Christmas: Converting Vikings to Christianity

The Viking Christmas was Jól, or Yule in English, a three-night midwinter feast. Long before Christmas reached Norway, the Norse lit up the darkest nights of the year with it. Alaskans understand the instinct perfectly. When the sun barely clears the mountains, you throw a party.

Exactly when Jól fell is debated. Snorri Sturluson’s saga of Haakon the Good says it began on “hökunótt,” midwinter night, and lasted three nights. Some scholars think the date was originally set by the moon. Sources on how it was celebrated are thin, but they agree on the essentials: feasting, drinking, and sacrifice for a good and peaceful year. (Where Jól sat in the Norse year is in Months of the Norse Calendar.)

Looking for Viking Christmas traditions? Which of today’s customs go back to the Norse is the subject of Viking Traditions in Christmas Present. This post tells how the old Yule feast became Christmas.

Haakon the Good and Alcohol

Haakon the Good (c. 920–961), the youngest son of Harald Fairhair, grew up in England as the foster son of King Athelstan and was raised a Christian. When he returned to Norway around 934, he won the farmers to his side by promising to restore the odal (inherited land) rights his father had taken, and his half-brother Eric Bloodaxe fled. Haakon wanted Norway Christian, but he moved carefully, because his chieftains were not.

His compromise was brilliant. According to the saga, Haakon made it law that Yule would begin at the same time Christians held Christmas, and that every man, under penalty of a fine, had to brew ale from a set measure of malt and “keep the Yule holy as long as it lasted.” The old feast survived; it simply moved to the Christian calendar. (The popular claim that every man had to drink four gallons is a modern embellishment of the brewing rule.) The ale, of course, went into the drinking horn.

Haakon’s nicknames tell his story: Aðalsteinsfóstri, ‘Athelstan’s foster son,’ and Haraldsson, “son of Harald.” More on how such names worked is in How Did Vikings Get Their Names?

Celebrating Viking Christmas Today

People mark the season in many ways today, and many modern pagans and heathens have traditions of their own. That’s part of the fun: the record from the Viking age has plenty of gaps, and every family fills them differently.

At Asgard Alaska we plan to keep the heart of a Viking Christmas, Yule (Jól), which is a long table, a roaring fire, and good company, with plenty on the menu for every diet and age.

Want to celebrate Yule in a real longhouse someday? The museum is not open yet. We are raising the Land Fund to buy the site, which is Phase 1 of our Roadmap. To read more stories from the Norse year, join Axe and Anchor, Asgard Alaska’s Newsletter.

Keep reading: how the Allfather rode into the modern holiday, in Odin to Santa Claus: What’s the Connection?