12 Days of Yule

[GypsySeaWitch]

So I have been on a pagan parenting group on Facebook as of late. The amount of traditions that I've never heard of before has my head spinning....mostly from the about of inaccurate information. Newest one is the 12 days of Yule. Many claim it to be a Norse or Asatru tradition. Taken this is being said by people who's children are also visited by Odin at Yule instead of Santa....but I figured if anyone online knew if this had any accuracy, some of you guys would.

[anunitu]

I was going to ask,where you been?..and welcome back.

[Rick]

Yule, in Iceland and the Scandinavian countries, would traditionally be observed for the length of time that the Yule log burned in the fireplace, which might be a couple days, might be a couple weeks, depending on the size of your fireplace and your Yule log. Sounds to me that the 12 days of Yule are probably a modern construct, but that's only my opinion.

[GypsySeaWitch]

I was going to ask,where you been?..and welcome back.

Thanks for the welcome back. Been living life. Keep forgetting to get online, but my local Pagan community stopped meeting up...so here I am again. Lol

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Yule, in Iceland and the Scandinavian countries, would traditionally be observed for the length of time that the Yule log burned in the fireplace, which might be a couple days, might be a couple weeks, depending on the size of your fireplace and your Yule log. Sounds to me that the 12 days of Yule are probably a modern construct, but that's only my opinion.

That makes a lot of sense. Due to the fact that being pagan for 15 years and never hearing the whole 12 days of Yule until this year, I figured it was new. But wasn't sure if it actually had any links to the old Norse traditions.

[Jembru]

I don't know much about Norse (and family) traditions, but never mind the 12 days of Yule, I'm scratching my head over the Odin bringing presents bit..

I guess I don't have a problem with people creating their own traditions (my entire path is my own fabrication after all), but if they're claiming it as fact I'd find it kind of frustrating.

Also, welcome back. It's good to see your username again. Hope you'll stay a while!

[Chessa]

As far as the Odin/Santa bit, I remember it being brought up as sort of accepted fact in my high school mythology class. My mom has some statues of historical/geographical/whathaveyou Santas, and the German one is pretty much how I have always pictured Odin, down to the greyish bluish robes. The eight reindeer originally being the eight-legged Slepnir, etc.

It seems every European country we studied had some version of a person who went around houses rewarding dilligent children and tidy farms, and punishing bad children (cough cough Krampus cough). It doesn't seem such a stretch that these and the Saint Nicholas story fed into each other to become Santa Claus

[iris]

The Odin/santa is something I heard a lot growing up. What we're told is that Odin is probably our (Denmark here) 'original' santa. It's been so long I don't remember everything, but it's something about Odin leading the wild hunt during the yule/winter time that leads to him becoming 'julemanden' (the yule man translated) later on. They do have some similarities even today, the cloak and the beard. If you look at old pre-coca cola drawings of santa here it is not as hard to imagine.
Never heard of 12 days of yule though. But I think it's likely an attempt at making the children's yule celebration more like their friends' christmas.

[GypsySeaWitch]

I guess what generally bugs me is people not actually learning where their stuff comes from. They are all mostly going off a few badly done websites and social media photos that claim some ancient tradition. Seems it's mostly the social media circulated posts. Like I'm pretty sure most of the pagans in that Facebook group haven't ever read any books on Paganism.

I have no doubt that some of the origins for the modern Santa come from Odin. I mean the reindeer thing makes sense and Odin (minus the missing eye) does look like the old world Santa images. But some of these folk actually think there are stories od Odin delivering gifts to Children at Yule. As far as I know, there aren't. I can see a connection to the wild hunt, sure. And I've even seen some claims the wild hunt lasted for 12 days but when I researched the wild hunt a few months this back, I found that Odin was just one of many claimed deities to lead it. In fact, him being involved was supposedly a newer idea, if I read right. There wasn't historical evidence to that claim beyond the Victorian age.

[monsno_leedra]

Sort of reminds me of the Father Frost and his daughter the Snow Maiden in Russian lore as their Christmas lore is tied to the December 25th to December 31st time frame. Only know just the surface lore though so not very familiar with it.

[iris]

Venturing out of my comfortzone here, so please correct me if I'm wrong. But it's always been my impression that you can find something akin to the wild hunt in a lot of European mythologies. Specifically I'm thinking about some irish lore, 'the hosting of the sidhe' by w.b. yeats is based in old myths if I'mnot completely mistaken. I vaguely seem to remember there is an eastern European equivalent as well. So a bit of a mix up of deities today doesn't seem that weird to me.
I agree that a lot of pagans probably haven't read much, amd spreading new inventions as old tradition is silly. But who are we to decide who gets to call themselves pagan.