Yule: The Winter Solstice and the Return of the Sun

Yule is the winter solstice: the shortest day and the longest night of the year. From this night onward the days begin to lengthen. It is the festival of the returning light, kept in the depth of the dark.

Where Yule comes from

The word Yule comes from the Old Norse jol and the Old English geol, the names of a midwinter feast kept by the Germanic and Norse peoples. The surviving descriptions are brief and were written down after the coming of Christianity, so the details of the original festival are uncertain. They mention feasting, drinking, and toasts to the gods and to the dead.

Many of the customs now linked with Yule are recorded from the medieval period onward: bringing evergreens into the house, burning a great log on the hearth, and wassailing, which is the custom of drinking to the health of neighbors and orchards. Long before any of them, people were watching the solstice. Several prehistoric monuments in Britain and Ireland are aligned to the midwinter sunrise or sunset.

What Yule means on the Wheel

In the Wiccan story, the Goddess gives birth to the God at Yule. He is the sun child, small and new, and his birth is the promise that warmth and growth will come again. In the tale of the two kings, the Oak King defeats the Holly King at midwinter and rules until midsummer, while the days lengthen.

The lesson of Yule is that the turn comes at the darkest point. Nothing looks different on the morning after the solstice, and the hardest part of winter is still ahead. But the light has started back.

Ways to celebrate

• Keep a vigil. Stay up late with candles on the longest night, and put them out before you grow drowsy. Or rise early to greet the sunrise after it.
• Burn a Yule log. If you have a fireplace, burn a special log and save a piece to light next year's. If not, set three candles in metal holders on a small log or along a branch, and put them out well before they burn down to the wood.
• Bring in the green. Decorate with pine, holly, and ivy as a sign of life that lasts through the winter. Keep holly, ivy, and mistletoe out of reach of children and pets, since their berries and leaves are poisonous if eaten.
• Share food and gifts. Midwinter generosity is very old. Handmade gifts and a shared table suit the season.
• Feed the birds. Put out seed and fresh water. It is an offering to the land when it needs it most.
• Rest. The earth is resting. You are allowed to do the same.

For a longer version of this ritual written for one person, see our article on a solitary Yule.

Yule and the December holidays

Many Pagans live in families that keep other midwinter holidays, and the customs overlap so much that it is easy to share them. An evergreen tree, candles, a feast, and gifts belong to the season itself. You can keep Yule quietly on the solstice and join the family celebration a few days later without any conflict.

In the Southern Hemisphere, Yule falls in June. On the December solstice, Southern Hemisphere witches are keeping Litha.