HERE BE NEWS for July 15, 2019

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Monday, July 8 - 

"HERE BE NEWS" - All the latest from the gang at Here Be Magic.

Thursday, July 11 -

“CHRISTMAS IN JULY!” – It’s been used as a sales theme for decades, but author Ruth A. Casie has hunted down the actual history of this expression. Read all about it at Here Be Magic!

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YULE - The ancient traditions live on

The shortest day and longest night of 2018 falls on Friday, December 21st.

We call it the Solstice, and it marks the point at which the days begin to lengthen. Our ancestors rejoiced in the return of the sun, seeing it as a rebirth of life as well as light. We get pretty excited about it too! 

The Solstice also marks the beginning of Yule or Yuletide, which will run for 12 days until January 1st, 2019. The word Yule is likely from an old Nordic word for wheel. With the coming of Yule, the “wheel of the year” has rolled around to its beginning once more.  

We still refer to the Christmas season as Yuletide. Many of the old traditions associated with the solstice have lived on, although some have evolved to better fit modern life. There are too many to list, but I've touched on a few favorites. See if you recognize them!

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THE YULE LOG

In ancient times, the Yule Log was not a tidy piece of wood but a whole tree! Selecting it was governed by a number of customs - sometimes the tree had to be a gift from someone else, sometimes it could be a tree already growing on your land. It could never, ever be bought. 

Once chosen, it was dragged into the house with great ceremony, and the wide end would be set in the fireplace, leaving the remainder of the tree extending far into the room! 

A piece of last year's log would be used to kindle the new one. And slowly the massive log would be pushed into the fire over the course of twelve days. Afterwards, the ashes were scattered over fields to ensure a bountiful harvest in the year to come. Some of the ashes might be kept to be used in medicines for both man and beast.

Medieval tradition favored a large ash or oak log rather than the entire tree. It was often decorated with evergreens, and pouring ale or wine on the log was customary. So was sprinkling flour or breadcrumbs on it, or even placing coins on the log. All were said to bring good fortune, and the blackened coins were later given as gifts.

In Victorian times the size of your fireplace dictated the size of your Yule log. As large fireplaces fell out of fashion, smaller logs were decorated and holes were bored into the wood to hold candles, which would then be burned for 12 nights. 

The French were the first to create an edible Yule log, calling it "Buche de Noel", and Victorian confectioners made these Yule cakes famous. You can still find them in bakery departments today.

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THE YULE TREE

The Celts were just one of many peoples who believed evergreens to be symbolic of immortality, of continuing life in the midst of death. In the coldest, darkest and dreariest of winters, evergreens held forth hope of returning spring. Throughout many cultures and over countless centuries, homes and barns have been decorated with evergreen boughs and other bright winter greenery. The branches were often believed to provide protection for both people and livestock from dark spirits, faeries, and other supernatural beings.

The practice of decorating actual trees originated long before what we know as Christmas today. Druidic customs called for the adorning of sacred trees, especially oak, which were leafless at this time of year.

The trees were never cut down and brought into the house, but left alive and decorated wherever they grew with offerings of trinkets, trophies, sacred plants such as holly and mistletoe, bits of metal and sometimes replicas of gods and goddesses. 

The Romans later adopted this tradition of decorating trees for their own solstice celebration called Saturnalia.


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THE YULETIDE WREATH

Wreaths have symbolized the wheel of the year since ancient times, and the word wreath comes from the Old English writhen, meaning "to twist".  In many European countries, evergreen wreaths were lit with candles during the darkest winter days, symbolizing hope that light would return. 

Holly wreaths were said to ward off the evil spirits that abounded during the darkness of midwinter, and holly might be kept near the door all year long to invite good fortune.

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THE YULE GOAT

The Yule Goat or Julbock was central to solstice traditions in Scandinavia and northern Europe. A human dressed in goatskins and wearing long horns acted out a skit in which he “died” and returned to life. This was symbolic of the sun’s resurrection at solstice. (The goat guise was chosen because the Norse thunder god Thor had two goats which drew his chariot across the sky. He would occasionally kill the goats and use them to feed guests, then would restore them to life with a blow of his magical hammer.)

Goats were originally slaughtered as offerings during Yule, but later, goats made of straw were created annually as both decorations and effigies. Since 1966, a 42-foot straw goat named Gävlebocken - who weighs 3 tons! - has made the town of Gävle, Sweden, famous. 

(PS - You can keep track of Gävlebocken on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Gavlebocken , and see if he makes it through the season this year. Many "Friends of Gävlebocken" watch over him and try to keep him intact, because a tradition has emerged to burn the giant straw goat to the ground in the middle of the night!)

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YULE GHOSTS

The Victorians were famous for telling ghost stories during the holidays, but they didn't invent it. The practice actually goes all the way back to pagan times, when the coming of Yule was believed to bring about a thinning of the veil between worlds as the death and rebirth of the sun occurs. 

Not only ghosts, but evil spirits, trolls, witches, faeries, werewolves, and many other supernatural beings were said to wander freely. Even the Wild Hunt was more active during the 12 days of Yule. 

In Scandinavia, gifts were often left outside at this time – bowls of pudding and cream, clothes, tobacco and even ale – in order to appease some of these creatures. The most perilous time occurred between cock’s crow and dawn, when supernatural beings were at the peak of their power. To go outside meant risking death or being carried off by them, never to be seen again.

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YOUR TURN - Do you follow any Yule traditions in your family? Do you know of any customs surrounding Yuletide that haven't been mentioned?
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This full-length novel is Book One
of The Haunted Holiday Series

THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

A Yuletide Paranormal Romance 
by Dani Harper


COUNSELING GHOSTS DOESN'T LEAVE ROOM FOR A LOVE LIFE...

Shopping for Christmas, author Kerri Tollbrook is more annoyed than startled when a ghost tells her a gift she's about to buy will end up in the nearest donation bin. He's right, and well... gorgeous with those haunted brown eyes and self-assured bearing. Unlike most men, he's not afraid of her unusual gift. And the connection she feels surprises her. But even she can't date a dead man.


INVISIBLE FOR A YEAR...

Firefighter Galen McAllister is stunned the petite redhead can see and hear him. It feels almost normal to talk to another human again, but if things were truly normal, he'd alread be asking her out. The woman is a triple threat – smart, funny, pretty, even if she's insisting he needs to "cross over". He can't, not after an ancient evil ripped him away from his body. And he refuses to leave as long as the creature is free to do the same to others.

A RITUAL TO PURGE EVIL...

There's no time to kiss under the mistletoe. The demon with a taste for human life force is coming back for a final feast. Helping ghosts is one thing, but Kerri is determined to banish the monster by any means necessary, even if Galen only wants enough "answers" to help him take the demon down himself.

She can't let Galen die for real. He can't bear to put Kerri in the creature's path. But if they don't work together on this, they aren't the only ones who will die just in time for Christmas.


The Holiday Spirit is available in ebook and paperback on Amazon 
https://www.amazon.com/DP/B013Z0F31M

WISHBONES - A History of Lore and Luck

Thanksgiving is coming up fast, and many families will choose a turkey as the center of their holiday feast. And after dinner comes the well-known tradition of breaking the wishbone.

But what IS a wishbone? And why on earth would we want to break one?

First of all, you won’t find one in humans. We have two separate collarbones. But a bird’s collarbones are fused into a single Y-shaped bone known as the furcula, or “little fork” in Latin. The collarbones of bipedal dinosaurs like the T-Rex and the Velociraptor were also fused into one. In fact, the presence of a furcula was one of the clues that helped us figure out that modern-day birds—especially chickens and turkeys—are the closest relatives to many dinosaurs.

Two hundred and fifteen million years ago, there weren’t any humans around to make wishes on giant dinosaur furculas. But fast forward to around 700 BC, when the ancient Etruscans lived in what is now Italy. They believed that in addition to tasting good, chickens had a mystical connection to the future that bordered on the sacred. After dinner, the furcula was carefully separated out and dried in the sun. After three days, it would be retired to a safer place in the home. Family and friends would run their fingers over the bone while asking it for favors.

You might have noticed that the Etruscans did not break the bone. That little flourish was added by the Romans when they conquered the Etruscans and adopted the furcula tradition. No more could a bone be wished upon by more than one person! Competitors would each crook a finger around a leg of the wishbone and pull. Then as now, whoever got the bigger piece was said to have their wish granted.

The practice of making wishes on a furcula found its way across Europe to Britain. Chickens seemed to decline in popularity for a time, and the bones of geese and partridge were substituted. The birds may have changed, but the ability to divine the future was still attributed to their bones. Writings from 1455 show that geese eaten on St. Martin’s Night (November 11th) were used to predict the severity of the winter. Their breastbones, with wishbones carefully left attached, were dried overnight and examined by the oldest and wisest person available. Armies actually planned their campaigns based solely on the thickness of a goose’s wishbone!

By the 1500s, the furcula custom acquired more rules. Each person would balance the wishbone on their nose like a pair of spectacles and make their wish beforehand. But the game wasn’t necessarily over after the traditional breaking. The winner would often secrete their portion of the bone in one of their outstretched fists, and ask the loser to choose. If the loser picked the hand that held the bone, they could also have their wish come true.

Written records from 1598 show that the wishbone was most often called a merrythought, and whoever won the break would be the first to marry. Among bachelors, the meaning was often a little more carnal – whoever won would be the first into the marriage bed. Small wonder that the breaking of the wishbone was frequently associated with the loss of virginity!

The tradition of the wishbone traveled to the American colonies from England. And America had an abundance of turkeys, which meant bigger wishbones. 

No matter which bird was used in the USA, its Y-shaped bone acquired more folklore. In 1890, it was recorded in Adams County, Illinois, that both the winner and the loser of a wishbone pull would hang their portion over their doorway like mistletoe. The first man or woman through the door was predicted to be the future husband or wife of the wishbone owner.

The 1910 Edition of the American Poultry Journal affirmed that using chicken wishbones to foretell a spouse was a widespread tradition. A variation on the custom was that the first single woman who walked under a wishbone after it was hung would marry soon. Women who were already married might hang a wishbone over the door in order to conceive a child, or in some cases carry a wishbone in their apron pocket.

Victorian jewelry was often designed around good luck charms, and wishbones were as popular as horseshoes and clovers on pendants, pins and brooches. It was about this time that the classic V-shaped wedding ring emerged. Its shape was a streamlined version of a wishbone, and was immediately popular because of the wishbone's association with true love.

By 1900, the wishbone was appearing regularly in postcards and greeting cards for every occasion.

Surprisingly, despite the lengthy history surrounding the humble furcula, the first known use of the word wishbone wasn't until 1847 in the USA. That's according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms included the word in its third edition in 1859.  It’s also thought that the term “lucky break” might have come from wishbone pulling.

But whatever the word, whatever the occasion, and whatever the bird, remember this:  The next time you pluck a wishbone, you’re holding nearly three thousand years of tradition in your hands!

Oh, and don't forget to impress your relatives with the word furcula...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

THE GRIM SERIES by Dani Harper

The fae are cunning, powerful and often cruel. The most beautiful among them are often the most deadly. Hidden far beneath the mortal world, the timeless faery realm plays by its own rules—and those rules can change on a whim. Now and again, the unpredictable residents of that mystical land cross the supernatural threshold…

In this enchanting romance series from Dani Harper, the ancient fae come face-to-face with modern-day humans and discover something far more potent than their strongest magic: love.

See ALL Dani's novels on her Amazon Author Page

Why Mistletoe is for lovers...

Mistletoe berries are white when ripe
Image from Bigstock.com

’Tis November, and the harvest is in, the leaves are gone from the trees, and the first snows are falling. But in the midst of the short, cold days, one plant is just now ripening…  

But you'll have to look UP to find it!

Mistletoe is unusual in the plant world because it doesn’t grow in the earth at all. Instead, it’s a semi-parasite that lives only in the branches of mature trees (and if you've ever gone hunting for it, you'll know it's usually very high up...). This strange plant not only remains green throughout the winter, but usually produces its ghostly white berries between October and December. This makes November the perfect time to go for a walk in the woods and locate a mistletoe plant for holiday harvesting! 

There are 1,300 species of mistletoe worldwide, with three dozen native to the United States. The most common of them eventually develops into a woven mass of green stems that can reach five feet across and weigh up to 50 pounds! The tangled plants are sometimes referred to as witches’ brooms.

Although today we think of mistletoe as a Christmas decoration, mistletoe has a much longer history than Christmas itself.

The ancient Celts believed mistletoe to be a gift from the gods, associated with good fortune and great blessings. The Romans recorded that the Celts would harvest mistletoe from a tree after the winter solstice. A druid – a Celtic priest – used a golden sickle to cut the plant. Due to its sacred nature, the mistletoe must never come in contact with the ground and so a white cloth was held beneath the tree to catch it. Two white bulls were then sacrificed to honor the god who provided the mistletoe and to ask that the plant’s potency be increased.

Snow-covered mistletoe growing high in a birch tree.
Image from Bigstock.com

The druids were said to be skilled in both herbs and magic, and the mistletoe was one of the most powerful plants in their arsenal. A symbol of immortality, mistletoe was believed to have protective powers against evil spirits and the ability to heal diseases. Although mistletoe is a poisonous plant itself, in skilled hands it was considered to be an antidote to all other poisons. It was also used to promote fertility in both animal and human – and occasionally even used in aphrodisiac potions. 

In fact, the mistletoe was so sacred that if enemies met in a forest and a mistletoe plant was spotted overhead, an automatic truce was declared until the following day. From this grew the practice of hanging mistletoe over the door, or suspending it from the ceiling as a symbol of peace and good will.

The Death of Baldr, by W.G. Collingwood. Note the spear of mistletoe!
Public Domain 

The Norse myth of Baldr added to the mistletoe tradition. The goddess, Frigga, was Baldr’s mother, and exacted a promise from every element, plant and animal, both on the earth and under the earth, not to harm Baldr. She forgot the mistletoe, which grows neither in the ground or on it. The other gods made a game of throwing things at the good-natured Baldr and laughing as they bounced off him harmlessly. Loki, prankster and god of evil, tricked the blind god, Hod, into throwing a spear made of mistletoe at Baldr, which killed him. 

Fortunately, Balder is eventually brought back to life. His mother is so overcome with joy that she reverses the reputation of the offensive mistletoe, declaring that those who passed beneath a mistletoe plant should have a token kiss and be kept safe from harm.

Image from Bigstock.com

Centuries later, both Celtic and Viking traditions were condemned by early Christianity as pagan, and mistletoe was forbidden to be displayed within sight of the church. However, that didn’t stop people from hanging mistletoe in their homes and barns or from wearing sprigs of it to ward off disease and evil. Mistletoe became known as All-heal, and is still used in homeopathic medicine. In fact, it continues to be studied today as a possible treatment for cancer.

The plant’s original status as a symbol of peace and love, however, wasn’t revived until Victorian times. With it came the practice of kissing under the mistletoe. Interestingly, the practice began among the servant class and worked its way up until everyone was doing it! Mistletoe could be hung over a doorway or from the ceiling as a sprig or a bouquet, or in England it was often part of an elaborate "kissing bough". This was made by wrapping greenery, nuts, apples and ribbons around a large wire frame sphere and tying a large cluster of mistletoe below it (remember they had VERY high ceilings to accommodate such elaborate ornaments). 

The kisses could be stolen if someone happened to wander under mistletoe, and it considered bad luck to refuse a kiss. Being Victorian times, it was almost always the men initiating the kisses of course... In some circles it was said that couples who shared a kiss beneath this evergreen plant would have a happy marriage. 

In the United States, the tradition was recorded in 1820 by Washington Irving (author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow). He wrote, "The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases."­ 

One kiss, one berry. It's easy to see why young men often competed to hunt down the BIGGEST bunch of mistletoe for the party!

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LEGEND.  LORE.  LOVE.  MAGIC.

Bringing ancient faery legends into modern-day America...

Watch for STORM CROSSED, releasing January 9th!

Available now for pre-order in ebook, paperback, and audiobook.

See all of Dani Harper's books on her Amazon Author Page -

https://www.amazon.com/Dani-Harper/e/B004FD8RV2