The Juul Feast

Pronounced 'Yool' Feast, or sometimes jokingly referred to as the 'Great Feastival', the Juul Feast is a very important Holiday to the people of Tregaron, and first began as a traditional Villish holiday that celebrated the unification of the Villish people to the north. Once a feast that celebrated their conquest of the North, the Juul Feast was later pushed into the 34th of Ariset in order to honour the alliance forged between the three great kingdoms; The Villish, The Vanks , and the Torman.

History

The Juul Feast was a holiday that came into being shortly after the conquest of the north, carried out by Alaric von Hagen the First, a legendary warrior-king that lead a campaign that crushed the feudal lands. In order to celebrate the unification of the northlands, The Villish people had began to honour the day with an enormous feast that gathered families together in a communal gathering. While initially just a huge communal gathering of revelry and celebration, the Juul Feast became far more meaningful when the two other kingdoms formed and united all of Tregaron under three banners, later forging a powerful alliance that became famously known as the Three Kingdoms.

Execution

The Juul Feast technically begins and ends over the course of a week. During these seven days, families begin preparing toys both home-made and purchased, along with any relevant food for the 34th day. Toymaking is an important part of the Juul festival; children are often instructed to attempt making simple yet fun toys to help bring to the festival. In some smaller areas, the Juul Man is said to visit children who refuse to make toys or misbehave. Upon the 7th Day, meals are prepared by families before being brought towards an agreed upon location; typically a Church or other local community center. All toys made by families are brought together and tallied; from there, numbers are assigned to each family based upon how many toys they managed to construct, allowing the children to grab an amount of toys equal to the number of toys they constructed. Children who construct no toys are instead given a lump of coal.

Participants

Children: Children are expected to construct toys for the festival, which are granted to families. Unwanted toys are simply placed back under the tree after the unwrapping, where they may be taken by anyone else wishing to have them. Adults: Generally speaking, adults of the community construct at least one toy to keep the holiday spirit. Those skilled at cooking will also volunteer at the local church to cook for the feast that occurs on the seventh day.