Sluggy's Pages!

Volume 1, Issue 2 - Yule 1996

Welcome to Sluggy's Pages. This is Shining Lakes Grove's kids' page. It comes out eight times per year, with information and activities for the young folk and their parents. We encourage you to send us any seasonal stories, poems, art, games or puzzles for us to include in this newsletter. Editor is Mama Moon. Phone (313) 439-0434.

Lore Corner

• Did you know that Yule is a Norse Holiday, celebrating the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Sol-stice means "sun stands", for the brief time it stands perfectly still before beginning to increase the time it's in the sky.
• The ancient people, fearing the sun's disappearance, would tend a bonfire all night long and celebrate the sun's return at dawn with dancing, singing, and little plays that went on all day and night. These plays were called Mummers Plays. People gave food and drink to the mummers as they went from house to house.
• Wassail is another Norse word. It means "good health", and it is said when people lift their drinking cups. The answer is "drink hael". It also refers to the custom of taking a jug of hard cider, which is just ready about Yule time, out to the orchard to thank the apple trees and sing to them.
• Apples trees were long considered the "faeries' wood". Young girls were told not to sit in front of a fire of apple wood at Yule lest they have a fairy child.
• The Yule log was made from the biggest piece of oak that would fit in the fireplace, so it would burn all night long. Each year's Yule fire is lit from the last piece of the previous year's log.
• The plants that are especially important at Yule - mistletoe, holly, yew, and ivy - all remain green while the other plants seem dead during the winter. They are brought inside to brighten up our celebrations as a symbol of life and hope.
• Many people place a spring of mistletoe over the door, and if a couple meet there they will "steal a kiss". This custom started from the Norse story of Blind Hoder, who killed his brother Balder by accident with an arrow of mistletoe, and ever since then the mistletoe has promised to make peace wherever it can. So people who met under the mistletoe would "kiss and make up". Now they just kiss.
• Yule is just one of the many celebrations of light which happen at the dark time of the year. These include Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and various others. Even in Australia, where there is summer in December, they hold "Christmas in July", exchanging gifts and lighting candles.

Maze

Help Baby Sun get out of the hollow hill.

The Time of Great Giving

Far back in the mist of time, as the days grew shorter and the nights grew colder, Danu, the great loving mother, called all her children to her. She said to them: "Human kind has not yet found the magic within them that we have always known. At this time of year, they become cold and frightened, fearing that the sun will not return. I declare that, to give them hope, the shortest day of the year will be known as the time of the Great Giving. I charge each of you to think of or make a special gift for human kind."

All the children of Danu began to busy themselves finding a perfect gift. That is, except for one: the selfish elf. He danced away, singing:

Let 'em shiver, let 'em shake, let 'em quiver, let 'em quake.
What difference does it make, if we're nice or not.
If the humans cannot take a little ice, a little flake.
I'll claim it was a big mistake. "Mother Danu, I just forgot."

The water sprites chose to keep some streams bubbling fast so they would never totally freeze. There would always be running water and laughing song. A tree spirit decided to give the humans a log for their fire, which would burn brighter and warmer than any other. This was the first Yule log. But the selfish elf used his magic only to please himself.

Brownies made warm shoes for the humans, and fairies coaxed the mistletoe and holly into remaining green to give them hope. Gnomes baked barley bread, sweetened with dried fruit, and other elves prepared the meat of a stag so it would be good to eat all winter long. The leprechauns made gifts of fairy gold. Even the bogles promised to return some of their stolen goods, just this once. But the selfish elf just played, and sang his song.

The day of the Great Giving came and all of Danu's children hurried to show Her their gifts. The selfish elm had just begun to say: "Oh Mother Danu..." when Danu turned to him and said, "Are you not the selfish elf who was heard to sing" (and to his surprise, he heard his very own voice):

Let 'em shiver, let 'em shake, let 'em quiver, let 'em quake.
What difference does it make, if we're nice or not.
If the humans cannot take a little ice, a little flake.
I'll claim it was a big mistake. "Mother Danu, I just forgot."

Danu frowned, and with a blink of her eyes the selfish elf was a human with no memory of magic. He was cold, and frightened. He shivered and shook, and worried if the sun would ever return. When the newborn sun finally dawned, the selfish elf was himself again. From that day on, he was never selfish, and Yuletide has always been known as the time of the Great Giving.

Looking Ahead!

• December Playday: December 28th, 1996. Join us on an expedition to see the lights at the Toledo Zoo. Leaving from Big Boy on Carpenter Rd. at the Milan exit of US23 south, at 2 PM. For directions call Mama Moon at (313) 439-0434.
• Parents' Meeting on January 5th; help us plan future child-centered activities and establish rites of passage within our Grove. Senior Druid Fox will attend. All welcome, whether you currently have kids or not. Meet at Silverman's on Carpenter Rd. at 7 PM. For information, contact Mama Moon.
• Our January Playdate will be Sunday, January 19th. Meet at Matthai Botanical Gardens at 2 PM. There will be a small entry fee. And if Jack Frost cooperates, we'll play in the snow afterwards.
• We will have a friendship card exchange at our Imbolc ritual. Bring six to ten cards, suitable for exchange with children of either sex, and we can make more there if necessary.

If you would like to help run children's activities at an upcoming ritual, please contact Mama Moon for time, activity plans, thanks and a hug.

Imbolc Family Traditions

Kami Landy

Imbolc happens on Groundhog Day. Do you think that's a coincidence? At this time of year, we get the first hint that Spring will indeed come - the air take a slightly fresher smell, and we may be in the midst of, or just past, the "January Thaw". So in my family we greet each other with "Happy Groundhog" and do our best to get outside and enjoy the weather, whatever it may be. Sometimes we buy pussy-willows to decorate the house. If there is enough snow left, I like to put a snowball in the freezer, to keep it over the summer.

This is the holiday most special to Brigid, goddess of the hearth fire. We sing fire songs, and light a candle at supper. Between now and then, you might want to get some seven day candles, so you can keep an eternal light going from Imbolc to Spring Equinox.

Sometimes this holiday is spelled Oimelc, which is Scots Gaelic for "ewe's milk". You might make a trip to a dairy farm to see all the pregnant cows. They begin producing milk around Imbolc so that there will be something for the babies to drink when they are born in the Spring.

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