The Yule holiday is the holiest and most popular of all the native Germanic spiritual celebrations, as Yule marks the return of the God Baldur from the realm of Hel and the loosening of winters grip on the frozen Earth.

The commencement of the Yuletide celebration has no set date, but is traditionally 12 days long with the start of the festivities beginning at sunset on the winter solstice (In the northern hemisphere, this date usually falls on or around December 20th) This Germanic Heathen holiday was forcibly stolen by early Christian missionaries and became known as the "12 days of Christmas".
The first night of Yule is called The Mothernight, where Frigga and the Disir (female ancestral spirits) are especially honoured on this night. Mothers Night is appropriately named, as it represents the rebirth of the world from the darkness of winter. This is the date with the shortest day and the longest night of the year.
A traditional vigil from dusk to dawn is held on the Mothers night, to make sure that the sun will rise again and welcome her when it does.

Yule is the season at which the gods and goddesses are closest to Midgard: our deities were called 'Yule-Beings' by the Norse, and Odin himself is called Jólnir, the "Yule One" and is where the image of Santa Claus is derived from. Yule is also the season during which the dead return to earth and share the feasts of the living. Elves, trolls, and other magical beings roam freely at this time, and must either be warded off or invited to come in friendship and peace. Yule is the time of the year at which the Wild Hunt - Wodan's host of the restless dead - rides most fiercely; it is dangerous to meet them, but gifts of food and drink are left out for them, for they can also bring blessing and fruitfulness.
Yule is a time for dancing, feasting and family. Sun wheels are sometimes burnt as part of folk festivities at this time. It was the practice in Germanic Heathen times to swear oaths on a hallowed boar (the totem animal of Freyr and Freya). This survived in Swedish folk-custom; a large boar-shaped bread or block of wood covered with pigskin was brought forth at Yule for this purpose through the beginning of this century, and boar-cakes are used for Yule-oaths by most Heathens today. Especially meaningful oaths were also sworn on the horn or cup while drinking at the Yule-feast. The 'New Year's Resolution' is a diminished form of the holy Yule Oath. The fir or pine-tree which is carried into the house and decorated is an ancient Germanic custom, brought to America by German immigrants. The tree on which holy gifts are hung was Heathen in origin representing Yggdrasil, the mighty cosmic tree of life. In Germany, those who kept the old custom hid it inside lest the church authorities notice, but in England and Scandinavia, the trees and various spirits received their gifts outside. In those latter countries, it was a candlelit and ribbon-bedecked wreath, the ring of which may have reflected the holy oath-ring or the Yule sun-wheel, that was traditionally brought in to decorate the home. The Yule-log is also an old Heathen custom. This log was supposed to burn all night during the longest night of the year to symbolize life lasting even in the time of greatest darkness, its fire rekindling the Sun in the morning. Its ashes or pieces were used as protective amulets during the rest of the year. Those who lack large fireplaces often use 24-hour candles instead.

The 12 days of Yule is largely devoted to baking cakes, cookies, and breads and making the unique decorations which beautify every Heathen home at this holiday season. There are, for example, intricate paper cutouts to make and put on the walls; festoons, stars, wooden toys, and straw animals in the shape of Goats, and Wild Boars to hang on the Yule tree. The straw animals, which are still widely found throughout Sweden, are intimately related to ancient Norse Germanic mythology; originating in legends of the sacred animals of the gods; the Goats of Thor, the thunder God, and the Wild Boar of Freyr, God of Fertility.

The majority of the symbols associated with the modern holiday of Christmas (such as the Yule log, Santa Claus & his Elves, Christmas trees, the Wreath, the eating of ham, holly, mistletoe, the star...) are derived from traditional northern European Heathen Yule celebrations. When the first Christian missionaries began forcibly converting the Germanic peoples to Christianity, they found it easier to simply provide a Christian reinterpretation for popular feasts such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, rather than trying to suppress them. Halloween and Easter have been likewise assimilated from northern European Heathen religious festivals.

At the equinox, the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. In the northern hemisphere, before Ostara, the sun rises and sets more and more to the south, and afterwards, it rises and sets more and more to the north.

spring equinox is the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere. The holiday is a celebration the rejuvenation of the Earth, fertility and growth; traditional decorations include budding boughs, flowers, decorated eggs and the Rabbit motif.
Heathen folk customs associated especially with Ostara's feast include the painting and hunting of Easter eggs, which, according to German tradition, were brought or laid by the 'Easter Hare' (the earliest form of the slightly diminished American 'Easter Bunny'). The Hare was the holy beast of Ostara, slain and eaten only at her blessing. In Germany, bakeries sell hare-shaped cakes at this time of year. Fires were also kindled on the hilltops at dawn, especially in Germany. Another common folk-custom which still survives in rural areas is the performance of plays at which Summer battles with Winter and drives him out, or at which an effigy embodying Winter is beaten, burned, or drowned.
Today, Ostara is seen as the feast to awakening the Earth, the gods and goddesses, and the human soul. Life becomes brighter and more joyful after the Ostara feast has been rightly held.

It is named after a woman called "Valborg" (alternative spellings are "Walpurgis", "Wealdburg", or "Valderburger") born in 710 somewhere in Dorset / Wessex as a niece of Saint Boniface. Together with her brothers she later travelled to Württemberg, Germany where she became a nun and lived in the convent of Heidenheim, which was founded by her brother Wunibald. Valborg died on February 25, 779 and that day still carries her name in the Catholic calendar. However she wasn't made a saint until May 1 in the same year, and that day carries her name in the Swedish calendar.
Viking fertility celebrations took place around April 30 and due to Valborg being declared a saint at that time of year, her name became associated with the celebrations. Valborg was worshipped in the same way that Vikings had celebrated spring and as they spread through out Europe the two dates became mixed together and created the Valborg celebration.

Waluburgis is one of the main holidays during the year in both Sweden and Finland, alongside of Yule and Midsummer. One of the main traditions is to light large bonfires, and for the younger people to collect greens and branches from the woods at twilight, which were used to adorn the houses of the village. The expected reward for this task to be paid in eggs.

The tradition which is most spread throughout the country is probably singing songs of spring. The strongest and most traditional spring festivities take up most of the day from early morning to late night on April 30.

Historically the Walpurgisnacht is derived from heathen spring customs, where the arrival of spring was celebrated with bonfires at night. With the Christianization of Germany these old customs were condemned as heathen.

No true Germanic Heathen name survives for May Eve; the German Walpurgisnacht is derived from the well-documented Christian St. Walpurga. In order to avoid confusion, and because no better name survives, Many Germanic heathens have replaced 'Walpurga' with the name of the second-century Germanic seeress 'Waluburg'. This festival marks the beginning of summer in Scandinavia. In all the Germanic countries, it is seen as a time when witches are particularly active, a belief memorialized in Goethe's description of the witch-moot on the Brocken (Faust, Act I) and Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain". It is also the Germanic equivalent of Valentine's Day and a night of love: young men are expected to go out into the woods to gather green branches and wildflowers with which they decorate the windows of their beloveds. For both these reasons, Heathens consider Freya to be the ruler of this festival, as she is mistress of both witchcraft and love. The traditional 'Maypole' or 'May Tree' is also a part of the celebration of this feast; in Scandinavia, the 'May Tree' is carried about in processions, a practice which probably goes back to the Vanic fruitfulness-procession of earliest Heathen times. Fires were kindled on grave mounds or other high places on this night; it is traditional for folk to leap through the flames for luck. A fire kindled by friction (the 'need-fire') might also be used to protect cattle against illness or cure them.

The Summer Solstice is an astronomical term regarding the position of the Sun in relation to the celestial equator. The Summer Solstice is the date with the longest day and hence with the shortest night. This date usually falls near June 21. At the time of this solstice, the Earth is in that point of its orbit at which the hemisphere in question is most tilted towards the sun, causing the sun to appear at its farthest above the celestial equator when viewed from earth.

Certain celebrations take place on the evening of the summer solstice. Great roaring Bonfires, speeches, songs and dancing are most traditional. Folk traditions include the making of wreaths, the kindling of fires, the burning of corn dollies (human figure made out of straw), and the adornment of fields, barns, and houses with greenery. Midsummer as particularly a time to make blessings to Baldur. Model Viking ships are also sometimes made out of thin wood, filled with small flammable offerings, and burned at this time. Midsummer is the high point of the year, the time when deeds are brightest and the heart is most daring. This is the time when our Viking forebears, having their crops safely planted, sailed off to do battle in other lands. It is a time for action and risk, for reaching fearlessly outward.
Other traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge phallic maypole. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover, to "may", the entire pole. Raising and dancing around a maypole to traditional music is primarily a fertility ritual.

The holiday is considered the time of the death of the Fair God of sunshine, Baldur and thus the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the Sun shines longest, but at the same time it is when the days will soon begin to shorten and the Earth is beginning its slow descent into winter again. It is important to note that midsummer is not the middle of summer. Indeed, summer may be defined to begin with the summer solstice.

heathens mark the holiday by baking a figure of the God Freyr in bread, and then symbolically sacrificing and eating it.

Again, no purely Heathen name has survived for this festival, which takes place at the beginning of August, as this was the time when the first fruits of harvest were brought to the church as gifts; since this was taken over from Heathen custom. In English and German tradition, the First Sheaf was often bound and blessed as an offering to Heathen deities or the spirits of the field at the beginning of harvest, just as the Last Sheaf was at its end. English folk custom also includes the decoration of wells and springs at this time. In Heathenism today, the feast is especially thought of as holy to Freyr as a fertility God, Thor as a harvest God and his wife Sif, whose long golden hair can be seen in the rippling fields of ripe grain. The warriors who had gone off to fight at the end of planting season came back at this time, loaded with a summer's worth of plunder and ready to reap the crops that had ripened while they were gone. Loaf-Feast is the end of the summer's vacation, the beginning of a time of hard work which lasts through the next two or three months, while we ready ourselves for the winter.

Bonfires, feasting and dancing played a large part in the festivities. Even into Christian times, villagers cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle upon the flames, cattle having a prominent place in the pre-Christian Germanic world. (Though folk etymology derives the English word "bonfire" from these "bone fires,") With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit their hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together.

Materially speaking it marked the beginning of the gathering of food for the long winter months ahead, bringing people and their livestock in to their winter quarters. To be alone and missing at this dangerous time was to expose yourself and your spirit to the perils of imminent winter. In present times the importance of this part of the festival has diminished for most people. From the point of view of an agricultural people, for whom a bad season meant facing a long winter of famine in which many would not survive to the spring, it was paramount.

At the equinox, the sun rises directly in the east and sets directly in the west. In the northern hemisphere, before the autumnal equinox, the sun rises and sets more and more to the north, and afterwards, it rises and sets more and more to the south.

In ancient times, our European ancestors celebrated their Harvest Feast, where they have found many reasons to be thankful and to celebrate. Our people have done this for as long as we can trace our history. Although what our people have felt thankful for has certainly changed over the many years, remember you sit down this year with your family, you're participating in an ancient tradition. And it's a great time to figure out what you're thankful for.

These festival and feast celebrated the accessibility, veneration, awe, and respect of the dead. This was also a time for contemplation. To the ancient Germanic peoples death was never very far away, and it viewed as a natural and necessary part of life. To die was not as much of a surprise or tragedy it is in modern times and death as not viewed as something "scary" or "evil". Of higher importance to the Germanic people was to live & die with honour and thereby live on in the memory of the tribe and be honoured at this great feast.

Starting on this night, the great divisions between the worlds was somewhat diminished which can allow the forces of chaos to invade the realms of order, the material world conjoining with the world of the dead. At this time began the Wild hunt in which the restless spirits of the dead and those yet to be born walked amongst the living. The dead could return to the places where they had lived and food and entertainment were provided in their honour. In this way the tribes were at one with its past, present and future.

Again, the Christians forcefully subverted the sacred Germanic Heathen calendar to honour Christianity, Winter nights on October 31 became "All Hallows Eve" and November 1st was declared "All Saint's Day".

January 9 - Remembrance for Raud the Strong (a Norwegian chieftain whom Olaf Tryggvason killed for refusing to convert. The end of a metal horn was put down Raud's throat; a poisonous snake was then put into the horn and the other end heated to drive it along...).
February 9 - Remembrance for Eyvind kinnrifi (whom Olaf Tryggvason tortured to death when he refused to convert, by putting a metal brazier filled with burning coals on his belly).
February 14 - Folk etymology has led to this day being called 'Feast of Vali' in modern Asatru. Actually, St. Valentine has no demonstrable associations with Vali, nor to the thinly disguised heathen Lupercalia rites which take place on this day. Nevertheless, many Heathens make blessing to this god at this time.
March 28 - Ragnar Lodbrok's day, when we celebrate this famous Viking's sack of Paris.
April 9 - Remembrance for Haakon Sigurdsson (Haakon the Great), one of the Jarls of Hladhir, a great defender of Heathenism in Norway during the brutal period of forced conversion to Christianity.
May 9 - Remembrance for Gudrod of Gudbrandsdal, whose tongue was cut out by the Norwegian king 'St. Olaf' (not to be confused with Olaf Tryggvason despite the similarity of names and methods. St. Olaf, otherwise known as 'Olaf the Fat' or 'Olaf the Big-Mouthed', was canonized for his efforts to convert Norway by fear, murder and torture).
This Norwegian martyr spoke out against the tyranny of the Christian fanatic Tryggvason, and urged others to resist him. For this, the king had his tongue cut out.
June 9 - Remembrance for Sigurd the Dragonslayer (known in German versions of the story as Siegfried).
July 9 - Remembrance for Unn the Deep-Minded, a woman who was one of the great chieftains of the Icelandic settlement.
July 29 - death-date of Olaf the Fat.
August 9 - Remembrance for King Radbod of Frisia, who, standing at the baptismal font, changed his mind and refused conversion when told that his place in the Christian Heaven would mean his separation from the souls of his ancestors.
September 9 - Remembrance for Hermann the Cheruscan, embodiment of German freedom, who kept Germany from being over run by the Romans and suffering destruction of their culture and language such as was experienced by occupied Celtic Gaul.
October 9 - Leif Eriksson Day - Remembrance for Leif Eriksson and his sister Freydis Eriksdottir, leaders of the earliest known European settlement in America.
October 28 - Remembrance for Erik the Red.
November 9 - Remembrance for Queen Sigrid of Sweden. Wooed by Olaf Tryggvason, the relationship ended sharply when she told him that she had no intention of leaving the gods of her fathers and he slapped her across the face. She was the chief arranger of the alliance that brought him down.
November 11th - Feast of the Einherjar, in which the fallen heroes in Valhalla, and in the halls of the other Gods and Goddesses are remembered.
November 27 - Feast of Ullr and Skadi, Weyland Smith's Day celebrating the greatest of Germanic craftsmen.
December 9 - Remembrance for Egill Skallagrimsson, great Viking Age poet, warrior and rune magician.