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The Burning Question of the Yule Log - A Dirt Nap City Christmas Special · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Alex, uh you know it's it's that time of the year, it's it's getting really close to Christmas here, and uh I'd like to wish you a uh happy Yule Tide.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Cause uh we have no idea what the word Yule means, do we?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well I thought it had to do with a log.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we have the Yule lads?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: We do have the Yule lads, that's right.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Remember we uh you learned about the the 12 Yule lads?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're they're coming up.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I need to I've been uh the last few years I text you pictures of the Yule lads on their on their days.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think I might have already missed some.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the I thought Yule meant Christmas.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It actually comes from a holiday vocabulary from sort of the Nordic countries like uh Norway and Sweden and Denmark.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and they say it in different ways.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some say it's it's kind of an old Norse word.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: J-O-L-L, Yule.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it refers to a 12-day winter feast.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we have Yule Brenner.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Cool Yule is kind of that uh, you know, that jazz Christmas album everybody likes to listen to around this time.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to talk about the Yule Log.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned the Yule Log, and I don't really think the Yule log exists in the way it used to.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever lit a Yule log?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I have, have I?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a Yule log, I let's just kind of go into it a little bit, but a Yule log is something that you light at the beginning of the 12 days and you keep it burning for all 12 days.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's an actual log that burns for 12 days.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these used to come from trunks of giant trees that they would drag inside and put into a really big stone fireplace, or it might have been put out in a kind of a fire pit type situation as the snow's coming down, and they would light this thing and it would burn and burn and burn for 12 days.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, that whole idea of that 12-day winter feast and the uh 12th night and things like that, it's not what everybody thinks.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know when the 12th night actually is?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've talked about this before, haven't we?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's January 6th.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that it's the first day is Christmas, right?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the first day is Christmas, there's 12 days of of winter feasting, and you keep the Yule log burning for all 12 nights.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably the coldest time of year in most in most places.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the Yulog doesn't have to be from a particular kind of tree, it just has to be big and thick enough to enough to burn for twelve nights.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then also in the old and olden days, you know, back in the Viking days, maybe the your the the Norse or the the um Norwegians or whoever was really practicing this, they would sometimes, if they were really hardcore about it, take that flame and keep it going for the entire year, and then use that same flame to light the next year's log.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's one log would do that?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: One log would keep it going for the 12 days, and then they would have to just take the flame off of that, light something else, got it, let it burn, and and just keep keep feeding a either a fire or transferring that same flame into different fire situations so that so that essentially you never lit another match or you never rub two sticks again, sticks together again.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: You kept that flame, it's like the Olympic torch almost.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: The answer to your question is no, then I've never lit a Yule log.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've never had lit something that stayed lit for 12 days.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like sounds like a kind of a stomach malady, doesn't it?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh lit a Yule log.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's also another um type of um it's it another variation of the Yule log.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Boucher de Noel.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now have you heard of the Boucher de Noel, which translates into Christmas log?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh can you guess the the language of origin for that?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Boucher de Loel?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it French?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is French.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is a famous sponge cake that's rolled into a circle to look like a little miniature block of wood, and it has frosting in the middle and little stripes in it, and you cut it, you know, it's round and you cut it into pieces.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Christmas log.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of the um it it it's what the French took to the original Yule log, the one that you burned, and they made a cake out of it.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's cool.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that a lot of people like to have on Christmas Eve.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a big tradition in in France for that.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's made from liqueurs, whipped cream, butter, uh, buttercream, chocolate, and it usually has a very rich taste, and then the frosting is made to look like bark.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's spread on in such a way that it has kind of a barky texture to it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had one?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I have had one of those, actually.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't I didn't realize where it had come from that it was called the the Christmas log or the Boucher de Noel, but it it is uh it it is a direct descendant of the Yule Log tradition of burning a log for 12 days.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You think I could find one in Houston, Texas?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You could probably find one on Amazon and have it there in an hour if you wanted.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna bug it up, I'll bet Buggy's has a good one.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do they call them?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: They don't call them boucheted as well.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I think they call them Yule logs or Christmas logs.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Christmas logs.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've had the pecan logs.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, similar.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: That probably is another another the cheese.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the cheese the cheese?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, where it has the pecans spread across the top and it's made of cheese.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's good stuff.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: That is really good stuff.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then it makes that's the you eat enough of that's the hillbelly version, right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You eat enough of that, and then you'll have a yul log yourself.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hillbilly version of bouche del Noel.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So so this whole idea of the word, um, again coming from Yol, which was that that Norse word, it was something that kind of honored family, honored uh ancestors, uh they sometimes had animal sacrifices, but they would always burn that Yulog during their uh Yule uh celebration.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's one of these things too that uh kind of evolved from several different um origins.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: The the Nordic origin, there was also a Germanic version of this, and they kind of collided to form the eventual Yulog, and then eventually the French took it and made a cake out of it.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: They probably do that with everything.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right, it's eventually gonna turn out to be a cake.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's something that I think celebrates the whole Christmas season, and the other thing that they would do during that time.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now now you've heard of Yule Tide, and and that actually means Yule time.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So so in that case, Yule Tide is the time, it's the time that we celebrate.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Yule log.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was another one called the Yule Goat.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, have you heard of the Yule Goat?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was a goat-shaped figure made of straw and wrapped with a red ribbon, and they would put it out during um during Christmas, and it was designed to uh it was kind of from mythology, and it was designed to honor Thor originally, because Thor would ride on a chariot pulled by magical goats, and so the Yule goat was a way to honor Thor and his magical goats.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and a lot of times during these um rituals and festivals back in the Nordic and Germanic days, people would dress up like goats and they would do the dance of the of the Yule goat, and it was pretty famous.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: That seems like that's mixing up like pagan and Christian themes.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what they did.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the I think that's kind of what the Vikings did.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know they did that.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, the Vikings did this.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: This was this was uh before Christianity was was more popular, I suppose.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, also before Santa Claus had um his fame in Scandinavia, the Yule Goat was also the one that brought gifts to the children during the 18 or the 1600s, all the way up to the 1800s.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: We've probably talked about that before.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it would come and would um would actually give gifts but also sometimes do mean things to uh kids that had been bad.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: Remember uh Syntacros?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we talked about Syntacros.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well originally before Syntaclaus, there was there was a Yule goat that was kind of a it was part protector, part prankster.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like Krampus.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um Santa Claus got more famous later and the Yule goat kind of disappeared.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: But in in Norway and Sweden and uh Finland and places like that, you'll still see these uh straw goats um that are hung up or put on the trees or used for decoration during the Yule Yule tide season.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now the most famous one of these is the Gavle goat in Sweden.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's forty feet tall, and it's basically a um giant um what do they call it when you burn something?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's an effigy, yes.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they put it up and then on the um twelfth night they burn it.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: In Sweden.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Forty feet.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine forty feet of straw burning.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: What that would look like.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, crazy.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of thing.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, except it's goat.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, next time you're singing deck the halls or uh trying to think about something Christmas related and you you mention the Yule log or the Yule tide or the Yule Goat, um, just think about all this or or you eat a rolled up chocolate cake with delicious cream, creamy fillings in the middle.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Think about all these traditions that Yule came from.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you watch uh something with Yule Brenner in it, you can appreciate it that much more because uh the the Yule log is definitely a thing of Christmas past.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But Alex and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas present.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you, Alex?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be right about that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you'll contribute to our Patreon, you'll potentially get a Dirtnap City t-shirt with the right amount of contribution, but you can definitely get a DirtNet City sticker, which are awesome on everything.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where would if you if you had a dirt nap sticker, dirt nap city sticker in your hand right now, where would you put it?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you recommend people put these stickers?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: On your computer?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good place.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I need one right here.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good place for it, or would be another good place to do that.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: You got one on your car, Alex?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't know.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: If I do it, will you do it?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, yeah.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we have a little ritual with that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: We burn the city.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Remember too, for$180,000.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: What was$180,000?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: We will see Pink Cadillac.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: It might have been$160.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I saw one the other day.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: A Mary Kay Pink Cadillac?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was Mary Kay.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was a pink Cadillac, but it was one of the electric um.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and it was pink?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds awesome.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So do you.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks, man.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Merry Christmas, everyone, and uh you'll be glad you tuned in for 2026.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be an even greater and bigger season.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're coming up on season five.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Any predictions for season five?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: You think this is the year we get discovered?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I saw yesterday the a list came out for the uh Golden Globes has a new category called Best Podcast.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: We got snubbed.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can we get can we get written in?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a write-in for that?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, we got snubbed.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do promise if we win uh best podcast, we're gonna bring the Yule log back.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll light a fire and it will stay lit for the entire season.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's a crowded category.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Best podcast about interesting dead people.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: If if they would just narrow down the uh parameters, we'd be have a good shot, I think.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: All right, man.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Merry Christmas, Alex.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: The U Log Bunts it crackles bright, a roaring flame against the night we gather around with mugs of chill, the longest night, the turning the last tree to frosty wins last day.