Jól is the heart of the Norse year: the feast of the winter solstice, when the sun stands lowest in the south and the nights begin to shorten again. Out of the deepest darkness people celebrated the return of the light – with fire, feasting and a bond between kin, ancestors and gods.
When Jól Falls
Astronomically Jól falls on the winter solstice around 21 December – this calendar computes it to the minute. Originally the feast followed the moon; the Anglo-Saxon Bede reports the year began with the two „Giuli" months around the solstice, and the night of 25 December was called Módraniht, the „Night of the Mothers". King Hákon the Good finally fixed Jól to 25 December, binding it to Christian Christmas (Hákonar saga góða 13).
What the Sources Say
Snorri counts Jól among the three great blóts: the midwinter blót til gróðrar, „for growth" (Ynglinga saga 8). The Hákonar saga góða (ch. 14–17) describes the Yule feast: animals and horses were sacrificed, their blood (hlaut) sprinkled with twigs, the meat boiled in kettles. One drank Óðinn’s toast for victory, the toasts to Freyr and Njörðr for ár ok friðr, and the minni to the ancestors; over the hallowed boar oaths were sworn. Yule ale was a duty – Christian laws later still prescribed it as Christmas ale.
Myth & Myth-Check
Odin bears the by-name Jólnir, „the one of Yule"; through the twelve nights the Wild Hunt rides the sky, and Módraniht honours the mothers and dísir. Honestly, though: the Santa Claus with a reindeer sleigh is no heir of Odin – the eight reindeer and the gifts were invented by Clement C. Moore in 1823. The link of Jól, Jólnir and the Wild Hunt is old; the red reindeer image is modern.
Celebrating Today
On the longest night light a lantern or candle that burns till morning – a light to call back the sun. A long, warm feast with your dearest; a full to the returning sun, a minni to all who passed this year, and a resolution over the pledge-horn for the year to come.
A verse for the feast
when the light burns low,
I carry the candle
toward what will come.
What fell now rests –
what rests returns:
the spark keeps watch
till the morning holds.
And now you: write your own short verse for this feast – four or five lines are enough, it need not rhyme. Recite it next time by the fire or at the sumbel. That is the finest honour one can pay a feast.
Sources
Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 8 & Hákonar saga góða 13–17 (Heimskringla, public domain); Bede, De temporum ratione 15 (Módraniht, Giuli); solstice astronomically after Meeus.