Slavic Sanctuary

The Tale of the First Witch

From my one hour's worth of research, the yule goat is a very old character in Scandinavian winter festivals. The likely source of that is Christianization of an existing festival. Thor is best known as the god of thunder, but he was also god of the harvest, and was prominent in the yule festival (the celebration of the last harvest).

Thor rode a chariot pulled by goats and goats are associated with him in general, so goats became associated with yule festivals too. People would dress as goats and walk the streets begging for food, pulled goat-themed pranks on each other involving wood and straw goats, etc... Over time yule goats when from pulling Thor's chariot to Santa's sleigh, but some old traditions remain. Straw goats are still common Christmas ornaments, and large ones are erected in town squares around the first day of yule/advent.

1966, the town of Gävle Sweden decided to build the biggest yule goat ever as a tourist attraction. It was 13 meters (43 feet) tall, and made of straw. It was burnt down New Year's Eve... commencing an arms race between those who protect the goat, and those who delight in the old yule tradition of Fire and Mayhem.

This arms race has included:

Running through the goats' legs with a car

Coating the straw in a protective layer of ice

Flaming arrows shot by a guy in a Santa suit

Coating the straw in flame retardant (it burnt anyway)

Bribery to allow the goat to be kidnapped by helicopter

Making a second smaller goat (which was also burnt down most years)

Shooting fireworks at it

Read the Wikipedia, it lists the goat's fate from every year. It has been destroyed more years than it has survived.

Overtime, the goat gained a cultural mythos that the destruction of the goat was a sign that the next year would be prosperous, and that the survival of the goat was an ill omen.

2017 they seriously increased security. A double fence, a 24 hour Webcam, and a large team of guards. The goat survived-2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Which we can all agree were some very shite years. Over the course of those years, what had been a fairly localized tradition got more coverage- the goat had never survived so long.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE A FUCKING AMAZING PARTY. GOD, WHAT I'D GIVE TO SEE THAT IN PERSON ONE DAY.

Karelian swamp creature

The text reads,

“YOU WERE FRANTIC AND FOOLISH, YOU KEPT NO TRACK OF TIME, YOU RAN YOUR DELICATE BODY INTO ITS NATURAL END, YOU BURNED ALL YOUR CANDLES TO STUMPS, YOU ARE TIRED AND HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO LAY DOWN, YOU HAVE EARNED THIS REPERCUSSION, THIS REWARD, THIS RECKONING, YOU FINALLY  NEED TO KNOW

HOW TO DECAY GRACEFULLY

which made me realize that not a lot of people actually know the sad but fascinating story of Carol of the Bells. 

So listen up, kidz.

First of all, Carol of the Bells isn`t really called Carol of the Bells, and it`s not really a Christmas carol, and it`s also much older than most Christmas carols, like most likely pre-Christianity. 

Carol of the Bells, or at least its original version (well one of the original versions), is an ancient Ukrainian pagan chant called Shchedryk. It`s a shchedrivka which means it was traditionally sung on the night of the Shchedry Vechir (Bountiful Evening), January 13. Although some historians argue that it was originally associated with the celebration of the pagan New Year which would be in April. But now in Ukraine, it`s more of a go-to Christmas song. Bountiful Evening, however, is a very old Ukrainian holiday of the winter cycle which is believed to be a remnant of the old pagan traditions later combined with Christmas and Saint Mykolay`s Day (Ukrainian st.Nicholas) in one happy Christmas bundle. 

That`s why the original lyrics of Shchedryk have fuck all to do with Christmas. It`s about a little bird flying over to some dude`s house and praising him and wishing him to continue to be awesome in the following year:

Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka A little swallow flew  and started to twitter, to summon the master: “Come out, come out, O master  look at the sheep pen, there the ewes have yeaned and the lambkins have been born Your goods are great, you will have a lot of money,  If not money, then chaff:  you have a dark-eyebrowed [beautiful] wife.  Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka, A little swallow flew.

Also, yeah, we, Ukrainians, kinda have a thing about brown eyes and dark bold eyebrows, so to every person with dark eyes reading this: if you have ever been led to believe that your eye color is plain and not romantic, check out Ukrainian folklore.

So, you probably think: “Gee, how did this weird Ukrainian pagan song has become Carol of the Bells?”

Well, meet the man responsible for the job! 

Mykola Leontovych!

Born in 1877 in Monastyrok village, in Podolia (Поділля), which is a historical region in the south-western part of Ukraine, Leontovych was a Ukrainian composer, conductor, and a folklorist. According to the story, during one Christmas season somewhere between 1905-1909 he went to visit his parents for the holidays and heard the locals singing Shchedryk. At the time, Leontovych had already started his lifelong work of collecting and preserving traditional Ukrainian songs. Naturally, he was captivated by the haunting melody and in the following years, he wrote a version of Shchedryk for a choir.

In 1914 his best friend, also a composer, Kyrylo Stetsenko finally convinced Leontovych to show his renditions of the folk songs to Oleksandr Koshyts who was a pretty cool guy actually. He also collected folk songs, he made a lot of effort to help popularize Ukrainian music and Ukrainian culture in the world, he conducted the first mixed choir of Kyiv University when women had been finally allowed to attend (which is also where I got my Bachelor`s degree, hey!) as well as the choir for the local school for the blind. 

Koshyts was completely enchanted with Leontovych`s work and asked for permission to let the university choir perform his renditions. On 26 December in 1916 Shchedryk was performed on stage in Kyiv, modern capital of Ukraine and back then one of the cultural centers of the Russian Empire. It was a huge success. It basically made Leontovych famous overnight and started his career in Kyiv.

In 1922 Koshyts went on tour to the United States and Canada with his new choir. He never went back home settling in Canada instead. They had left independent Ukraine and at the end of their tour in 1926, it had already become a part of the Soviet Union. However, before that, the choir had performed Shchedryk for the New York audience in 1922. This was the first time Carol of the Bells was heard in America. 

In 1936 a Ukrainian-American composer Peter (Petro) J. Wilhousky wrote English lyrics for the song for NBC radio creating the name - Carol of the Bells. And then John Williams made it super popular by using the melody for his Home Alone soundtrack. He received an Oscar nomination and he`s never acknowledged any of the people mentioned above. 

As for Leontovych, his story ended strangely and tragically. For years the circumstances of his death were covered in mystery and his name and his work have been forgotten. 

A few days after Bountiful Evening of the year 1921 Leontovych and his family were staying at his parents` house where he had first heard Shchedryk many years ago. A stranger came to their door. He asked to stay the night. It would be considered disrespectful to turn a guest away during the holiday season so Leontovych invited him in.  At dawn, he shot the composer and let him bled to death while he was robbing the house. The true motive was uncovered only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A declassified document shows that the murderer was a Soviet agent, a Chekist. Most historians believe that Leontovych was killed out of suspicion that he could flee the country like Koshyts but he was too popular at the time to just arrest him. So they decided to assassinate the composer quietly instead.

Sorry for such a bummer ending for this Christmas story but I`m not finished making you sad yet. 

Ok, this part is actually more for the Ukrainian Tumblr as we are the only ones who can do something with this information. The very house where Carol of the Bells was born now lies in ruin. Completely neglected and forgotten during the period of the Soviet Union, Leontovych`s house remained to be ignored even after Independence. It was dragged into some petty land dispute and even pronounced “fake” by the local bureaucrats who want to destroy it. It continues to slowly fall apart today. 

What can we do to stop this? Well, not much, really, but we can spread the information! Not enough people know about this place and how important it is. Also, you can follow these guys. They seek out abandoned cultural landmarks including Leontovych`s house, map them out, spread awareness and soon they are even planning to start a big crowdfunding campaign to restore at least some of them. So you can watch out for the start. 

As Mykola Leontovych once said, “we need to show how these dreams touch lives”. 

Thank you for reading all this. At least now you have a cool weird story to tell at your next holiday party. 

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

Times are troubling and hard right now-but never forget, your Beet loving Grandmother loves you very very much and wants you to be safe.