Yuletide Traditions?
Posted: Sun Dec 20, 2020 10:14 pm
I wasn’t totally sure where to put this, since I’m not SPECIFICALLY speaking of HUMAN cultural traditions, but rather speculating about general traditions throughout Middle-earth, but this seemed like as good a place as any.
In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas/Yule/general mid-winter holidays this year, and how we all have our own kinds of traditions for celebrating the solstice, and it got me wondering about the potential practice in Middle-earth (and also about how we Rangers and other MERF folks like to celebrate).
So I’m curious about a few things. Firstly, do you think a solstice festival was celebrated across various different Middle-earth cultures? And if so, what would those various solstice traditions have potentially looked like? Certainly not Christmas trees, and lights, and Santa Claus, and so forth... but maybe something that looked a bit more like old Scandinavian Yuletide traditions? Or perhaps rural English folk traditions? Would the Elves have celebrated the return of the sun in some way? What might that have looked like? How about the Dwarves? Are we to assume Hobbits have a very peculiar set of traditions all to themselves, or might they have been somewhat shared across Eriador by various peoples?
And for that matter, what are some of the traditions you yourselves like to celebrate? Obviously there are religious traditions that are common (or at least similar) across various Christian faiths, but I have in mind more secular folk traditions - things that perhaps grew out of old pagan ideas and were then incorporated into more modern celebrations by common people, rather than through the church.
Thoughts?
In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas/Yule/general mid-winter holidays this year, and how we all have our own kinds of traditions for celebrating the solstice, and it got me wondering about the potential practice in Middle-earth (and also about how we Rangers and other MERF folks like to celebrate).
So I’m curious about a few things. Firstly, do you think a solstice festival was celebrated across various different Middle-earth cultures? And if so, what would those various solstice traditions have potentially looked like? Certainly not Christmas trees, and lights, and Santa Claus, and so forth... but maybe something that looked a bit more like old Scandinavian Yuletide traditions? Or perhaps rural English folk traditions? Would the Elves have celebrated the return of the sun in some way? What might that have looked like? How about the Dwarves? Are we to assume Hobbits have a very peculiar set of traditions all to themselves, or might they have been somewhat shared across Eriador by various peoples?
And for that matter, what are some of the traditions you yourselves like to celebrate? Obviously there are religious traditions that are common (or at least similar) across various Christian faiths, but I have in mind more secular folk traditions - things that perhaps grew out of old pagan ideas and were then incorporated into more modern celebrations by common people, rather than through the church.
Thoughts?