Happy holidays! I am late in wishing a very happy Hanukkah to my Jewish readers, but I hope the festival of lights has been enjoyable even in the times of social distancing. Yule, Christmas, and Kwanzaa are coming up, and I heartily wish everyone health and happiness as we finally get past the year 2020! Even if the change in [Gregorian] calendar year does not change the state of the world in these trying times, it feels like a minor victory, psychologically at least.
In accordance with the holiday season for so many of us, I thought it might be time to discuss holidays, and how weather, season, and sunlight can affect what holidays are created – when and why. This is for writers who build settings of their own as well as those writing fiction set in our world; both should be conscious of the underlying points that get wrapped into a holiday. I am going to discuss some existing religious holidays in a historical context, and I mean no offense to those who may find my discussion distant if not cold to the religious reasons for said holidays – I cannot claim enough understanding of Christianity’s details to speak to the religious reasons. I will do my best to get my point across without ruffling too many feathers. I am also going to reference the Calendar of Harptos, a fictional calendar created by Ed Greenwood for the fantasy setting of Faerûn, which has both fictional works and roleplaying games set within it. It is one of the most complete calendars that I know of from a fantasy setting, and it will help me elaborate on my points for writers.
Holidays: Points on the Solar Calendar
Let’s start at a simple point; regardless of the calendar being used, due to our planet’s axial tilt as it revolves around the sun, there is a darkest point and a lightest point of the year. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice is nearly upon us – the darkest day of the year is on Monday (Dec 21st). This is the point when the north pole is tilted as far from the sun as it gets. For the Southern Hemisphere, this is the reverse, and we are at the height of summer. Forgive me, southerners, you’re going to get a lot of winter discussion here. Try and think of it theoretically for the purposes of seasonal holidays, even if that means you bookmark this and come back to it in June.
In pagan traditions, the solstice itself is celebrated, most commonly recognized as Yule. That’s a quick and easy holiday right there, for you worldbuilders. For other holidays around this time, both in December and in the winter months to come, most deal with light in some way. As a theme for a holiday, this makes a lot of sense. It’s dark, people are depressed – not the medical definition, but the literal mood dampening of there being more darkness than sunlight. In Roman times, the Mithraic New Year and birth of Mithras was December 25th, and the festival of the Sun beginning its return was celebrated on this date.
Look familiar? As the Christian religion was beginning, they were opposed by many earlier religions. Consider, for instance, an entire Roman Empire used to celebrating the birth of a god and the return of the sun on December 25th. How does a growing religion compete with that? The simple answer is they don’t. Instead, they combined some of the existing holidays into their own calendar – like Easter, at the vernal equinox, a festival of rebirth. This made their calendar more appealing to the early conversion of pagan peoples, who would be able to keep many of their local traditions related to Christmastime and Easter, among others.
These two holidays are the primary examples of early Christian syncretism, but I would also like to consider one other, perhaps lesser, holiday: Candlemas. This date is now colloquially known better as Groundhog Day, the midpoint between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, which from a seasonal standpoint represents the point where the winter typically stops feeling like winter, and signs of spring are present. Groundhog Day may seem silly, but there’s both science and tradition underlying the point where we’re nearly at springtime. The Gaelic festival of Imbolc (or Christianized as Saint Brigid’s Day) is celebrated on the first of February, from a yet earlier tradition of celebrating the celestial midpoint between winter and spring, which became the festival of the goddess Brigid (then Saint Brigid).
It is this syncretism, not just combining the Gaelic holidays into Christianity but also earlier traditions developing into the Gaelic holidays, that I think is most important for a writer designing holidays for a world of their own creation. I would add to these celestial points of note the other midpoint holidays in Gaelic tradition: Beltane (fertility, like May Day), Lughnasadh (harvest), and Samhain, now synonymous with All Hallows Eve (Halloween).
Religious Holidays in Worldbuilding
While not all religious holidays are going to be tied to the calendar, consider also the way Christian holidays reflect on earlier pagan holidays, but also how the early Catholic Church stomped on all pagan traditions as heresy. Once the Christian calendar was set (including the syncretism already discussed), later centuries saw massive attempts to destroy traditions not included in the Christian faith. As a worldbuilder, this is a particularly relevant point whenever considering holidays. There are going to be accepted holidays, and potentially holidays or traditions not accepted. It is the state of civilization to try and accept and catalog a calendar; that doesn’t make it the only way of looking at it.
Worldbuilding: Seasonal Holidays
This is the point where I’m going to bring the Calendar of Harptos into the discussion. This is a purely fictional calendar, but if you follow the holidays of that calendar, among them are the two solstices, winter and summer, and the two equinoxes, vernal and autumnal. These are very specific dates which apply to nearly any planet that has any axial tilt at all (and revolves around a star or stars), though a single degree tilt would be nearly the same as no tilt – the days would all be the same length. Writers, note that moons or planets with complex orbits (multiple stars, additional gravitational anomalies, etc.) are not the same as what I’ll call “normal” planets, and these solar-based dates do not apply. I don’t want to get into the science of more complicated orbital bodies here, but make a note that you should look it up if your setting includes such a planet or moon.
What do your characters do at the winter solstice? Is there a holiday (religious or secular) at this point of the year? How would the Stone Age era of your society have looked at the sun dwindling, and how might that have lingered in later traditions? Keeping a Yule log burning throughout the night of the longest night of the year is more than just a thing you do, there are reasons underlying it that are based on wanting the sun to return, in spite of modern science proving it will always do so. (If it won’t, that’s another matter entirely.) Just because a society is modern doesn’t mean the prehistorical beliefs will have faded; they will simply have morphed into folk traditions and holidays that are now recognized, and potentially the reasons behind them will be forgotten. The good worldbuilder should know the why, not just the what, of the holiday.
Non-Seasonal Holidays
It would be unfair of me to only focus on seasonal holidays. Not all holidays are seasonal in nature, but most must be considered in the context of the season. Midwinter can’t be celebrating the harvest or fertility; there is no harvest to celebrate, nor new lambs such as there will be in springtime. Symbols, iconography, and traditions associated with holidays must match the time of year for holidays set on a date related to the solar calendar. (This would be a good point to also mention holidays such as Ramadan, which are not tied to the solar calendar, but the traditions of which are not going to matter based on season; it, too, is a good reference point for worldbuilding.
All of this is simply a way of looking at the calendar, and how that affects worldbuilding when creating a similar or different calendar – do it consciously, not at random to explain later. I’ll revisit this to expand on other calendar highlights at a later date. Best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season, and I will see you again in the new year.
Cheers,
~Marie
Marie Efromson 