Winter Solstice: How Did Ancient Celts Celebrate Christmas?
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Winter Solstice: How Did Ancient Celts Celebrate Christmas?
Christmas today obviously has its roots in Christianity, but how did the ancient pagan Celtic culture celebrate this time of year? And the ancient celts, along with most if not all of the ancient cultures around the world, did have major celebrations around the end of December.
The winter solstice occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winter solstice is the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, when the Sun is at its lowest daily maximum elevation in the sky.
When the winter solstice happens in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Pole is tilted about 23.4° (23°27′) away from the Sun. It usually happens on 21st or 22nd December in the Northern Hemisphere, and in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s usually on 20 or 21 of June. This year’s Winter Solstice will take place at 3:27am on the 22nd December 2023 UK time.
The word Solstice is quite interesting itself. It’s Latin in origin and is taken from the idea that the Sun appears to come to a standstill. In Ancient Rome, this was described as ‘solstitium’, a combination of the words ‘sol’, meaning the sun, and ‘sistere’, meaning standstill.
In ancient cultures, there may have been a sense of not knowing if the sun would rise again given their lack of scientific knowledge relative to ourselves, leading to legends and myths being built around this. However, as astrology is one of the oldest sciences, and people would sit around the fire and look up at the stars, it’s interesting to wonder how knowledgeable ancient cultures would have been about the movement of the stars.
Even well before the Celts, relatively accurate ancient calendars have been found. The oldest calendar in the world was found in Scotland a few years ago, and it is dated to around 8,000 BC, or about 10,000 years ago. This calendar was a lunar one that mimicked the phases of the Moon in order to track lunar months over the course of a year and measure time. And this was 10,000 years ago.
Sources:
National Trust for Scotland - Scottish Christmas traditions www.nts.org.uk....
Winter solstice en.wikipedia.o...
University of St Andrews - World’s oldest calendar found in a Scottish field news.st-andrew...
Winter solstice www.britannica...
THE WINTER SOLSTICE 2023: THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR www.history.co...
WINTER SOLSTICE - HISTORY AND TRADITION www.truehighla...
Irish Times - The shortest day: Celebrate the solstice like the Celts www.irishtimes...
#christmas #wintersolstice #solstice
Please let me know your thoughts below... Thanks for watching!
Happy whatevers, isn't it? 👍💖
Merry Christmas mate
Cheers mate, same to you
Glædelig Jul (merry Christmas) from Jutland.
Thank you. Glædelig Jul to you also
Thanks! I enjoy your channel. Keep up the good work.
Thank you
Merry Christmas and thanks for posting this kind of content. I like the Krampus celebrations, in what way if any is Krampus related to Celtic myth?
I think he's German, although the ancient Germans and Celts had many cultural overlaps.
I was disappointed to find out recently that the Newgrange monument (the outside bit) is an early C20th reconstruction with almost no archaeological basis whatsoever; rather like Arthur Evans re-imagining of Knossos. Ever thought Knossos looked quite Art Deco, answer - Art Deco came first.
Ive been there, and the outer wall, with the white quartz stones imbedded does look a bit inauthentically new looking. But apparently that is what the experts say it looked like at the time. The original construction had partially collapsed, but they found a layer of these stones surrounding it. I believe the interior chambers were still in place,and the same as they were originally. All the other stones are suppose to be in their original place. They only invite 60 ( in groups of 20 ) people, from a lottery of a requests of thousands to be there on the winter solstice, when the sun light on that day shines through the entrance passage and enters the inner chamber. Though obviously it was built thousands of years before the Celts were in Ireland.
Its an impressive site and I can see what the Irish were trying to do. Unfortunately the archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly essentially decided to 'rebuild' the outside in the 1960's; thus buggering up the chance for later archaeologist to study the site properly. A 'Schliemannlike' combination of enthusiasm, showmanship and ego. There's also elements of Ireland, that was in a financial mess in the early'60's losing its population to abroad (Britain), trying to prove it was a great civilisation to the world. Not to say that I wouldn't visit it given the chance. I'd just look at it with different eyes given its recent history. @@TheEggmaniac
Bookmark 4:38
Happy Bollox
21st/22nd December
Pagan Brits.
Have ye ever seen pagan horses? In a pine tree forest? ... ☘️ ...
'pagan' ... Your funny ...
Sorry friend, I have to unsubscribe. The content is fascinating but that drawn out RUclipsr voice is unbearable.
you can always adjust the playback speed ffs
Lol yeah! But the voice is comical, so very comical and that’s beautiful in a way, had me laughing! But so did you, thankyou for the laugh and also Thankyou to the guy who made the videos too!
@@r_and_a I came back to read your commeeeeent. You seem to be very aggressiiiiiiive. I'll watch whatever I waaaaaaant. I hope you enjoyed this RUclipsr style respooooooonse.
@@MessengerRising no one said anything about *what* ya watch 8mo ago, pmsl, was just helping you & any who might feel similar that read your comment not be such a feckin eejit 🤷 you're the one being aggressive, just passive agressive ✌️
@@MessengerRising no one said anything about *what* ya watch 8mo ago, pmsl, was just helping you & any who might feel similar that read your comment not be such a feckin eejit 🤷 you're the one being aggressiiiive, just passiiiive agressiiiive