Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The Season’s Greetings to One and All...
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I don’t know how You and your family celebrate at this time of year; but we will be Celebrating Yüle in conjunction with our Wedding Anniversary, as we do every year.
To us Elves, Yüle, is the ‘Turn of the Year.’ Until comparatively recently, we didn’t know that ‘New Year’s Day’ was the start of each year. We just thought it was a man-made festival, promoted by the Church, because they didn’t know the right day.
We knew about the ‘shortest day’ but we didn’t know that it was scientifically possible to calculate the Winter Solstice. We ignorant country people, did it by taking the trouble to observe the sun-rise, each morning.
To do this you need to know exactly where the sun rises in relationship to the horizon visible to you from your viewpoint.
A simple way to do this is to watch the sun-rise through a window, using the bottom of the window frame as an artificial horizon.
Each day this week, the sun-rise will appear to move a degree to the right, ( i.e. South-wards ).
But on Friday 22nd of December, it will appear to stand still, as this is the Shortest Day of the Year, now known as the Winter Solstice.
Then from Saturday 23rd of December, the sun-rise will appear to move backwards ( i.e. to the left ) until the Summer Solstice. On seeing the sun-rise, change it’s direction, we Elves say to our selves, “Ah, Yüle starts tomorrow!”
As my dear wife Jên and I were married on the first day of Yüle 1955; it is still a very special day to us, and we’ll sharing a special meal with our family.
In fact, Yüle lasts for half-a-moon, ( 14 days ) until Holy Thorn Day on the 6th of January.
I will end, by wishing that you and those you hold dear, a Very Happy Festive Season and …
“May 2007 be your best year yet!”
PS If you’ve ever met us... Please click the Read More link above
To us Elves, Yüle, is the ‘Turn of the Year.’ Until comparatively recently, we didn’t know that ‘New Year’s Day’ was the start of each year. We just thought it was a man-made festival, promoted by the Church, because they didn’t know the right day.
We knew about the ‘shortest day’ but we didn’t know that it was scientifically possible to calculate the Winter Solstice. We ignorant country people, did it by taking the trouble to observe the sun-rise, each morning.
To do this you need to know exactly where the sun rises in relationship to the horizon visible to you from your viewpoint.
A simple way to do this is to watch the sun-rise through a window, using the bottom of the window frame as an artificial horizon.
Each day this week, the sun-rise will appear to move a degree to the right, ( i.e. South-wards ).
But on Friday 22nd of December, it will appear to stand still, as this is the Shortest Day of the Year, now known as the Winter Solstice.
Then from Saturday 23rd of December, the sun-rise will appear to move backwards ( i.e. to the left ) until the Summer Solstice. On seeing the sun-rise, change it’s direction, we Elves say to our selves, “Ah, Yüle starts tomorrow!”
As my dear wife Jên and I were married on the first day of Yüle 1955; it is still a very special day to us, and we’ll sharing a special meal with our family.
In fact, Yüle lasts for half-a-moon, ( 14 days ) until Holy Thorn Day on the 6th of January.
I will end, by wishing that you and those you hold dear, a Very Happy Festive Season and …
“May 2007 be your best year yet!”
PS If you’ve ever met us... Please click the Read More link above
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