Wheel of the Year

Yule

The winter solstice, the longest night, when the sun is reborn.

When: the winter solstice, around 21 December in the north and 21 June in the south.

What it is

At Yule the night is at its longest and the sun stands lowest in the sky. From the next morning the days grow again, by minutes at first. Witches celebrate that turn: the return of the light in the middle of the cold. Yule is a festival of rest, of warmth shared indoors and of quiet hope, since nothing can be seen yet of what has begun.

Many witches tell it as a story: on the longest night the sun is born again as a child, and it will grow with the days.

Where it comes from

The word is old. Jól was the midwinter feast of the Norse, with days of eating and drinking, and the English monk Bede wrote around 725 that his forefathers had called the time round midwinter Giuli. A Norwegian king of the tenth century is said to have moved the feast to the days of Christmas, and in Scandinavia Christmas is still called jul.

People marked this day far earlier. The great tomb of Newgrange in Ireland, more than five thousand years old, is built so that the rising sun of midwinter shines down its passage. What its builders believed, nobody knows.

The customs we know are younger and belong to Christmas as much as to Yule: evergreen branches in the house since the Middle Ages, the Yule log on the hearth, and the decorated tree, first recorded on the Upper Rhine in the sixteenth century. The Yule of modern witches was shaped in the 1950s, from these old parts. It is one of the eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year.

Ways to celebrate

• Sit with the dark: switch off the lights for a few minutes on the longest night before you light a candle.
• Greet the sunrise: get up on the morning after and watch the sun come back.
• Evergreens: bring in fir, pine or spruce as a sign of life that lasts through winter.
• A wish for the light: write down one thing that shall grow with the days, and keep it until spring.
• Share warmth: bake, cook for someone, or take something to a neighbour who is alone.

Good to know

Never leave a candle burning unattended, and keep greenery, paper and ribbons away from the flame.

The berries of holly, ivy and mistletoe are poisonous, and so is every part of yew. Keep them away from children and pets, or choose fir and pine.

The dark months weigh on many people. If low mood or lack of drive lasts for weeks, please talk to your doctor: winter depression is common and can be treated. And nobody has to feel festive at Yule. Resting is a way of keeping it too.