As we are moving into the two darkest months of the year. before and after the winter solstice, here on the top-of-the-World, we Swedes are following the advice of the ancient Chinese proverb
"Don't curse the darkness - light a candle". (I used the simplified Han Chinese in the title of this post in the vain hope that you illiterates would understand.)
In fact Swedes light millions of candles to combat the darkness, starting on the first Sunday of Advent (today) until the twentieth day after Christmas eve (January 13th).
During this period every decent Swede - and some not so decent Sweden Democrats also - places a lit candlestick or a star in almost every window of their homes to light up the darkness. It does help!
And we burn a lot of ordinary candles as well, but we never ever leave a burning candle in an empty room.
(The last part was a paid public service announcement.)
I've put out twelve electric candelabra with seven candles in each to pass all Rimtursar back to Nifvelheim (Rimtursar is the mythical forces of winter and darkness over the land from the cold and dark homes, Nifvelheim, at the North Pole) and a large billy goat of straw(Bock in Swedish) will butt the Rimtursarna away from here.
ReplyDeleteIn Scandinavia, Christmas is primarily a light festival. Celebration of light return.
As Völvan tells the true picture of Yule.
Vanadis, your comment reminds us all that the present tradition most likely has a pre-Christian origin, although the church has done it´s best to Christianize it for several hundreds of years.
ReplyDeleteChristianity has stolen most of our ancient tradittioner. Christmas, Easter, Midsummer, etc. Bishop Adam of Bremen told his missionaries; "Let northerners keep their traditions, but do something christian of them."
ReplyDeleteThere is the Church's words, that our pre-Christian traditions are easily masked.