Old Yule 4: The World Tree

Origin of Everything

The purpose of all the evergreen Yule plants — mistletoe, fir tree and holly — is to activate the life energy and to remind about the new beginning of the life and the year. Of these three plants, the fir tree is most important. It is an old Indo-European symbol of the World Tree.

The World Tree is a family tree and the origin of everything. It is a cosmic order that supports the whole universe, holding chaos at a distance.

Yggdrasil

The World Tree was called Yggdrasil ash by the Scandinavians, and Irminsul by the Germanic tribes, and its representations were the cross and the gallows. Askr (Adam) and Embla (Eve), the first humans, were born from this tree. Morover, Yggdrasil had three roots, one in every one of three worlds and the three times. The root in the land of the gods got water from Urd’s well of Destiny, which gives the wisdom of the past, in other words, wisdom of the ancestors. The shaman — or actually Father Yule — carried this wisdom in to our world under the Yule rituals as a Yule present.

Here is a Swedish picture stone describing the World Tree having a horned shaman on the top. The shaman is here in contact with the ancestors by means of the World Tree.

The World Tree Yggdrasil was believed to be an evergreen ash, but as we know, ash trees let their leaves fall every autumn. Therefore the fir tree is used in Yule rituals instead of ash. Both the ancient Romans and the Nordic people had fir tree as their holy midwinter tree.

O Yule Tree, O Yule Tree, Your boughs can teach a lesson
That constant faith and hope sublime
Lend strength and comfort through all time.
O Yule Tree, O Yule Tree,
Your boughs can teach a lesson

Fir branches were brought inside the house in the evening of 23rd of December, a day before the reincarnation of Balder. Balder is the representation of the future generations and a crown prince, and he was thought to be born from the base of the Yule Tree. This is the reason why the Yule presents are still being placed under the fir tree.

Cakes, Apples and Candles

The World Tree of an old Yule was decorated with honey cakes as the ash tree is a ‘honey tree’. That is to say it was believed by Indo-Europeans to give honey and therefore mead to gods, humans and ancestors. By means of the sacred honey they all could be in contact with each other across time and worlds.

Before the plastic balls, the Yule Tree was decorated with candied apples. On the Mother’s Night people went out and took the last apples (left behind in the autumn) from the trees. Afterwards, the stubs of the apple trees were wrapped with straw in hope of getting more fruits the following year. Therefore the obligatory apple decorations at Yule are actually a sacrifice to Mother Earth.

The first picture of a Danish Yule tree. Frølunds og Flinchs ABC, 1842

Yule has always been a festival of light, because daylight is increasing after the winter solstice. The Yule Tree was illuminated with wax candles or wood shingles. Candles were actually placed everywhere to attract the Sun, so that its male divine energy would be able to come back in the spring. They would also show the way to the dinner table for the good ancestral spirits.  On the other hand, lights and candles would hunt down evil spirits at this most sensitive time of the year.

However, the Yule Tree is not only a decoration to be watched. It is a living tradition; people are still dancing around it and singing. Thus the Yule Tree is the ancient World Tree and a symbol of the whole universe and its fertility, and we are honoring her by celebrating around her.

Viggo Johansen (1851-1935): Glade Jul, 1891

Christenized Tree

Christianity took over the Yule trees by fabricating a story about Saint Boniface (672–754 CE), who had prohibited pagans to sacrifice for their World Tree Irminsul by destroying the whole tree. It was told that a little fir tree grew up from the stub of the pagan tree as a new symbol of Christianity. Candles were placed on the branches of that fir tree  to make it possible to preach to pagans also after dark. No wonder that Saint Boniface was finally killed by the pagans.

The first historical evidence about Yule trees was written in Germany five hundred years ago. The first Yule trees found their way to the Nordic countries in 1820s, but became common about a hundred years later.

Martin Luther, the religious reformer, is told to be the first one in the protestant countries who took the tree inside and decorated it with candles. This can hardly be true. It is more likely that the tradition of the Yule tree has always been around, for thousands of years; sometimes in fashion, sometimes forgotten. However, it is true that the Yule trees first came inside people’s living rooms in the beginning of the 19th century.

To be continued in a subsequent blog.