Yule

Yule, the old name for Christmas, still used provincially, as well as in Yule-log, Yule-cake, Yule-tide. For the nature of the old heathen festival, and the way in which the observances were overlaid or transformed by the Christian institution, see CHRISTMAS. The word is not connected with Ice. hjol, 'wheel,' nor yet with yawl or yowl, 'to howl' or 'cry.' The Anglo-Saxon form is geol, cognate with the Ice. jól.