jólnir

"So it has to be a verbal root. The question is what that root means."

Indeed. I stand corrected on the etymology of Yule, and the correction rings true like a silver handbell. After singing In dulce jubilo and Gaudete and enjoying wassails and sword dancers and a procession bearing the boar's head, after snaking in a dance out into the hall, I feel sure that I have done whatever it is that resides in that lost verb, and I am hungry for the kind of midwinter fare I have myself prepared in dark and snowy places: pears and blue cheese, lamb and potatoes, carrots.