In the high North, Summer and Winter fought each other as the forces of light and darkness. The dark Winter
with its harshness and cold seemed to win over the short, barren Summer. And yet Summer arrived year after
year despite the might of the Winter. If its arrival every year hadn't been a certainty, it would have meant the
death of the Nordic Folk. Sad and depressed the Nordic Folk watched the circle of the Sun get smaller and
smaller at the end of the Summer. The Sun became weak, old, pale. Its path got shorter, and during Jul time there
would only be a few hours of daylight and then it would sink into the cold North Sea and was gobbled up, as if
eaten by a monster on Midwinter Day. It was dead and lay in its grave. The question whether the Sun would stay
buried was of equal importance to the question whether mankind would live or die.
On Midwinter Day the miracle happened: The Sun rose from its watery grave. It was born like a child, gathered
strength, and appeared in front of the celebrating and joyous Folk, who felt that life was given back to them. This
happened every year. And every year they celebrated this as their most important festival, their sacred and holy
night festival. They greeted the Sun with lit torches to help free it from the ties of the death of Winter. And they
celebrated as often as possible the ever increasing circles of the Sun. Fires would burn high on the day of spring
on which day and night were of same length, as surely the Sun must have finally won the battle now. And again
on Midsummer Night, when the Sun had won its greatest victory and night lasted for only a few hours. This
celebration eventually became the most important one of all.
The strong Sun made harvest possible, reason for another feast, after which its strength waned fast and it headed
once more towards death, which in turn became new life.
As far back as during the Nordic and Germanic times of the German Folk, people told the tale of the death and
resurrection of the Sun in many different tales. We are fortunate to know more about this early culture of our
Folk than of some periods much later on in our history. This Sun experience is the subject of nearly all of our
prechristian fairytales, which the brothers Grimm have collected, written down more than a hundred years ago
and thereby preserved for all time. The Sunlike princess, killed by a bad, wintry force, resurrected by a young
hero: that is the essence of all these stories, which were wonderfully extended and varied.
Man also saw the same laws of Die and become new all around him in Nature. The yearly cycle of the Sun also
determines the rhythm of all living things, animals as well as plants. Their whole life revolved around youth and
ageing, dying and rebirth. And man's own life followed this rhythm. The Nordic man knew that his own life
came from the loins of a man destined to die. In the knowledge of his own death he handed on life. That was the
essence of his beliefs. What he learned from the Sun he saw in his own forests. That's why he considered trees to
be sacred. He imagined that the whole universe was supported by a gigantic tree. This is the old ash tree which is
described in the old saga Edda. In its eternity the law of die and become provides constant renewal, eternal
rhythm.
Therefore the Nordic man had at his celebrations the fires, the Sun Wheel, and the tree as symbols. In stories we
read about the Tree Of Life, which grows on the grave of the mother and protects the young life through its
blessings.
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