   The Wheel of the Year brings us to Yule, and the god (who died at Samhain) is reborn of the Virgin Goddess. The God is represented by the sun which returns after this darkest night of the year to once again bring fertility and warmth to the land. The holiday spectacle of colored lights on houses and trees at Christmas is a modern version of the pagan custom of lighting candles and fires as acts of sympathetic magicck to lure back the waning sun. Today it is still a custom in Ireland and Norway to have lights burning all through the house on Yule night to not only lure back the sun, but also to honor the Virgin Goddess who gives him birth. Yule is the most widely celebrated of all the Sabbats because its customs and lore have so deeply invaded popular cultures and the mainstream religions, and virtually every culture in the northern hemisphere in some way once acknowledged the return of the sun at its weakest point. Anthropologists E. W. Budge states that Yule was first celebrated as a religious festival 12,000 years ago. Yule was a Sabbat of primary importance in the Norse and Roman traditions, and from these ancient roots our modern Yule customs began. For both of these civilizations, this was the time of the New Year, when the Goddess turned the Wheel of the Year to its beginning point again. Yule is an Old Norse word which literally means "wheel," and the Sabbat was often referred to as Hweolor-tid, the "turning time." In the Norse tradition, Yule is a twelve-night-long celebration, a idea that probably came from the pagan Near East where it eventually became incorporated in the Christian myths. The first Eve of Yule (the night before Soltice) is called Mother Night, and this is the night when Norse pagans sit up and wait for the rising and rebirth of their Sun Goddess, Freya. It is also a night for spirit contact and celebration with one's ancestors in much the same way as the Celts observe Samhain. The Norse goddess, Holde, guardian of the spirit world, opens her doors at Yule to all sincere believers. The finial night of observance, called "Twelfth Night," became for a while a sort of nineth Sabbat on the Norse pagan calendar. The popular winter song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" has its roots in the blending of Norse and Celtic Yule customs. A very old and lengthy Scottish nursery rhyme is "The Thirteen Yule Days."The poem tells us what a wealthy Scottish King once sent his lady love on each of the celebratory days. Within the ballad, the number three, a number sacred to the Celts, is prominently featured:
DAY 1 A PAPINGOE In ancient Egypt, the Winter Soltice was not only a time to celebrate the rebirth of their Sun God Ra, but to commemorate the creation of the universe as well. In Egyptian mythology it is taught that in the beginning there was nothing but Nun, the primordial black sea of chaos often likened to the womb of the Mother Goddess. From this ocean of unrest Ra was born, and he in turn gave birth to other dieties. After the great exertion he cried the dark tears given to him by Nun, and each tear became the men and women of Egypt. In sun-parched north Africa, December marked the beginning of the short rainy season. If it rained on the eve of the soltice, it was considered to be a special blessing from Ra whose tears were once again bringing new life to Egypt on the night of his rebirth. One of the most venerated of all these reborn sun gods was Mithras, whose cult spread far beyond his native Rome and into Greece, Persia, Egypt, and Asia Minor. His festival day, the soltice, was called Natalia Solis Invicti, or the "Birthday of the Invincible Sun." Some scholars go so far as to argue that, but for a few quirks of history and politics, the pagan cults who worshiped Mithras might have been as widespread and accepted today as Christianity. It is no accident that some of the myths surrounding him are similar to the Judeo-Christian ones which surround Jesus. Mithra was born to a virgin mother, was the sun (son) personified, was the child of the God of all Gods, and his followers continually pray for his return which will herald new life and life eternal for all humankind. The tradition of Yuletide gift-giving comes from Roman pagans who called Yule by the name Saturnalia, a festival to honor the God Saturn. It was also a New Year's festival where gifts were given in honor of loved ones who had died in the previous year. Early Roman explorers and conquorers carried this tradition throughout Europe, where it remained part of the Yule celebration. From another Roman sun diety (one shared with Greek neighbors), Apollo, we get the custom of hanging bay around our homes at Yule. Bay was sacred to this god, and since it was he who drove the chariot in which the sun rode, it was important to honor him in order to persuade him to steer his course back to earth. In nearly all of the Romance languages, we can still hear the vestigages of old Rome as they refer to bay as "Laurel of Apollo." This custom of hanging bay was adopted by the Celts to bring the blessings of strength and health in the new year. Bayberry-scented candles are still popular today, their scent rarely failing to revive memories of the season. The Wheel of the Year is often symbolized by the wreath. There is ample archaeological evidence to support the fact that wreaths have been used in this symbolic way for more than 4,000 years. It's circle has no beginning and no end, thus illustrating that the Wheel of the Year is also like this, with evrything in its time coming back to its point of origin and traveling onward, over and over again. Wreaths came to be used at Christmas through the influence of Scandinavian pagans who hung them at Yule (their New Year's Eve) to commemerate a new beginning of the ever-moving cycle of life. The profusion of this decoration at this time of year is a direct result of the pagan practice of creating these wreaths out of natural materials to decorate homes and altars for the New Year's celebration. In Sweden, it is still customary to have a young woman wear a lighted wreath to the ritual space. The Swedish folk song "Jeannette Isabella" comes from this custom which was adopted for Christmas, a custom now largely observed by pagans at Imbolg.
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