Daily Mail cancels "Winterval"

[Skyfrog]

This one is worth a laugh . Kinda depressing, how these journalists behave, though...

http://www.anorak.co.uk/300562/news/dai ... rval.html/

[stevenw888]

I like the name Winterval and I live in Birmingham. What depresses me is all these Christian idiots who try and link our joyous winter solstice celebrations (celebrated for many millennia) to some supposed birth of some alleged son of a sky fairy. Surely he must have been born on the 1st January!

I will write to Birmingham City council and suggest that they resurrect the "winterval" title as it proved to be so popular last time.

[Tetenterre]

I think the sobriquet "Winterval" sounds tacky. I'm happy to acknowledge the solstice (after all, astronomy is "my thing"), and even refer to it by the UK socially normal "Christmas", even though I'm not a Xian and don't believe that their zombie-god, if he existed, was born on that date: it's one of those Nicaea things, where the 4th Century Xians merely incorporated Mithraic tradition into their own.

[Dave B]

Yup, let's celebrate the natural divisions of the year, I am all for that!

Perhaps I will make some "Happy Solstice" stickers for my windows.

[Nick]

Is The Daily Mail also cancelling Wednesday? After all, Woden wasn't very christian, was he..... ?



Never mind Thor.....

[Alan C.]

I'll soon be able to have some more fun with the Christians here as their letters start arriving at the Shetland Times re Christmas,
I usually get two or three responses in before the editor calls a halt, oddly he always gives one of them the last word; which is bloody annoying.

[Dave B]

Is The Daily Mail also cancelling Wednesday? After all, Woden wasn't very christian, was he..... ?



Never mind Thor.....

Or Tiw, Friga and Sun or Moon worship.

Ooops, forgot that Easter was stolen from the worship of Eastre, or Eostre, a goddess of fertility. So that's bunnies and eggs banned as well then!

[Fia]

Most humans do something celebratory in midwinter, particularly in colder climes. A very sensible thing to do when the nights are so long. I'd like to celebrate midwinter by thanking the first human who thought of saving and preserving special food and drink to have a communal feast in the depths of winter. She's the authentic one. All the rest are embroidered on that first wonderful concept.

[Dave B]

I think one version has it that an animal was kept fed until midwinter then slaughtered to feed the family during the deep winter, the time of most need of calories. Meat was a rare luxury for the lower orders after the change from hunting/gathering to agriculture and the growth of the feudal systems. Most game was the property of the local lord.

[Fia]

Most game was the property of the local lord.

I was thinking far earlier than that Dave. Like whoever worked out how to use fire, someone worked out how to celebrate, even if there wasn't much to....

[Dave B]

Most game was the property of the local lord.

I was thinking far earlier than that Dave. Like whoever worked out how to use fire, someone worked out how to celebrate, even if there wasn't much to....

Hmm, fire was probably available when we lived in the nice, warm bits of Africa - with lots of game about. Even Europe was in a warm spell them.

So it would have been sometime in the last Ice Age, up to 10,000 ago. Even then the odd woolly mammoth would keep them going for weeks in the colder climes! They would probably have preserved a certain amount of meat as a matter of course, just in case. A good survival practice in any event.

[Dave B]

Can't find a thread that seems more appropriate - but this is seasonally related.

After a talk on the history of local Christmas songs and traditions like Mummers and Waes Hael (or "wassail") (it was excellent) some of us went to a local pubstrant for lunch. Here are some of the selection of guest real ales that will be available over the season:
Steam Sleigh
Frosty Bells
Santa's Tale
Lap Prancer
Rudolph's Ruin
Stocking filler
Mr Scrooge Humbug Bitter
Redbreast
Rosey Nosey
Bah Humbug
Snickalmas
Elves Bells
Good King Senseless

and a few others.

Stocking Filler was on offer today, a litter too bitter a bitter for me without much in the way of hoppy notes - tasted like some of the brews I had made in the past. I admit to liking "aley" ales, sweetish and hoppy.