A household at their Victorian-era Christmas dinner, circa 1840.
Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive
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Hulton Archive/Hulton Archive
On a cold December evening in Sandy Spring, Md., dozens of individuals crammed into the Woodlawn Manor for a Victorian-era Yuletide dance lesson, the wood flooring creaking below the unsure steps of Twenty first-century folks studying Nineteenth-century English nation dances.
“Each good celebration has dancing,” stated Angela Yau, a historic interpreter for the parks division who was instructing the dances — and the Victorians beloved Yuletide shindig.
Angela Yau, a web site supervisor for the Montgomery County parks division who additionally works in cultural and pure historical past interpretation, wears an 1840s-style gown whereas instructing Victorian dances to the room.
Natalie Escobar/NPR
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Natalie Escobar/NPR
The merriment was emblematic of what number of consider Xmas; at the moment, it is synonymous with Christmas. However centuries in the past, earlier than crooners sang about carols being sung by a fireplace, Xmas meant one thing completely different: a pagan mid-winter pageant across the solstice, courting again to pre-Christian Germanic folks.
It was notably vital to Scandinavian communities throughout that point of yr, beset by late sunrises and early sunsets, in response to Maren Johnson, a professor of Nordic research at Luther School.
“All these sorts of winter traditions are tied very intricately into small communities,” she stated. “You develop between yourselves a folklore about this winter time and this era of darkness.”
On this week’s installment of “Word of the Week,” we journey again in time to the origins of Xmas festivals, and hint these earliest traditions to modern-day Christmas celebrations.
Feasting, consuming and animal sacrifices
Students of those early pagan festivals haven’t got a lot concrete proof of what really went on at them, in response to Outdated Norse translator Jackson Crawford, as a result of a lot of the written file comes a lot later from Christians. However what is obvious, he stated, was that feasting and consuming had been plentiful.
Terry Gunnell, a professor of folkloristics on the College of Iceland, agrees. Consuming copious quantities of ale was not solely inspired however required, he stated, and animals had been slaughtered as a part of the sacrifices to gods and spirits typical of those early festivals.
“The snow is coming down the mountains and in a way, the character spirits are transferring nearer,” he stated — and other people wished to appease them.
After which, there was the oath-swearing. Crawford stated this was one of many main hallmarks of early Xmas celebrations as recorded in myths like The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek from the thirteenth century. In it, a person swears to the king of Sweden that he’ll marry his daughter with no actual prospects of doing so.
“However your oaths throughout Xmas are form of sacred, additional binding,” he stated. “So he has to attempt to fulfill it,” though he finally will get killed.
