Happy Twelfth Night !

Happy Twelfth Night!

Tonight is Twelfth Day of Yule Eve, better known as Twelfth Night.

Tomorrow is the Twelfth Day of Yule and is the culmination of the winter celebration that began on December 25th. On that first day of Yule tradition holds that mistletoe should be hung and not be moved until Twelfth Day, a Yule Log was burned each night of the celebration and wassail and other hearty drink was to be served nightly to guests who should happen by.

On Twelfth Night, a round fruit-cake-like "King Cake" is baked for the evening of singing, dance, revelry, general merrymaking and mischief, culminating in the crowning of a Lord of Misrule, who oversees the world turned upside down.

During Twelfth Night and until midnight of Twelfth Day, the kings become peasants and the lowliest are kings, all governed by the capricious dictates of the Lord of Misrule.

His appointment is determined by chance.

Into the King's Cake is embedded a surprise token -- most often a bean, small marble or stone -- and whoever eats a slice of the cake containing the relic is crowned Sir Lord of Misrule of Twelfth Night, of "when the world gets turned upside down."

Although the Lord of Misrule's edicts were presumed to carry the weight of law, rarely were his pronouncements anything more than simple tasks or declarations based on mirth and partying in which inebriation generally ruled the night . . . after all, once the world turned right again there might be hell to pay.

This tradition, by the way, closely echoes the holiday of Saturnalia which was one of the most eagerly-awaited festivities celebrated in ancient Rome. Aside from the custom of drinking mead around a solstice bonfire, the Romans also decorated their houses and porches with gay ornamentation, exchanged small gifts and permitted gambling (even to slaves, who normally had to keep it secret) and they had their own Lord of Misrule ( Saturnalicus Principes ) to rule over the day.

Many of the modern Christian celebrations observed today have incorporated most of the Yule / Saturnalia traditions to one degree or another, commemorating the First of Saturnalia (Dec 25th) as Christmas Day, today as Epiphany Eve, and Twelfth Day as Epiphany.