Tonight, as I write, we have entered the longest night of the year here in Ireland. Tomorrow we will celebrate the re-birth of the sun, light born from this deep darkness.
The Gaeilge for Winter Solstice is Grianstad an Gheimhridh which translates as ‘Winter sun stop’. For our ancestors, at this time of year, the sun appeared to rise in the same place for three days and thus they believed it had stopped.
The stunning monument that is Si na Bhrú (Newgrange) is aligned to sunrise on the mid-winter solstice, however, it was built over 2500 years before the Celts set foot in Ireland and we modern Irish claiming ingenious heritage do not share any genealogical link to those who built it.
We have very little evidence of how, if at all, our Celtic ancestors celebrated this astrological event. Our modern winter celebrations have been mostly influenced by the Roman Saturnailia and the Scandinavian Yule. Our myths and tale cycles don’t reference it, not as a festival itself, we did protect our homes and retreat from work between Samhain and Imbolc but the evidence that our ancestors celebrated the solstice is thin at best. What we do know is that it was a time of deep rest, a dream-time, womb-time, time of inspiration, firelight and story.
Tomorrow my boy and I will walk the woods taking offerings to the trees and the spirits of this land in thanks for their bounty and to celebrate the growing light, tentative as it is. Tonight, a fire is lit in our hearth, I am drinking dreamers tea and I offer you a winters fairy tale for this the darkest night. It is based partly on an old Irish story often entitled The Fairy Dance and mostly on my winter foraging trips into the woods. I hope it reaches you warm and safe and you can rest your bones a while as I tell you a tale…
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