If you have a christmas tree mounted in the living room, garden or balcony you actually have something more: a small and peculiar tribute to Thor, the god of Norse mythology converted into big screen star by the work and grace of Marvel. At first glance, the son of Odin and the fir trees decorated with balls, stars and LED lights may not seem to have much in common, but the link goes back. a few centuries ago.

To find it you have to draw on oral tradition and travel to 8th century Europe, more specifically to what is now Germany. There, near Geismar according to some versionseither HessiaAccording to others, there lived a community of pagans who worshiped Thor in a rather curious way. Its inhabitants were convinced that their deity was represented by a tree, a huge, leafy oak that they nicknamed “Thunder Oak” either “Thor’s Oak”.

For the locals its trunk and branches were sacred, so every winter the locals fulfilled a bloody ritual at their feet: they sacrificed a victim, almost always a child, in honor of their god, the powerful son of Odin.

Between saints, staffs and axes

That thing about the tree connected with the Norse pantheon and the sacrifices did not please a lot of people. benedictine monk a native of England who at that same time was traveling around Northern Europe with the gospels under his arm. Her name, Winifred, although she has gone down in history as Saint Boniface.

For years and under the first auspices of the Pope Gregory II and later his successor, Gregory IIIthe religious dedicated himself to traveling through Frisia, Thuringia, Hesse and Bavaria as a missionary, baptizing pagans and above all contributing to the organization of the Church in the region. It went so well in fact that the Supreme Pontiff ended up naming Boniface archbishop and papal delegate.

The point is that when he learned of the custom of a group of pagans to sacrifice a child every winter at the feet of their “thunder oak”Bonifacio decided to use his missionary skills and intervene. The story is epic, worthy of the legends and oral tradition that often populate the saints’ books. The religious appeared at the place of the ritual and to demonstrate to the locals that the oak in question had no divine power, he attacked it with machetes until it was knocked down.

The details do not always coincide, but legend says that Boniface and his companions arrived at the village shortly before the pagan ritual was to be celebrated. The saint first used his staff to stop the sacrifice and then, with an ax, he dedicated himself to felling the oak right there, in front of the sad-faced locals.

There are versions that claim that he didn’t even have to hit him. As soon as he swung the ax, a gust arose that felled the tree. Others, a little less epic (just a little) maintain that it came to him a single hit so that the oak tree fell down.

The thing didn’t stop there. In the same area there was a small fir tree that Boniface decided to name as a substitute for Thor’s oak. “This little tree, a child of the forest, will be your sacred tree tonight. It is the forest of peace, the sign of endless life, because its leaves are always green. Look how it points to the sky,” the saint harangued, according to the version collected by the religious website Catholic Answer.

“Let this be the tree of the Christ-child, gather around it, not in the wild forest, but in your own homes“, concluded the Christian saint.

The reality is that the echoes of tradition resonate from long before.

Between the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD Tertullian, I already wrote about the Roman tradition of using laurels and luminaries during winter celebrations. We also know of the Celts’ love for decorating trees during the winter solstices to bring about the return of the Sun or the Romans themselves for decorating their streets coinciding with the Saturnaliawhich also fall in December.

Christianity ended up incorporating, readapting and making its own traditions that, like that of the Christmas tree, have been enriched with their stories.

That of the oak of Thor and Saint Boniface is not the only one. There are those who say that we owe the custom of decorating trees with candles to another prominent figure in Christianity, although in this case the Protestant branch: the religious reformer Martin Luthera native of Eisleben, who supposedly added them in the 16th century in an attempt to capture the beauty of the stars twinkling at night.

The undeniable thing at the gates of Christmas 2024 is that the trees have become a universal symbol of the holidays and even competition reason between some cities that fight to see who is capable of raising the highest one.

Everything, legend has it, thanks to Saint Boniface and Thor.

Images | Wikipedia and Alex Haney (Unsplash)

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