But the Oxford English Dictionary sees this explanation for jolif as unlikely. It has been thought that Old French jolif (→ French joli), which was borrowed into English in the 14th century as 'jolly', is itself borrowed from Old Norse jól (with the Old French suffix -if compare Old French aisif "easy", Modern French festif = fest "feast" + -if). In Old Norse poetry, the word is found as a term for 'feast', e.g. In Ágrip, composed in the 12th century, jól is interpreted as coming from one of Odin's names, Jólnir, closely related to Old Norse jólnar, a poetic name for the gods. Among many others (see List of names of Odin), the long-bearded god Odin bears the name Jólnir ('the Yule one'). The word is conjectured in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse, where it is associated with Old Norse deities. The compound noun Yuletide ('Yule-time') is first attested from around 1475. Whether the term existed exterior to the Germanic languages remains uncertain, though numerous speculative attempts have been made to find Indo-European cognates outside the Germanic group, too. Both words are cognate with Gothic □□□□□□□ ( jiuleis) Old Norse, Icelandic, Faroese and Norwegian Nynorsk jól, jol, ýlir Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian Bokmål jul, and are thought to be derived from Proto-Germanic * jehwlą. The Old English ġēol or ġēohol and ġēola or ġēoli indicate the 12-day festival of "Yule" (later: " Christmastide"), the latter indicating the month of "Yule", whereby ǣrra ġēola referred to the period before the Yule festival (December) and æftera ġēola referred to the period after Yule (January). The modern English noun Yule descends from Old English ġēol, earlier geoh(h)ol, geh(h)ol, and geóla, sometimes plural. Yule and cognates are still used in English and the Scandinavian languages as well as in Finnish and Estonian to describe Christmas and other festivals occurring during the winter holiday season. Some present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others may have connections to older pagan Yule traditions. Scholars have connected the original celebrations of Yule to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht ("Mothers' Night"). Yule (also called Jul, jól or joulu) is a festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of letters.
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