So, it’s Christmas day, the presents have been opened, and you’re either spending the day with your beloved family or crammed in with that bunch of assholes with whom you have nothing in common but an accident of birth.
Either way, I hope there were presents in the offing, because as much as we like to shake our privileged heads and lament the commercialisation of Christmas, gifting and hospitality have long been a fairly important part of European culture.
In the Middle Ages, and particularly in the myth and folklore of the Middle Ages, both gifting and hospitality were important motifs.
And since writing about those things would suggest that I had things like social contact or friends, I’ve had to ask the awesome Heather O’Brien of Heathen Undergound to step in and write a little about Christmas and Gifting in the Middle Ages.
Continue reading “Gifts, Hospitality and the Supernatural in Medieval Folklore”