Twelfth Night

"Twelfth Night"



A word on Twelfth Night

In Old England, Old Ireland and ancient times, Twelfth Night marked the end of Yuletide Festivities. In a nutshell, Twelfth night is the final night of the Yuletide season, it ends with a party filled with merriment and it also marks the time when Yuletide/Christmas decorations are taken down and people get back to work on Plough Monday (more on Plough Monday later). However, the moment and meaning of Twelfth night has always been open to much debate and altered thru the Christian Church's actions of racial and ethnic cleansing of the Old Pagan traditions; but it can be summarized with the following:

Pretty much, you can either count 12 days/nights after Christmas or 12 days/nights after Yuletide and that will give you the window for oberved 12th night. Old traditions say that it is very unlucky to take down Decorations later than the 12th night after Yuletide. All Holiday decorations, lights, etc should be taken down by this date.

Using actual traditional Yuletide (the actual Winter Solstice or longest night of the year) as a reference, then "Twelfth Night" will occur 12 nights after that moment in time. The Solstice occured on Dec 22nd just after midnight this year 2011. 12 nights after that moment is Twelfth Night (Jan 3rd) this year if you reference the 12 day count around the actual Yuletide moment; However, many people reference the Yuletide SEASON as being 6 days before the new year thru 6 days after the new year,the last six days of the old year (December 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31) and the first six days of the New Year (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 January). There are many festivals around the world that note January 6th as a carnival/festival day named Three Kings Day.

Many purist, strongline conservative Christians disallowed such "partying" and mayhem thru the Christmas season as it was considered a holy day and not one for partying, which is exactly contrary to traditional beliefs. In ancient tradition, especially in the cold dead winter of western medieval europe, this was indeed a time for celebration. This was the time to celebrate the return of the SUN as the days cease to shorten and more sunlight could be observed, giving hope that spring and new life was to come. Indeed a time for mumming, singing and dancing. It was considered a celebration and the symbolism was that the Sun was being reborn out of the longest darkest night of the year.

The twelve days of Yule would have been a most welcome break for the workers of the land, which in medieval times would have been the majority of the people. All work, except for looking after the animals, would stop, restarting again on Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night. More on Plough Monday in another post.

Old traditions burned the Yule log and it, lit on the longest night of the year(solstice), remained burning until the final Twelfth Night in order to bring good fortune to the house for the coming year. Its charred remains were kept, both to kindle the next year's Yule log, as well as to protect the house from fire and lightning. Other old way traditions appointed a "Lord of Misrule" for 12th Night. The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant, and was known as the Prince des Sots in France, the Abbot of Unreason in Scotland. The roots of this Holy Day are being re-learned by the modern world. The celebrations held during the twelve days of Yuletide were often drunken, wild affairs, and it was the job of the Lord of Misrule to try and disrupt the usual running of things. The High ranked Lords and Ladies switched places and roles with the lowly workers,servants and peasants, and they in turn had their chance of living the high life for a few hours. A cake, known as the King cake(made famous by Mardi Gras), would have been specially baked for the Twelfth Night celebrations that contained a bean or a small bauble, and the reveller who got the special piece of cake containing the item would have to do certain things and received various privileges. The rule of the "Lord of Misrule" ended at midnight and normal service /roles resumed.

Generically, January 6th is marked as the observed day by most of the modern Christian Church influenced world in its attempt to destroy or change the original Pagan "Twelfth Night" holy day. Marked on some calendars as 3 Kings Day...others Boxing Day or Epiphany.

Regardless of what the fine detail of your belief is, now is the time to give thanks to the returning of the sun. The season's "True Gift". It is okay to put away those lights that symbolically represented the energy of the sun since the sun has returned with its true energy. You can do this any time between the solstice and 12th night so long as the decorations are down by 12th night you are "safe". Cleanse your space, put the decorations away, and enjoy the new energies of the new year.



FireHawk
http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/2011.html
CHART OF SOLSTICES,EQUINOXES and CROSS QUARTER MOMENTS

Bookmark this for the new year 2012 ---> http://www.archaeoastronomy.com/2012.html