This is a sobering reminder in the very midst of prosperity that winter is coming, a time of dreary cold and of the apparent death of the plant world.

Yet the decline of the Sun slows and finally there comes a time when the Sun halts its southward drop altogether and then begins to mark out a higher and higher path each day than the day before. The weather continues cold for months after the Sun starts its rise, but that rise is a portent and a promise in the midst of decay that the winter will not last forever and that spring is coming, and with it a renewal of warmth and life and happiness.

We know exactly what causes this. We know about the Earth’s tipped axis and how it affects the Sun’s apparent path in the sky in the course of the Earth’s annual revolution about its luminary.

Primitive man did not know this, however, nor did he have any concept of the Sun being kept on course by the inexorability of celestial mechanics. He felt the fall and rise of the Sun to be the work of all-powerful gods, who acted out of obscure motives of their own, either in whimsical benevolence or petulant anger.

In short, primitive man could never be sure that the Sun would not, on this occasion, continue its weary decline until it disappeared forever beyond the southern horizon, leaving Earth to eternal winter and death.

Consequently, on or about the time when the Sun halts in its southern flight and begins its climb back to warmth and life (this turning point-the “winter solstice”-comes on December 21, by our calendar), there is a vast outpouring of relief. It is natural that the time be celebrated with grand festivals and merrymaking.

To the Romans, Saturn was the god of the spring planting and was eventually viewed as being in charge of agriculture generally. When the Sun made its turn, therefore, and there was the promise of successful spring planting to come, the Romans considered it the result of Saturn’s benevolent care in setting a limit to the Solar decline. Their winter solstice festival was thus in his honor and was called the “Saturnalia.”