Yule: Stories, Lore, Poems, and practices

The Story of The Holly and the Oak King Click Here

Story of the Winter Wren Click Here

Story of the Wild Hunt Click Here

Story of the Caileach Click Here

The story of Krampus Here

Story of The Mari Lwyd Knocks Read here

Story of Mistletoe: Enchantment and the Alchemy of Connection Click Here

"I’m being called to
enter the silence.
To dream and rest.
To create an opening
for possibilities and
potential still to come.
To tend the seed
that is even now
gestating in the dark.
Held in the cave of
both past and future,
I’m wrapped in the warmth
of myths and ancient ways.
Held by the ancestral mothers,
I enter the stillness of this time."
~ Arlene Bailey

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.
That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.
That it has a fondness
for the body
for finding its way
toward flesh
for tracing the edges
of form
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.
I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still
to the blessed light
that comes.
by Jan Richardson

Spellbound

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.
~ Emily Brontë