Yule log
A great log laid on the hearth on Christmas Eve and kept burning through the feast, once common in England, France, Italy, Germany and among the South Slavs. In French the name now also belongs to the bûche de Noël, a Christmas cake shaped like a log.
Meaning
On Christmas Eve, John Brand wrote, “our ancestors were wont to light up candles of an uncommon size, called Christmas Candles, and lay a log of wood upon the fire, called a Yule-Clog or Christmas-block, to illuminate the house, and, as it were, to turn night into day.” At Ripon the chandlers sent candles and the coopers logs; if a log was too large to burn in one night, the rest was kept for Old Christmas Eve. Clement Miles (1912) gives Herrick’s rule that the new block must be lit from last year’s brand. Among the Serbs and Croats, Miles writes, young oaks were felled on Christmas Eve and the log, the badnjak, laid on the fire with corn and wine; at Ragusa the father of the house said, as the flame shot up, “Goodly be thy birth!” In Tuscany Christmas itself is called after the log, the Festa di Ceppo. The Office québécois de la langue française defines the bûche de Noël as a sponge cake filled with butter cream, in the shape of a log, served at Christmas.
Origin and history
The word Yule is of disputed origin, says the Catholic Encyclopedia (Martindale, 1908): in Anglo-Saxon geol was a feast and geola the name of a month. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1784 held that the Christmas Eve log was “still called the Yule-clog” because the rejoicing had its rise in the northern Juul. In 1648 Thomas Warmstry, in his Vindication of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Christ, called the blazes “foolish and vaine” and “not countenanced by the church”. Brand records the custom still kept in the north of England and in Devon in his day.
In the Serbian rite Miles describes, a chosen first visitor, the polaznik, came on Christmas morning with corn in his glove and said “Christ is born”, and the household answered “He is born indeed”; he struck sparks from the remains of the badnjak and wished the house good luck.
A pagan fire or a winter fire?
James Frazer thought the Yule log was the old fire festival of the winter solstice moved indoors, the winter counterpart of the midsummer bonfire, as Brand had suggested, and that the superstitions about it “carry their heathen origin plainly stamped upon them”. Miles gave two readings: Wilhelm Mannhardt saw the log as the spirit of vegetation and its burning as a charm for sunshine, others the yearly rekindling of the hearth where the ancestors dwelt, though the Serbian highlanders themselves gave many of the rites a Christian meaning. Martindale was more sceptical: the log “was originally lit only in view of the cold season”, and it became a public ceremony in England only in 1577.
Read next
- Next in Christmas symbolsSt Nicholas and Santa ClausNicholas, a fourth-century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, is the patron saint of children who brings them gifts on his feast, 6 December, as Sinterklaas does in the Netherlands. In New York he became Santa Claus, who brings presents on Christmas Eve.
- Frazer saw the Yule log as the indoor winter counterpart of the seasonal bonfiresBonfireA bonfire lit on Halloween night. Hallowe’en fires were recorded in the Scottish Highlands and in Wales, and 31 October is still a bonfire night in Ireland; in England the fires moved to 5 November.
See also
Wheel of the Year, Nativity scene, Star of Bethlehem, Advent wreath, Christmas tree, Holly.
Sources
- Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (John Brand, ed. Henry Ellis, 1853), John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, arranged and revised by Sir Henry Ellis, vol. 1 (London: Bohn, 1853), Internet Archive (University of Toronto copy), The Yule Clog, pp. 467–469
- The Golden Bough, abridged edition (James George Frazer, 1922), Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, abridged edition (New York: Macmillan, 1922), chapter LXIII, section 6, The Hallowe'en Fires, Internet Archive, chapter LXII, section 7, The Midwinter Fires
- Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan (Clement A. Miles, 1912), Clement A. Miles, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912); Project Gutenberg e-text 19098, Internet Archive (Project Gutenberg text), chapter X, The Yule Log
- Christmas (Catholic Encyclopedia), C. C. Martindale, “Christmas”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1908), New Advent, Origin of the word; The yule log
- bûche de Noël (Grand dictionnaire terminologique), Office québécois de la langue française, Grand dictionnaire terminologique, fiche 8359287, Office québécois de la langue française, définition
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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