Christmas comes, like practically all Christian festivals, from the pagan Saturnalia. It is bound up with the myth of Saturn, the Roman god, and Capricorn, the month over which he rules. It is inextricably linked with the Winter Solstice, the peak of Northern darkness. The early Greeks believed that the nights lengthened as sin accumulated.
I feel for Norway, I really do.
A Saturnine ethos is hierarchical, almost feudal. There is a sense of order, a practical rigour, and a belief in the rewards of discipline and hard work, as long as one knows one’s place. Instinctively cautious, rational and conservative, a Saturnine approach to life is pragmatic, not overly optimistic, melancholic, tough. Fearful of change, yet stoic. But, as with everything archetypal, there is a shadow, a flip-side, to complete it, without which it is not whole. In Capricornian symbolism, it is the silliness of a day devoted to chaos, disorder, and mayhem, Saturnalia, when the Lord of Misrule is appointed from the workers, and the real King or Lord is treated like a slave. This festival also corresponded with the Feast of Fools in the Church in medieval Europe, when young people would elect a mock Pope or Bishop, who would make a travesty of its rites, and everyone would behave as sacrilegiously as they could, and generally debauch themselves. Saturnalia was always supposed to be fun, a reward for the year’s endeavours, and always involved feasting and the exchange of gifts.
It could be said that the old order was maintained by this annual release of tension, for after the topsy-turvy revelries concluded, it would be back to business as usual, with a hangover. Some accounts of these rites maintain that, in ancient times, the young upstart who is made King for a Day loses his life after his day of Misrule. That’s a sobering enough sight to remind the plebs who’s boss, and get them back in line for another year’s hard slog. There’s always a sense of irony when it comes to Capricorn, the rationalist earthy goat having to endure the absurd indignity of an irrational watery fish-tail.
Traditionally, English culture has been seen to be Saturnine and Capricornian, with stereotypical national characteristics such as the class system, the stiff upper lip and the Dunkirk spirit.
Witness, recently, the apparent sang froid of Londoners under attack from terrorists. As in every attempt at categorising personality, of course, it is entirely intuitive and unscientific. But this way of looking at human nature helps to make sense of the rituals we go through, year in, year out, and remind us of the ancient meanings, which still contain a wisdom for us to mine if we are minded to. The Lord of Misrule was mainly a British occasion.
Saturnalia had its context, its time and place. It had its roots in established power structures, in sending up those who governed, spiritually or temporally, which in olden times was the same thing. (By olden times, of course, generally I mean medieval Europe, but for theocratic Ireland, let’s say: a decade or two ago. Before Intel.)
There is a sadistic twist to this ritual, a touch of popular schadenfreude in seeing the King so stripped of his pomp and status. It’s a reminder that he’s human, fallible, and can take a joke. Characteristically, the old god Saturn was not so good-humoured - he ate his own children in order to cling to his throne, such was his fear of being usurped. Saturnalia existed as an antidote to such self-importance, for without it there would be dark ages indeed.
Where has this element gone in our culture, that used to be so associated with this time of the year? Christmas has none of this spirit, indeed it has even wandered away from the stringent potency of being just a week of celebration and general good cheer. More and more it is a time where people suffer from depression, precisely because they are supposed to feel good at all the tinsel and the effort at making the dysfunctional function. I saw my first Christmassy things on sale at the end of September this year in one supermarket. It has become a sloppy excuse for marketing, a slavish exercise in obeisance to our new rulers, the multinationals, whose turnovers are bigger than those of most nation states.
As orthodox Christianity fades in this part of the world, and more and more of us lose faith in the religious meaning of Christmas, I wonder is it time to re-introduce elements of the political/spiritual/pantomime purging of the pagan festival, a rattling of the chains that bind us to consumerism, a necessary injection of ridicule and satire to puncture the pomposity of our leaders, and expose their fallibility, be they George W Bush, the House of Saud, Pope Benedict, or the world arms and oil industry.
Well, I can dream. Happy solstice! b