The Sun Stands Still

A beginner's guide to Yule and the winter solstice: what really happens in the sky, where each custom really comes from, and how to keep the longest night yourself.

Yule is one of the oldest words in English. Long before Christianity reached the north, the Goths, English and Norse used it for the dark months around midwinter. Today it is the name many pagans, witches and nature-lovers give their solstice celebration, and in Scandinavia and Scotland simply the word for Christmas.

Most Yule books mix all of that together and call everything ancient. This one shows you the evidence. For each claim you get the oldest written record we have (Bede in 725, Snorri's saga of King Hákon, Procopius, Pliny, Herrick's Christmas log of 1648, a Norwegian bishop's sheaf for the birds), quoted, with what it shows and what it does not. Then it shows you, step by step, how to keep the night.

Who it is for

Anyone curious about Yule and starting from nothing: new pagans and witches, Christians who want to mark the solstice as well as Christmas, families looking for something calm and real at a loud time of year, and anyone who feels the long dark and wants to do something about it. Every practice works whatever you believe; where a step is spiritual, plain and spiritual words are given side by side.

Part One: The sky

• Why winter has a shortest day, with a diagram of the tilted Earth
• The Sun's real path on the two solstice days, drawn for London and New York
• The fortnight the sunrise "stands still", charted
• The exact moment the Sun turns every December from 2026 to 2035, in UTC, UK time and all six US time zones (from the US Naval Observatory), plus the June dates for the southern hemisphere
• How long your longest night is, for 14 US and 8 UK cities, with sunrise and sunset times and compass directions to find your sunrise point
• Why the earliest sunset comes before the solstice, and how fast the daylight comes back (seconds at Christmas, an hour or more by Candlemas)
• Newgrange, Maeshowe, Stonehenge and the midwinter pig feasts of Durrington Walls

Part Two: Where Yule comes from

• A timeline from 3100 BC to the Gävle goat
• The word itself, Mothers' Night, the Norse jól, Procopius's sun-watchers, Saturnalia, why 25 December, and how the twelve days began
• Seven things you may have read about Yule, what the evidence says, and a sentence to use instead
• Wicca, Druidry and Heathenry: three modern Yules, and the festivals that share the longest night around the world

Part Three: The customs, one by one

The Yule log, holly and ivy, mistletoe, the tree, wassail, Lucia, the Yule goat and the sheaf, the tomte, the wild nights, gifts and misrule: each with its oldest record, what is uncertain, and how people keep it now.

Part Four: Keeping Yule

Eleven practices with what you need, numbered steps and a picture of the result: watch the last sunset and first sunrise; keep a longest-night vigil; readings for the dark hours; bring in the green; a Yule log three ways (hearth, fire pit or table); wassail with an alcohol-free bowl and an orchard toast; saffron buns for Lucia morning; Scandinavian Christmas porridge; clove oranges and a dried orange garland; a sheaf for the birds; twelve nights of light; and closing the year at dawn.

Part Five: Your Yule

Three plans timed from sunset to sunrise (on your own with no fireplace, with young children, with friends round a fire), a plan to fill in, a sun log from the solstice to Candlemas, and a record of your next five Yules with each year's solstice time already worked out.

What you download

• The Sun Stands Still (70 pages, PDF, US Letter, colour), with bookmarks and a contents page. The pages to write on can be printed as often as you like.

Good to know

• Candle, fire, greenery, pet and food safety is covered plainly, with US and UK emergency and poison numbers.
• Recipes are given in grams and in US cups and spoons, with oven temperatures in °C and °F.
• Sources are listed at the back, with how each fact was checked; where historians disagree, the book says so.
• This is a PDF download. No physical book is shipped.