"Winter solstice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Christmas observances began in ancient Rome. The primitive Italians were wont to celebrate the winter solstice and call it the feast of Saturn. Thus Saturnalia came to mean almost any kind of celebration which came in the wake of conquest, and these ceremonies being engrafted upon Anglo-Saxon customs assumed ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... great bonfires, and watched the sun, which in extreme Northern latitudes barely dips beneath the horizon ere it rises upon a new day. From midsummer, the days gradually grow shorter, and the sun's rays less warm, until the winter solstice, which was called the "Mother night," as it was the longest night in the year. Midsummer's eve, once celebrated in honour of Balder, is now called St. John's day, that saint having ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber |
