I’m headed back to Ultima Thule to celebrate the holidays. Of course, Christmas in Sweden has very little to do with celebrating mass, or Christ. Sweden is to all intents and purposes as heathen as it was before it was christened, and Yule (the Swedish word for the holiday is Jul) was always about appeasing the gods and assorted spirits and sprites that influence life in the cold darkness of winter – something which still goes on, regardless of what the church dictates.
The examples are legion: So for instance the tomte, a gnome that embodied the spirit of the homestead, had to be fed and given gifts, to ensure that the animals lived and stores weren’t depleted. Later on, of course, the tomte was mixed up with St Nicklaus, and Coca-cola added its own taint to the figure, thus ensuring Santa was born, but Swedish kids still leave out porridge or cakes and milk for the tomte the night before Christmas, in what is essentially a last ditch attempt at bribery.
We have also, famously, incorporated St Lucia in our traditional celebrations. Why an Italian saint who was burned alive would become part of heathen feasts might seem less than obvious, but when you consider that we have been sacrificing people and animals around the time of the winter solstice to bring back the light since before the Viking era, and lighting fires and singing to scare away the darkness, it’s perhaps easier to see the allure of this sacrificial lamb and her demise. Traditions tend to get lost in the mist of time, however, so the gruesome fact that children dress up in white shrouds and have lit candles in their hands and hair as a token funeral pyre is utterly lost on most modern Swedes in any event.
Speaking of lambs: the aforementioned tomte wasn’t traditionally the one who brought gifts (beyond the gift of not getting pissed off and ruining the farmstead) – that was the role of the Yule billy goat. To what extent this benevolent critter has common ancestry with Krampus, the black horned satyr/devil spawn that probably begat the Belgian Black Pete, who is the antithesis of St Nicklaus, I wouldn’t like to say, but in Sweden at least the goat was always warmly welcomed – probably because trolls were the ones in charge of abducting little children.
The word Yule itself is of unknown origins, but if I were to engage in guesswork, it’s probably no coincidence that the old Norse “jul” is very similar to the Swedish word “hjul”, wheel. The wheel of time always turns, and at no time is that more keenly felt, than in the midst of Nordic winter, when the longing for a new cycle of life is most desperate.
So as you can see, celebrating Yule may have a thin veneer of Christianity to it, but when we heap portion after portion of the sacrificed pig unto our plates – always mindful of it being lagom (literally “enough for everyone”) – and drink each others’ health by crying “Skål!” – a word that derives from “skull”, as the craniums of slain enemies were used as drinking vessels – we honour a heritage that goes back much, much further than any Christmas.
Good Yule, everyone!
So there is this country that I’ve been to dozens of times for work, and never really saw, even though it’s tiny, and right next door. Or rather, I never bothered, because it was tiny and right next door. And I associate it with work. How interesting could it be?
I’ve long thought I should try to write a travel entry on the topic of Sweden; I’ve lived abroad long enough that it’s a different country from the one I grew up in, after all, and for most readers it will be just as exotic as any other place I experience on my journeys.