Note 83 — Chapter VI · PRE-CHRISTIAN WINTER FESTIVALS
Reading edition
It is only right to mention here Professor G. Bilfinger's monograph “Das germanische Julfest” (Stuttgart, 1901), where it is maintained that the only festivals from which the Christmas customs of the Teutonic peoples have sprung are the January Kalends of the Roman Empire and the Christian feast of the Nativity. Bilfinger holds that there is no evidence either of a November beginning-of-winter festival or of an ancient Teutonic midwinter feast. Bilfinger's is the most systematic of existing treatises on Christmas origins, but the considerations brought forward in Tille's “Yule and Christmas” in favour of the November festival are not lightly to be set aside, and while recognizing that its celebration must be regarded rather as a probable hypothesis than an established fact, I shall here follow in general the suggestions of Tille and try to show the contributions of this northern New Year feast to Christmas customs.