Fw: [tied] Yule's etymology and IE roots (or not)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
To: "Cybalist" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2005 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Yule's etymology and IE roots (or not)


>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Patrick Ryan" <proto-language@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 2:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Yule's etymology and IE roots (or not)
>
>
> > I cannot resist this either.
> >
> > Richard, after XMAS?
> >
> > Patrick
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Carl Hult" <datalampa@...>
> > To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 8:12 AM
> > Subject: Re: [tied] Yule's etymology and IE roots (or not)
> >
> >
> > If I give you a description of what they did in these times when the
> > word was first attested, can you make a more direct etymological
> > description then?
> >
> > The first time the word yule was recorded it was said that they DRANK
> > yule, not celebrated. By that they didn´t mean that yule was a drink
> > but it was THE drink of all drinks, the drink which signified the end
> > of a year and the birth of a new. This description has led many
> > amateurs to link it to wheel, on the notion that the year is a wheel
> > and when they got to the top of the wheel it all started over.
> >
> > Carl Hult
> >
> >
> > ***
> > Patrick:
> >
> > The celebration of Yule was, most probably, originally associated with
> > the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
> >
> > Yule, of course, suggests PIE *yeu-, 'juice'; but, of course, we also
> > have *yu/u:-, 'howl', with the desired -*l extension.
> >
> > Our ancestors believed that the sun, an old man of 'one', died on this
> > night, and was reborn as an infant at the sunrise of the next day - a
> > more than sufficient excuse for sad howling turning to howling with joy
> > in the course of the night.
> >
> > The burning of the Yule-log would be the ceremonial cremation of the
> > dead sun; and the emotional nature of his 'death' and his 'rebirth'
> > would have been greatly enhanced by copious quantities of 'juice'.
> >
> > So, so far as the actual origin of Yule is concerned, I cast my vote for
> > '(night of) howling'.
> >
> > Rather than pagans adopting a Christian conceit, I think Christians
> > accommodated existing pagan beliefs by re-setting Christ's birth at the
> > winter solstice (it had been at the vernal equinox or thereabouts,
> > symbolizing new growth rather than new life per se), which might have
> > been an exact correlation had they not botched the calendar.
> >
> > ***
>