The Magical Giftbringers of Yule:
St. Lucia & the Holly King
by Joanna Powell Colbert, first published in the Winter 2000/01 issue of PanGaia magazine.
We walk between the worlds during the season of Yuletide, especially during the Thirteen Nights of Solstice. If we keep our senses sharp and our imaginations lively, we may encounter many strange and wonderful beings during this liminal time instead of just that tired old department store Santa.
It has been suggested that the Twelve Days of Christmas were originally thirteen nights, dating from the dark moon nearest the Winter Solstice until the next Full Moon, a period of about thirteen days.1 The “tide” of deepest darkness started at Samhain for the Celts and in mid-October for the Nordic people with the festival of Winter-Nights. To our northern ancestors, this was a supernatural time when all sorts of otherworldly beings roamed the earth. The borders between the worlds overlapped. The dead returned to earth and the living visited the lands of the dead. Elves, trolls, ghosts, gods, goddesses . . . all were abroad during these dark days. During the Thirteen Nights of Yule, the activity of the otherworldly visitors increased. Wildness was rampant during these days when the sun had turned but the increasing light was not yet visible. The festivities and terrors lasted until the days were once more noticeably longer (usually the first week of January, after the thirteen nights).
Many of the numinous beings who escape back into our world during this time are magical Giftbringers. Our modern jolly Santa, his iconography invented by the folks at Coca-Cola in the 1930’s, is the last in a long line of Giftbringers — some male, some female; some kindly and charming, some challenging and terrifying. Two of the most beloved Giftbringers in contemporary Pagan circles are St. Lucia and the Holly King. Perhaps they will make an appearance at our parties this Yuletide season, bearing gifts of sweets and song!
1 Waverly Fitzgerald, “Time Out of Time,” School of the Seasons, <www.schooloftheseasons.com> (Accessed 1/21/00)
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