Tag Archives: Celtic Festivals

Lammas Day

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Bread made of the flour from newly-harvested wheat would be brought to church on Lammas Day to mark the beginning of autumn.

Bread made of the flour from newly-harvested wheat would be brought to church on Lammas Day to mark the beginning of autumn.

Lammas Day (August 1) is the traditional day to mark the beginning of autumn. Who wants to think about autumn before Labor Day?! But the back-to-school sales have started, so maybe… The wheat harvest begins at this time and the loaves baked with the newly-harvested wheat would be brought into church to be blessed. Hence, “Loaf-Mass Day” or Lammas Day. It also might be the more sedate, English version of the Irish-Scotch celebration of Lughnasadh.

In medieval times the feast was sometimes known in England and Scotland as the “Gule of August” but the meaning of “gule” is unclear. Some think “Gule” is derived from Gŵyl Awst, the Welsh name of the “feast of August”. Others think “Gule” is derived from “gullet” or “throat” and is associated with chewing/swallowing the blessed bread or other newly harvested food.

Some also think “Lammas” is derived from “Lamb-Mass” at which the new sheep would be blessed and then shorn for the first time. Or that a lamb would be let loose in the fields for one of the field-workers to catch, making a game out of the work. The winner field hand would bring the lamb he caught into church to be blessed. (The lamb associations with Lammas seem especially strong near York in the north of England.)

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1.3.19) it is observed of Juliet, “Come Lammas Eve at night shall she [Juliet] be fourteen.” Since Juliet was born on Lammas eve, she came before the harvest festival, which is significant since her life ended before she could reap what she had sown and enjoy the bounty of the harvest, in this case full consummation and enjoyment of her love with Romeo.

See a previous post about Lammas here.

Lughnasadh

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It was customary to harvest blueberries and bake blueberry pies at Lughnasadh festivities.

It was customary to harvest blueberries and bake blueberry pies at Lughnasadh festivities.

Lughnasadh (pronounced “Lúnasa”) is a Gaelic festival marking the beginning of the harvest season. Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Originally it was held on 1 August, or about halfway between the summer solstice and autumn equinox. Lughnasadh is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals; along with Samhain, Imbolc and Beltane. It corresponds to other European harvest festivals such as the Welsh Gwyl Awst and the English Lammas.

In Irish mythology, the Lughnasadh festival is said to have been begun by the god Lugh as a funeral feast and athletic competition in commemoration of his mother who was said to have died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture. Lugh’s mother may have been an earth goddess who represented the dying vegetation that fed mankind. These funeral games in her honor were similar to the ancient Olympic Games and included ritual athletic and sporting contests. The event also involved trading, the drawing-up of contracts, and matchmaking that included trial marriages (young couples joined hands through a hole in a wooden door). The trial marriage lasted a year and a day, at which time the marriage could be made permanent or broken without consequences.

Ancient customs associated with Lughnasadh seem to have also included offerings of newly-harvested corn, the sacrifice of a bull and certain rites with its hide as well as a banquet of the meat roasted.

Another custom that Lughnasadh shared with Imbolc and Beltane was visiting holy wells. Visitors to holy wells would pray for health while walking sunwise around the well. They would also leave offerings (often coins).

Samhain

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The Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The doorways between the living and the dead were thought to open on the Celtic feast of Samhain.

The Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The doorways between the living and the dead were thought to open on the Celtic feast of Samhain.

“Winter is coming!” Samhain, the Celtic festival more commonly known as “Hallowe’en,” was considered the first day of winter in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Marking the day halfway between the autumnal equinox and the Winter Solstice, Samhain marked the beginning of the sun’s descent into darkness and the world’s embrace by the growing cold. Both these trends would be reversed at the Winter Solstice, marking the “midpoint” of the Winter season.

Like Beltane, on April 30-May 1, Samhain was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world. The souls of the dead were said to revisit their homes on Samhain. Lewis Spence described it as a “feast of the dead” and “festival of the fairies”. However, harmful spirits and fairies were also thought to be active at Samhain. People took steps to allay or ward-off these harmful spirits/fairies, which is thought to have influenced today’s Halloween customs. The practice of lighting bonfires during Hallowmas may have been a Christianized one, as the Celts lit bonfires during Samhain as well.

I am currently working on a novel set in Ireland, Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, that picks up on loose ends from Part 2 of the Come Hell or High Water trilogy. Earth to Earth involves the Celtic goddesses of battle and death, mortals from this world abducted to the Otherworld, and the Celtic holidays of Samhain and Imbolc or Ostara.