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Pop quiz: What do…
- the mythical Irish figures Lugh and Balor of the Evil Eye;
- the Arthurian figures the Green Knight and Sir Gawain;
- and the Biblical figures Jesus and John the Baptist
…all have in common?
Welp, in addition to being rivals, these high-profile pairs might all be iterations of the ultimate rival pair: the Holly King and the Oak King.
Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here. Text continues below.
Who Are the Holly King & the Oak King?
In neopagan circles, the Holly King and the Oak King are personifications of winter and summer respectively.
Although it is perhaps more accurate to say that the Holly King symbolically rules over the dark or waning half of the year, when the amount of sunlight the earth receives during the day is decreasing, while the Oak King symbolically rules over the light or waxing half of the years, when the amount of sunlight the earth receives during the day is increasing.
Following this logic, the Holly King begins his reign at the summer solstice, i.e., midsummer, when he defeats the Oak King and the days start getting shorter, while the Oak King begins his reign at the winter solstice, i.e., midwinter, when he defeats the Holly King and the days start getting longer.
Now, another school of thought holds that the Holly King/Oak King power transitions happen on the autumnal and vernal equinoxes, thus allowing the Holly King to be at the height of his power during midwinter, the darkest time of the year, and the Oak King to be at the height of his power during midsummer, the lightest time of the year.
And there is yet another school of thought, let’s call it the Celtic school, that places these cyclical battles between light and dark, life and death, on cross-quarter days, which fall between the solstices and equinoxes.
We’ll get into it.
But first, let’s take a step back and answer the question:
Where did the Holly King/Oak King concept come from?
The Origins of the Holly King & the Oak King
While superficially bearing the hallmarks of an ancient pagan dichotomy, there are no direct references to the Holly King and Oak King in any ancient or medieval manuscripts.
Indeed, the application of these terms to various religious/mythical figures is a modern phenomenon.
A phenomenon that many people seem to think was introduced by Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer in his seminal work of comparative mythology, The Golden Bough, first published in 1890.
But when one actually takes the time to peruse this infinitely interesting tome, one will discover that the terms “oak king” and “holly king” are used precisely…zero times.
Yes, we find references to oak-gods and oak-goddesses and oak-nymphs and oak-spirits, but these are never employed in juxtaposition to an equivalent holly-entity.
In fact, the word “holly” only appears twice—but admittedly these two appearances do give us a lot to chew on.
The first is in reference to the Jack-in-the-Green, a “chimney-sweeper who walks encased in a pyramidal framework of wickerwork, which is covered with holly and ivy, and surmounted by a crown of flowers and ribbons. Thus arrayed he dances on May Day at the head of a troop of chimney-sweeps…”
May Day, as many of you likely already know, coincides with the Gaelic-Celtic cross-quarter day of Beltane, celebrated on the first of May and which falls between the spring equinox and summer solstice.
Frazer’s second “holly” reference in the Golden Bough strikes a bit more closely to the holly king concept, in that it references a midwinter custom. And I quote:
“Down to the present time, the ‘hunting of the wren’ still takes place in parts of Leinster and Connaught. On Christmas Day or St. Stephen’s Day the boys hunt and kill the wren, fasten it in the middle of a mass of holly and ivy on the top of a broomstick, and on St. Stephen’s Day go about with it from house to house, singing.”
No, Frazer doesn’t make the connection between this tradition and the symbolic killing of a hypothetical Holly King, but given that he does dedicate an entire chapter to the “Killing of the Tree-Spirit,” in which we find a section on the “Battle of Summer and Winter,” it’s easy to see how a little extrapolation might lead us to the envisioning a Holly King and Oak King.
Especially in light of the following passage:
“Sometimes in the popular customs of the peasantry the contrast between the dormant powers of vegetation in winter and their awakening vitality in spring takes the form of a dramatic contest between actors who play the parts respectively of Winter and Summer.
“Thus in the towns of Sweden on May Day two troops of young men on horseback used to meet as if for mortal combat.
“One of them was led by a representative of Winter clad in furs, who threw snowballs and ice in order to prolong the cold weather.
“The other troop was commanded by a representative of Summer covered with fresh leaves and flowers.
“In the sham fight which followed the party of Summer came off victorious, and the ceremony ended with a feast.”
Who Is the Divine King?
Now, for the sake of thoroughness, I feel the need to mention Frazer’s notion of the divine king, which some have interpreted to be an amalgamation of the Holly King and Oak King, i.e., it’s a single entity with the Winter and Summer aspects warring inside of it.
The Gaulish horned god Cernunnos, for example, is believed by some neopagans to be an incarnation of this divine king.
However, a closer reading of the text reveals that Frazer’s divine king archetype isn’t a king of the gods, so to speak, but rather a human king who’s been deified by his people.
And when that human king starts to show signs of age and/or weakness, he is killed and replaced with a more vigorous candidate.
It’s been theorized that certain midwinter rituals, like the slaughtering of animals or the cutting of mistletoe from oak trees—the latter being the subject of my first-ever video on the IrishMyths YouTube channel, FYI—eventually came to replace the literal killing of these divine kings.
But let us return to the idea of the Holly King and Oak King as separate entities, and to the writer who really cemented this divine duality in the popular imagination.
Who Popularized the Holly King/Oak King Archetypes?
Born in England, but the son of famed Irish poet and Gaelic revivalist Alfred Perceval Graves, Robert Graves published his seminal work of comparative mythology, The White Goddess, in 1948.
And here, to the best of my knowledge, is where we find the very first example of mythical rivals being labeled as incarations of the Holly King and Oak King.
And I quote:
“The myth of the emasculation of Uranus by his son Cronos and the vengeance subsequently taken on Cronos by his son Zeus…is not an easy one to disentangle. In its original sense it records the annual supplanting of the old oak-king by his successor.”
Graves goes on to give several other examples of Holly King/Oak King pairs in The White Goddess, perhaps none so controversial as Jesus and John the Baptist.
Jesus (Holly King) vs. John the Baptist (Oak King)
According to Graves:
“Since in mediaeval practice St. John the Baptist, who lost his head on St. John’s Day, took over the oak-king’s titles and customs, it was natural to let Jesus, as John’s merciful successor, take over the holly-king’s. The holly was thus glorified beyond the oak. For example, in the Holly-Tree Carol:
“‘Of all the trees that are in the wood / The Holly bears the crown.’”
But curiously, Grave later casts down on his own theory, noting that “[t]he identification of the pacific Jesus with the holly or holly-oak must be regretted as poetically inept…The tanist [or heir apparent] was originally his twin’s executioner; it was the oak-king, not the holly-king, who was crucified on a T-shaped cross.”
Lugh (Holly King) vs. Balor of the Evil Eye (Oak King)
Another somewhat confusing Holly King/Oak King pairing is the Irish god-of-many-talents Lugh and his grandfather, the fomorian war leader Balor of the Evil Eye.
I actually misidentified Balor as an incarnation of the Holly King in an earlier article/video (Santa Claus Origins) because he’s so frequently associated with death and famine, but apparently it’s the other way around.
The idea here is that Balor, whose name means “the shining one,” and who has an eye-beam that can incinerate entire countrysides, represents the potentially negative effects of the hot summer sun.
What’s more, Lugh slays Balor during the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, which occurs on Samhain, the cross-quarter day that falls at the midway point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.
Samhain was the day that the Gaelic-speaking Celts, who only observed two seasons, summer and winter, celebrated the official end of summer and beginning of winter, making it the perfect time for an Oak King, like Balor, to end his reign.
The icing on the Balor-as-Oak-King cake is that according to the Duanaire Finn, or Book of the Lays of Fionn, which was compiled in 1627, following his death, Balor’s severed head is placed in the fork of an oak tree.
One potential hiccup here, however, is that Lugh famously dies on his namesake cross-quarter day, Lughnasadh, which is celebrated on August 1st, marking the midway point between the summer solstice and autumnal equinox.
To quote Graves:
“[L]ater altered to ‘Lugh-mass’ or ‘Lammas’—[it] was until recently observed in Ireland with Good Friday-like mourning and kept as a feast of dead kinsfolk, the mourning procession being always led by a young man carrying a hooped wreath.”
Sure, it sort of fits that a Holly King would be slain in the middle of summer, but given that we know his Oak King counterpart will be slain just a few months later on Samhain, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for the latter to reign.
And considering that the Gaels celebrated the beginning of summer on the cross-quarter day of Beltane, Samhain’s calendrical opposite, a May 1st death date for Lugh makes more sense—at least when trying to squeeze him into this Holly King mold.
The Green Knight (Holly King) vs. Sir Gawain (Oak King)
The Holly King/Oak King example that requires the least amount of comparative mythological gymnastics, in my opinion, can be found in the story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
For an in-depth overview of this Arthurian legend—and its Irish origins—go watch my video/read my essay on the subject (The Green Knight’s Irish Origins).
Here, I’m going to home in on the nitty-gritty of how these characters fit their respective archetypes.
Or rather, I’m going to let other people home in on it.
Like John Williamson, author of the 1986 book The Oak King, the Holly King and the Unicorn.
And I quote:
“The pact and subsequent beheading of the Green Knight represents the reign of the Oak King, and a battle between winter and summer…
“Thus the Green Knight (the verdure of winter, like mistletoe) and Gawain (the Oak King and summer) are the personifications of the alternate seasons of fertility.
“In the same ceremonial context, we may now grasp that the beheading of the Green Knight by Sir Gawain completes the solar year with the death of winter at the end of the waning cycle.
“The Green Knight, according to the story, miraculously survives the decapitation and carries away his own head.
“Thus many researchers believe that the whole drama mirrors the annual death and rebirth of nature in a vigorous literary form.”
Of course, it was Graves who first applied the Holly King and Oak King monikers to these characters, so I feel it necessary to give him the last word on the subject:
“The Green Knight is an immortal giant whose club is a holly-bush. He and Sir Gawain, who appears in the Irish version as Cuchulain, a typical Hercules, make a compact to behead one another at alternate New Years—meaning midsummer and midwinter—but, in effect, the Holly Knight spares the Oak Knight.”
Okay nevermind, I’m getting the last word.
Because in contrast to what Graves wrote, the story never actually implies that the pair meet at midsummer.
The Green Knight, after getting his head lopped off on New Year’s, simply tells Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel in a year and a day.
Which means the Oak Knight doesn’t face his potential demise at midsummer, as one might expect.
Which in turn leads me to…
My Main Criticism of the Holly King/Oak King Concept
Even with the best possible example, some finessing is required.
And across the board, be it made from hollywood or oakwood, there seem to be a lot of neopagans out there carrying Holly King/Oak King hammers who like to excitedly proclaim, “Look, more nails!” anytime they spot a pair of mythological rivals.
But what do you think?
Let me know in the comments below.
Want to learn more about Arthurian Legend?
I recommend the audiobook King Arthur: History and Legend, written and narrated by Dorsey Armstrong. Use my link to get 3 free months of Audible Premium Plus and you can listen to the full 15-hour audiobook for free.
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