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Yule log
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A Yule log is a large wooden log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in several European cultures. It can be a part of the Winter Solstice festival or the Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Twelfth Night.
The expression "Yule log" has also come to refer to log-shaped Christmas cakes, also known as "chocolate logs" or "Bûche de Noël". The Yule log is related to other Christmas and Yuletide traditions such as the Ashen faggot.
term "Yule log" is not the only term used to refer to the custom.
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Encyclopedia
A Yule log is a large wooden log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in several European cultures. It can be a part of the Winter Solstice festival or the Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or Twelfth Night.
The expression "Yule log" has also come to refer to log-shaped Christmas cakes, also known as "chocolate logs" or "Bûche de Noël". The Yule log is related to other Christmas and Yuletide traditions such as the Ashen faggot.
Etymology
The term "Yule log" is not the only term used to refer to the custom. In the north-east of England it was commonly called a "Yule Clog", and in the country's Midlands and West Country, the term "Yule Block" was also used. In the county of Lincolnshire, the term "Gule Block" was found, and in Cornwall, the term "Stock of the Mock" was as well.
In other parts of the British Isles, different terms were used, for instance in Wales, the log was often referred to as "Y Bloccyn Gwylian", meaning "the Festival Block", whilst in Scotland, "Yeel Carline" (meaning "the Christmas Old Wife") was used, and in Ireland, the term "Bloc na Nollaig", which meant "the Christmas Block", was used.
In Germany, the log is referred to as Christklotz, Christbrand or Weihnachtsscheit ("Christ-log" or "Christmas-log"). Kindled on Christmas eve, the log in German tradition functioned as a lightning charm.
Historical custom
Germanic pagan origins
The Yule log has frequently been associated with having its origins in the historical Germanic paganism which was practiced across northern Europe prior to Christianisation. One of the first people to do so was the British Henry Bourne, who, writing in the 1720s, described the practice occuring in the Tyne valley. Bourne theorised that the practice originated from Anglo-Saxon paganism, which is a form of Germanic paganism that was practiced in England during the early mediaeval period.
Robert Chambers, in his 1832 work, Book of Days notes that "two popular observances belonging to Christmas are more especially derived from the worship of our pagan ancestors—the hanging up of the mistletoe and the burning of the Yule log." James George Frazer in his work on anthropology, The Golden Bough (p. 736) holds that "the ancient fire-festival of the winter solstice appears to survive" in the Yule log custom. Frazer records traditions from England, France, among the South Slavs, in Central Germany (Meiningen) and western Switzerland (the Bernese Jura).
However, some historians have disagreed with this claim, for instance the Swedish C.W. von Sydow attacked Frazer's theories, claiming that the Yule log had never had any religious significance, and was instead simply a festive decoration with practical uses.
In the British Isles
Because there are no accounts of the custom in the British Isles prior to the 17th century, some historians and folklorists have theorised that it was not an ancient British custom but was in fact imported into Britain from continental Europe in the early modern period, possibly from Flanders in Belgium, where the tradition thrived in this period.
The first mention of the Yule log in the British Isles is a written account by the clergyman Robert Herrick, from the 1620s or 1630s. Herrick called the tradition a "Christmas log" and said that it was brought into the farmhouse by a group of males, who were then rewarded with free beer from the farmer's wife. Herrick claimed that the fire used to burn the log was always started with a remnant from the log that had been burned in the previous year's festivities. He also said that the log's role was primarily one of bringing prosperity and protection from evil - by keeping the remnant of the log all the year long the protection was said to remain across the year.
In traditional British rural culture, the Yule log was not only seen as a magical protective amulet, and there are many reports of rivalries occuring between members of a community as to who had the largest log.
The traditions of the Yule log died out in Britain in the latter 19th and early 20th century because of, according to historian Ronald Hutton, "the reduction in farm labour and the disappearance of the old-fashioned open hearths".
In English folklore, Father Christmas was often depicted carrying a Yule Log.
In Italy
In Tuscany, there is a Festa di Ceppo ("festival of the log").
In Catalonia
In the most traditional of the catalan homes, the old custom of "fer cagar el tió" is still followed for christmas. A log is wrapped with a blanket several days in advance of christmas and every day and on christmas eve the blanket is removed
In Serbia
The badnjak, is a central feature in the traditional Serbian Christmas celebration. It is the log that a family solemnly brings into the house and places on the fire in the evening of Christmas Eve. The tree used for the badnjak, preferably a young and strait oak, is ceremoniously felled and stripped of its branches in the early morning of Christmas Eve. The burning of the badnjak is accompanied by prayers to God so that the coming year may bring much happiness, love, luck, riches, and food. The badnjak would burn on through Christmas Day. The first person to visit the family on that day should strike the burning badnjak with a poker or a branch to make sparks fly from it, at the same time uttering a wish that the happiness, prosperity, health, and joy of the family be as abundant as the sparks.
Confection
Sometime in the late 18th to early 19th century, a facsimile of the Yule Log became a traditional French dessert. Usually, it is in the form of a large rectangular yellow cake spread with frosting and rolled up into a cylinder - one end is then lopped off and stood on end to indicate the rings of the "log." This "Bûche de Noël" became a traditional Christmas dessert, and has recently spread to other regions, where it is often referred to as a yule log.
Modern popular culture
In the United States and Canada, the "Yule log" has also become a modern tradition in the form of a TV screen in one's home showing video of an actual Yule Log burning in a real fireplace. The video is accompanied by Christmas music, crackling fire sounds, or both at the same time. Often stations in metro areas will include 24 hours of nothing but a yule log on Christmas Day.
This is now a very popular trend on DVDs, but it began on a whim in 1966, by Fred Thrower, former TV programming director for WPIX in New York City, who wanted to offer a Yule Log for the majority in New York City who had no real fireplace of their own. It has been offered for several hours each year (on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day) as a video greeting card to viewers, and is syndicated across the U.S.
Many others have offered their own versions over the years on TV, and in all video formats.
Beginning in the late 1970's, the ski resort town of Steamboat Springs Colorado initiated a Yule Log hunt for locals. The tradition continues to date, with the town's museum providing local historical clues and hints each day in the newspaper, for a period of 10 days before Christmas, until the log is found. The successful treasure hunters receive $150, a large framed historical picture, their picture in the newspaper, and of course bragging rights. One local family (includes Wattersons, Herfurtners, Farrells, & Selch) have found the log 15 times since the hunt began.
See also
External links
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- created by Pastry Chef Eric Hubert
- , a page with information about the Yule log
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