delighted to bring you a bit of a festive episode today. 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 dates 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, Harlake Barclade, who's an associate professor at the University of South Eastern Norway. Thank you for joining me today, Harleck.

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 Sartanalia Festival about 2,000 years ago. And a lot of tradition that were practiced there are very much like of a celebration of 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 a 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 a religious political reason. 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 pepican base and was inspired by the pepican 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. We 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 Trondelag also divided the year in another way. They divided it into haust, autumn, midwinter, midgium wetri, in old Norwegian, the middle of the winter and the summer. In the middle of October, they had haust blot. At the midwinter, they had mids wetra blot. and in the middle of April they had Sumar blood. So this was a kind of dividing the year.

So these bluts are sort of feasts, aren't they? And we can get back to the feasts in a moment. 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 Snorjsturlason wrote Heimskringla, the story of the Norwegian kings in the Middle Ages. And we have also a poem that is called Haraldskrede. The author is Torvjorn Klova. And the poem was the author of the poem, about 900. So this is the main source for the pre-Christian Christmas or Jules. they said. So that's really not a lot. You have one poem that dates to the Viking Age.

And then the other, you know, Snoddo 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 year 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? age then. Yes, a little bit. The poem, Haraldskwed, as I mentioned, in this poem, there is a phrase, Ute will Jol-Drecker in old Norwegian. So they drank Christmas or Yule. Beer was very important in the

celebration of Christmas. Beer has been a very important part of celebration, not only in jule or christmas but also in weddings they drank wedding drink beaulup and we also have beer in in funerals so beer was very important in celebration and also hawkon the good a Norwegian king from about nine hundred and thirty three to nine hundred and sixty approximately. In his saga, it is also told that he prescribed that there must be beer to Christmas to Jude. This is very important. There is a question when the Vikings celebrated Yule. And this has been heavily discussed by the scholars. But in the saga about Hawken the Good, the saga, as I mentioned, It is told that King Hockon made a law that told the Norwegian to celebrate Jule at the same time as the Christians and not at Hoku not.

Hoke in English, which we translated, it will be Chin, Chin Knight. 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 scurals 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

Hōkuhnot denotes when the winter turns and is coming to the half so this and this is in my opinion that have been heavily discussed Ancient history fans this is our moment subscribe to the ancients now

to get your weekly goodness of ancient history we've got the big topic So through this material, we're actually looking at this entangled sum of hundreds and thousands, in fact, of stories of life across ancient Eurasia. We've got the big names. The Romans, of course, become so powerful and the Romans conquer the whole of the Mediterranean world. And Hannibal was the one who challenged the Romans the most. We've got the big discoveries.

And these are the only surviving boxing gloves from the Roman Empire. And we even have some great. groundbreaking new archaeological detective stories. Barnes of Cleopatra. I had never come across any such thing before. Subscribe to the ancients on history hit wherever you get to your podcasts. According to Snorre, they practiced blood animal sacrifice at Yule in the heathom time. Snorre is telling about such blood at Mare in Trondelag in Norway.

to this bloat every farmer had to contribute with food and drink beer and meat of sheep, goat and horse. A drink should be taken round the fire and the chief day 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 Norse God's njord and froy for good havest and fertility and peace. Or as I said, to Ors and Fridhar, as the old Norwegian said. Some drank also to Anne Brage and some drank to honor their dead relatives. During the blood, they could make semonial promises called Jola Heitti,

by putting the hand on the pig that was going to be sacrificed. According to the saga about Hawke on 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 honour the sun. And lastly, some think it has to mark the end of a period of feast. So 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 these feasts were about. Is that right? Yes.

And also we assume that the celebration began in a private home and was continuing at social gatherings. And we assume that under the social gatherings there was bloat. Yeah. So that's really interesting, isn't it? it is quite a small scale. It's not a sort of vast, big community event. It's kind of small, family, private home. So that sets something more about the society, I guess, how it fits into society. So 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 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, Prukop, that, there were some customs connected to the sun in Scandinavia.

Prukop 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. 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 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, St. Olaf's, the Norwegian king, we can read a little bit about this. In the saga, it is told that the people in Trondelag continued to celebrate midwinter with blood after they had converted to Christianity. King Olau then punished them by taking from them the food to the celebration, inventory, and clothes. Beyond this, it is not so very much to find about the 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 midwinter. 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, Odin, Tor, Njord, and Freud, the people now drink beer to honor Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary. Stiller drank to Ors Ours and Frida 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 Gullating's law. I see. So there actually was punishment even in Christianity for not drinking at Christmas. Yes, it was. Oh my goodness. That wasn't used 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.

in use. Today, we also drink beer. It's a Norwegian custom, but I have to say that we do not have a ritual bringing to the gods. We are drinking 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 still call the Feast Jules. In England, I think it's, otherwise you have the name, Christmas. The name is also from the Heathen time. Well, that's a very big part of it. And there'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 a celebration at home, the private home, and then they continued in social gatherings.

And also in our celebration today, we began the celebration at home. and later on there are a lot of social gathrings. So there are also some similarities. Yeah, so there clearly are some things than 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 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. Yes, yes. 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 Yonge. And yeah, have a very happy Christmas, or Go Yule, as we should say in Norwegian. Yeah, Merry Christmas and go Yur. Thank you so much. And that brings us to the end of this episode of Gone Medieval by History Hit. forget to subscribe to our Medieval Monday's 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.