Christmas is Yule with religion, and the West
Saxons managed to spoil the midwinter feast with chanting monks, droning
priests, and savagely long sermons. Yule
is supposed to be a celebration and a consolation, a moment of warm brightness
in the heart of winter, a time to eat because you know that the lean times are
coming when food will be scarce and ice locks the land, and a time to be happy
and get drunk and behave irresponsibly and wake up the next morning wondering
if you will ever feel well again, but the West Saxons handed the feast to the priests
who made it as joyous as a funeral.
(from The Last
Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell)
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