8/8/2019 Anglo-Saxon Yule

1/2

Anglo-Saxon Yuletide

K. A. Laity

The Anglo-Saxons settled Britain in the early fifth century, giving their name to the

land now known as England. Very little remains of the native culture of the Anglo-Saxons. We

learn from the Venerable Bede, a seventh century Christian historian, that the months we now

call December and January were considered Giuli or Yule by the Anglo-Saxons. According

to the historian, his Anglo-Saxon ancestors celebrated the beginning of the year on December

25th, referred to as Modranect that is, Mothers Night. This celebration most likely

acknowledged the rebirth of Mother Earth in order to ensure fertility in the coming spring

season. An Anglo-Saxon charm for crop fertility, recorded in the eleventh-century and known

as Aecerbot, refers to the Earth as Erce, [the] Earthen Mother and contains the following

praise poem for her:

Hale be you, earth,

mortals mother!May you ever be growing

in gods grasp,

filled with food,

useful for folk.

It could be that the poem refers to Nerthus, the earth goddess the Roman historian Tacitus

identified as venerated by the continental Germanic tribes, but we will probably never be sure.

Many scholars have suggested that the mother goddess Friga (Frigg in Old Norse)

played a central role in the Yuletide observances, although no records remain of specificcelebrations for Mothers Night. Chief of the goddesses and the consort of Woden, Friga ruled

over childbirth and marriage and inspired the naming of several English towns like Frobury

and Fretherne, as well as the English word for the day of the week, Friday.

It is very likely too that the Yule celebrations also included honors for Freyja, who

governed love and fertility. Both she and her twin brother Freyr were associated with the boar,

the primary animal represented in Yuletide customs and indeed in Anglo-Saxon culture in

general. Scholars first discovered the importance of the fierce wild boar through warrior

poetry like the epic Beowulf. Beowulfs men wore boars on their helmets both to protect their

own headsand to intimidate their opponents. But it is not only in literature that we find the

boar motif. Twentieth-century archeological discoveries like that of Sutton Hoo (a dig

containing a royal burial and many different artifacts) have revealed the truly widespread

significance of this totemic animal, even into the Christian era. The boar continued to

ornament brooches, bowls and jewelry as well as more military objects for centuries.

The boar significance as the center of the Yuletide celebration outlived not only the

conversion to Christianity, but even the disappearance of the creature itself from England. By

8/8/2019 Anglo-Saxon Yule

2/2