Lammas Lughnasadh History and Correspondences

Celebrating Lammas

The year is 1100. The date is August 1. The monks in the abbey at Gloucester are celebrating the holy-day of St. Peter in Chains. One of the monks wakes from a strange dream in which God promises to strike down the wicked King who has abused the Holy Church. His superior, Abbot Serlo, on hearing of the dreams sends a warning to the King, William the Red, who has oppressed all of England with taxes and disgusted many with his licentiousness and blasphemy. Red, as he is called, receives the message the following day while preparing to indulge in one of his favorite sports, hunting, in the New Forest. Although there are no longer any people dwelling in the New Forest — they were all cleared out by Red's father, William the Conqueror — there are rumors that it's a hotbed of pagan activity. And August 2 is an important pagan holy-day. The Saxons call it Lammas, the Loaf-Mass. William the Red laughs at the warning from the monks and goes out hunting. A short time later, he is dead, struck in the chest by a stray arrow, and his brother, Henry, who was in the hunting party is riding hot-foot for Winchester and the crown.

Now some people say that William the Red was a Lammas sacrifice, that having made a wasteland of his kingdom, he was killed by the people (or the Gods) as a sacrifice to bring new life to the land. And some people say his brother Henry has him assassinated. And some people say that both versions are true.

This story comes to my mind when I think of Lammas because I spent ten years researching a medieval novel set in the time of William the Red and Henry. But this tale of sacrifice and hunting, a dying King and a wasted land, embodies many of the dominant themes of Lammas, one of the four seasonal quarter-days, and perhaps the least well-known.

The Celts celebrate this festival from sunset August 1 until sunset August 2 and call it Lughnasad after the God Lugh. It is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice. The Saxon holiday of Lammas celebrates the harvesting of the grain. The first sheaf of wheat is ceremonially reaped, threshed, milled and baked into a loaf. The grain dies so that the people might live. Eating this bread, the bread of the Gods, gives us life. If all this sounds vaguely Christian, it is. In the sacrament of Communion, bread is blessed, becomes the body of God and is eaten to nourish the faithful. This Christian Mystery echoes the pagan Mystery of the Grain God.

Grain has always been associated with Gods who are killed and dismembered and then resurrected from the Underworld by the Goddess-Gods like Tammuz, Osiris and Adonis. The story of Demeter and Persephone is a story about the cycle of death and rebirth associated with grain. Demeter, the fertility Goddess, will not allow anything to grow until she finds her daughter who has been carried off to the Underworld. The Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrated around the Autumn Equinox, culminated in the revelation of a single ear of corn, a symbol to the initiate of the cyclical nature of life, for the corn is both seed and fruit, promise and fulfillment.

You can adapt the themes of Lughnasad and Lammas to create your own ceremony for honoring the passing of the light and the reaping of the grain.

Honoring the Grain God or Goddess

Bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you've never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on the mother Earth. If you have a garden, add something you've harvested--herbs or onion or corn--to your bread. If you don't feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread. Or gingerbread people. Or popcorn. What's most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions.

Shape the dough in the figure of a man or a woman and give your grain-person a name. If he's a man, you could call him Lugh, the Sun-King, or John Barleycorn, or the Pillsbury Dough Boy, or Adonis or Osiris or Tammuz. Pauline Campanelli in The Wheel of the Year suggests names for female figures: She of the Corn, She of the Threshing Floor, She of the Seed, She of the Great Loaf (these come from the Cyclades where they are the names of fertility figures), Freya (the Anglo-Saxon and Norse fertility Goddess who is, also called the Lady and the Giver of the Loaf), the Bride (Celtic) and Ziva or Siva (the Grain Goddess of, the Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia).

Feast

Like all holidays, Lammas calls for a feast. When your dough figure is baked and ready to eat, tear him or her apart with your fingers. You might want to start the feast with the Lord's Prayer, emphasizing the words "Give us this day our daily bread." The next part of the ceremony is best done with others. Feed each other hunks of bread (or gingerbread people or popcorn), putting the food in the other person's mouth with words like "May you never go hungry," "May you always be nourished," "Eat of the bread of life" or "May you live forever." Offer each other drinks of water or wine with similar words. As if you were at a wake, make toasts to the passing summer, recalling the best moments of the year so far.

Corn Dolly

Another way to honor the Grain Goddess is to make a corn doll. This is a fun project to do with kids. Take dried-out corn husks and tie them together in the shape of a woman. She's your visual representation of the harvest. As you work on her, think about what you harvested this year. Give your corn dolly a name, perhaps one of the names of the Grain Goddess or one that symbolizes your personal harvest. Dress her in a skirt, apron and bonnet and give her a special place in your house. She is all yours till the spring when you will plant her with the new corn, returning to the Earth that which She has given to you.

Food for Thought

Lammas is a festival of regrets and farewells, of harvest and preserves. Reflect on these topics alone in the privacy of your journal or share them with others around a fire. Lughnasad is one of the great Celtic fire-festivals, so if at all possible, have your feast around a bonfire. While you're sitting around the fire, you might want to tell stories. Look up the myths of any of the grain Gods and Goddesses mentioned above and try re-telling them in your own words.


Regrets: Think of the things you meant to do this summer or this year that are not coming to fruition. You can project your regrets onto natural objects like pine cones and throw them into the fire, releasing them. Or you can write them on dried corn husks (as suggested by Nancy Brady Cunningham in Feeding the Spirit) or on a piece of paper and burn them.

Farewells: What is passing from your life? What is over? Say good-bye to it. As with regrets, you can find visual symbols and throw them into the fire, the lake or the ocean. You can also bury them in the ground, perhaps in the form of bulbs which will manifest in a new form in spring.

Harvest: What have you harvested this year? What seeds have your planted that are sprouting? Find a visual way to represent these, perhaps creating a decoration in your house or altar which represents the harvest to you. Or you could make a corn dolly or learn to weave wheat. Look for classes in your area which can teach you how to weave wheat into wall pieces, which were made by early grain farmers as a resting place for the harvest spirits.

Preserves: This is also a good time for making preserves, either literally or symbolically. As you turn the summer's fruit into jams, jellies and chutneys for winter, think about the fruits that you have gathered this year and how you can hold onto them. How can you keep them sweet in the store of your memory?


The Old Ways: Lammas

By Doug and Sandy Kopf



Lammas, the festival of the First Fruits of the Harvest, is the first festival of the Waning Year. It is celebrated on July 31, while the climate (in the United States) is essentially still Summer. Never-the-less, technically, Lammas is the first day of Autumn.



If anything, the days are hotter now than they were in early Summer. These are the best days for trips to the beach and back yard barbecues. Meat prices are lower now, especially beef. This is the time to enjoy a thick steak. The really good sweet corn, the kind that melts in your mouth, has just begun to arrive in the supermarket. Since the seasonal changes at this time are more subtle, it is even more important that we celebrate the festival. We need to bring the cycles of the Universe into manifestation within our own minds, by demonstrating what we may not see.



The mental/emotional indications of the changing seasons are more obvious now than the physical ones. The air is filled with anticipation of the coming fall, of the approaching return to school and of the cooler weather to come. It is also a time of sadness, as the knowledge sets in that the good times of Summer will soon be over. There is a bit of "haste to have fun" before it comes to an end.



Lammas takes its name from the Old English "hlaf," meaning "loaf" and "maesse," meaning feast. Lammas has often been taken to mean Lamb-mass, because on August 1, the next day, is the Feast of St. Peter's Chains, at which lambs are taken to church for blessing. (Can't you just picture a priest of the early Church saying, "Lammas? We can do that HERE! Just tell them to bring their lambs to Church!)



This festival is also called "Lugnasadh" (Loo-nah-sah), which has an entirely different meaning. The element "nasadh" relates to the Gaelic, "to give in marriage," and so would mean the "Marriage of Lug," rather than Lugh's Mass, which is a common interpretation. There is also some debate as to who the bride is, if there is one. Some authorities favor Tailltiu (Lugh's foster mother) and others favor Eriu, i.e., Ireland, herself.



However, no mention is made of Blodeuwedd, the Lady of Flowers created for Lugh by Math and Gwydeon, the ultimate cause of his death. One clue to the identity of this particular bride may be that "handfastings" (marriage for a year and a day) are still called "Taillten Marriage", and many are performed at Lammas Fairs.



Although we do not celebrate a marriage at this time, preferring the loaf-feast concept, it is interesting to note that July 31 is exactly nine months prior to Beltane, which was once celebrated as the beginning of the New Year.



Another common interpretation of "Lughnasadh", perpetuated by Christian historians, is "Lugh's Games" and some say it is a festival created by Lugh, in honor of the memory of Tailltiu.



The Lammas festival was adopted by the Christian Church in 1843, and today, in England, people decorate churches with sheaves and corn dollies, celebrating the old Pagan holiday, as they sing "Bringing in the Sheaves" and make offerings of corn to the Church.



In some areas, Lammas was a time of sacrifice. Sacrifices at Lammas were made to thank the Deities for the First Fruits and to guarantee an abundant Harvest. The victim was often the king, who was God Incarnate to his people. Sometimes a substitute king, a fool or "scapegoat", was sacrificed in the king's stead.



The last recorded sacrifice of a king of England may have occurred at Lammas, in the year 1100. King William II (Rufus the Red, or William Rufus) rejected the relatively new Christian beliefs, and openly declared himself Pagan. His death in a "hunting accident" on August 2, 1100 c.e., is believed by many historians to have been a case of the traditional sacrifice being disguised for the sake of the Christian priests.



Until recent years, in Scotland, the first cut of the Harvest was made on Lammas Day, and was a ritual in itself. The entire family must dress in their finest clothing and go into the fields. The head of the family would lay his bonnet (hat) on the ground and, facing the Sun, cut the first handful of corn with a sickle. He would then put the corn Sun-wise around his head three times while thanking the God of the Harvest for "corn and bread, food and flocks, wool and clothing, health and strength, and peace and plenty." This custom was called the "Iolach Buana."



In the British Isles, the custom of giving the First Fruits to the Gods evolved into giving them to the landlord. Lammas is now the traditional time for tenant farmers to pay their rent. Thus, Lammas is seen as a day of judgment or reckoning. From this practice comes the phrase "--at latter Lammas", meaning "never", or "not until Judgment Day."



An old custom that can be re-created today is the construction of the Kern-baby or corn maiden at Lammas. This figure, originally made from the first sheaf, would be saved until spring, then ploughed into the field to prepare for planting. (The Maiden thus returns to the field at Spring.) Most of us, today, have no first sheaf nor shall we prepare a field at Spring, but as a means of adding continuity to our festivals, the maiden can be made from the husks of corn served at the Lammas Feast, then saved for use as a brideo'g at Candlemas.



To the Celts, Lammas was, of course, one of the four Great Fire Festivals, i.e., cross-quarter festivals. The custom of lighting bonfires to add strength to the powers of the Waning Sun was wide-spread. Brands from the Lammas fires were kept in the home, through the Winter, as protection against storms and lightning, and against fires started by lightning. The Need-Fire seems to have been an integral part of most Fire Festivals, but was not limited to them. Since the ashes from such a fire had properties of protection, healing, and fertility, a Need-Fire might be lit at any time a "need" for such things existed.



Lammas Fairs, held annually throughout the British Isles, still exist today. At the Exeter Lammas Fair, a large, stuffed glove, decorated with flowers and ribbons, is fasted atop a pole and carried about the fairgrounds. It is then placed on the roof of the Guild Hall to signify the opening of the fair. A gift of money for gloves (to servants) was also traditional at Lammastide. One source tells us the glove represents a unit of measure, indicating a fair rate of exchange. Another compares it to the Egyptian "open hand," representing friendship and fortune.



We would like to add what seems an obvious theory, but for which we have no source: The name Lugh-Lamhfhada means "Lugh of the Long Hand," and Llew-Law Gyffes, another name for the same God (Welsh), means "The Lion with the Steady Hand." It seems to us that the glove might simply be a symbol for Lugh, with whom the festival has often been associated (as in Lughnasadh).



That Lammas, traditionally, is a merry time, a time of Fairs, Handfastings, and Feasts is expressed in the following poem by Robert Burns.



It was on a Lammas night,

When corn rigs are bonie,

Beneath the moon's unclouded light,

I held away to Annie:

The time flew by, wi tentless heed,

Till 'tween the late and early;

Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed

To see me thro' the barley.



The sky was blue, the wind was still,

The moon was shining clearly;

I set her down, wi' right good will,

Amang the rigs o'barley

I ken't her heart was a' my ain;

I lov'd her most sincerely;

I kissed her owre and owre again,

Among the rig o' barley.



I locked her in my fond embrace;

Her heart was beating rarely:

My blessings on that happy place,

Amang the rigs o'barley.

But by the moon and stars so bright,

That shone that hour so clearly!

She ay shall bless that happy night,

Amang the rigs o'barley.



I hae been blythe wi' Comrades dear;

I hae been merry drinking;

I hae been joyfu' gath'rin gear;

I hae been happy thinking:

But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,

Tho three times doubl'd fairley

That happy night was worth then a'.

Among the rig's o' barley.



Chorus:



Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,

An' corn rigs are bonie:

I'll ne'er forget that happy night,

Among the rigs wi' Annie.



Lammas is often celebrated as the Wake for the Sacred King. As you know, a Wake is a Celebration of Life, not a time to grieve. And Lammas is a joyous time of celebration. Feast to your heart's content, sing, dance and make merry. Light your Need-Fires and make your Kern-babies. You'll "ne'er forget that happy night" you celebrated in The Old Ways! Blessed Be!!!

July 31st Lughnasadh / Lammas
Lughnasadh means the funeral games of Lugh (pronounced Loo), referring to Lugh, the Irish sun god. However, the funeral is not his own, but the funeral games he hosts in honor of his foster-mother Tailte. For that reason, the traditional Tailtean craft fairs and Tailtean marriages (which last for a year and a day) are celebrated at this time.
This day originally coincided with the first reapings of the harvest. It was known as the time when the plants of spring wither and drop their fruits or seeds for our use as well as to ensure future crops.
As autumn begins, the Sun God enters his old age, but is not yet dead. The God symbolically loses some of his strength as the Sun rises farther in the South each day and the nights grow longer.
The Christian religion adopted this theme and called it 'Lammas ', meaning 'loaf-mass ', a time when newly baked loaves of bread are placed on the altar. An alternative date around August 5 (Old Lammas), when the sun reaches 15 degrees Leo, is sometimes employed by Covens.
Lammas comes between August first and second.  It is a hot, lazy, delicious time of the year.  Bees buzz in the heat of the day, the air is still, and the force of the sun remains strong, even though its sway over the earth is slowly diminishing day by day.  In the cooler nighttime, frogs and crickets keep us company.  It is here, in the gloaming, when so many rituals begin.......
This is when the powerful gods of the grain harvests are honored.  They are in their prime, sometimes generous, sometimes quixotic, and always aware with a bittersweet pleasure that their time will wane, as it always does, and they will die, as they always do, and yet nevertheless they will return to another delicious summer next year, as they always do, and have, and will, for this is the endlessly circling Wheel of the Year, and they ride it proudly.
Yet there is a darker nuance, one that surprised me, for I had thought that this was a purely masculine god's festival.  I learned however of Lugh's touching and loving devotion to his foster-mother, the royal Tailtiu, whose fate may be even more intimately woven into this season than his.........


Traditional Foods:
Apples, Grains, Breads and Berries.

Herbs and Flowers:
All Grains, Grapes, Heather, Blackberries, Sloe, Crab Apples, Pears.

Incense:
Aloes, Rose, Sandalwood.

Sacred Gemstone:
Carnelian.

Special Activities:
As summer passes, many Pagans celebrate this time to remember its warmth and bounty in a celebrated feast shared with family or Coven members. Save and plant the seeds from the fruits consumed during the feast or ritual. If they sprout, grow the plant or tree with love and as a symbol of your connection with the Lord and Lady. Walk through the fields and orchards or spend time along springs, creeks, rivers, ponds and lakes reflecting on the bounty and love of the Lord and Lady.

Lammas Correspondences


CREATURES
calves
crab
dolphin
ibis
phoenix
roosters
starling
swallow
turtle
whale

FLOWERS
goldenrod
heliotrope
jasmine
larkspur
lotus
marigold
nasturtium
peony
rose
sunflower
water lily
Queen Anne's lace

TREES
acacia
ash
elder
hazel
holly
oak

COLORS
blue-Gray
brown
citrine
gold
Gray
Green
orange
red
silver
yellow

GEMS/STONES
adventurine
carnelian
cat's eye
citrine
golden topaz
moonstone
moss agate
obsidian
pearl
peridot
ruby
tiger's eye
white agate
yellow diamond

HERBS
agrimony
basil
dill
goldenrod
honeysuckle
hyssop
lemon balm
mint
mugwort
vervain
yarrow

FOOD
all grains
blackberries
bread
corn
crab
apples
melons
popcorn
potatoes
wheat



LUGHNASA

By Anna Franklin & Paul Mason


The average person outside of the Pagan community has probably never
heard of the festival of Lughnasa- even in Ireland where its name
survives in modern Gaelic as Lúnasa, the month of August. The
ancient festival seems to have included tribal assemblies and
activities extending over two to four weeks. It was celebrated only
in Britain, Ireland, France and possibly Northern Spain. Relatively
few of its customs survive either in folklore or historical record.
Surviving Lughnasa customs tend to be confined to specific
localities and cultures although there are several clearly defined
themes that underlie the traditional Lughnasa celebrations and rites
and early August remains the traditional time for summer holidays
and fairs.

Lughnasa is a harvest festival, marking the end of the period of
summer growth and the beginning of the autumn harvest. It is also
called Lammas, from the Anglo-Saxon hlaef-mass meaning 'loaf-mass'.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 921 CE mentions it as 'the feast of
first fruits'. It was a popular Christian ritual during the Middle
Ages but died out after the Reformation, though the custom is being
revived in places. This first bread from the harvest was offered up
as part of the Eucharist ritual. Since Lammas was celebrated only in
Britain- no other Germanic or Nordic peoples observed Lammas or held
any other feasts on the 1st August- it seems likely that it was
merely a renaming of the Celtic Lughnasa.

One of the main reasons for the obscurity of Lammas/Lughnasa is the
confusion caused by its variety of names and the differing dates on
which it is celebrated. When the Gregorian system was adopted in
Britain in 1752 and Ireland in 1782 eleven days had to be dropped to
make the calendar astronomically correct. This led to the festival
being celebrated on either the 1st or the 12th August, called
respectively New Style and Old Style Lughnasa. To further complicate
matters, many Lammas/Lughnasa festivities became appropriated to
Christian saints' days or the nearest Sunday. Folklore survivals of
Lughnasa are celebrated under a wide variety of names, such as
Bilberry Sunday, Garland Sunday and Domhnach Crom Dubh ('Crom Dubh
Sunday'), depending on the locality, at various dates between mid-
July and mid-August.
HILLTOP ASSEMBLIES

Assemblies on hilltops are a traditional part of the proceedings. In
Ireland and the Isle of Man many of these hilltop gatherings have
survived to the present day. Some have become associated with
Christian saints. A pilgrimage, often barefoot, would often be
followed by drinking, dancing, fighting, and very unruly behaviour.
On the Isle of Man the inhabitants would climb to the top of
Snaefell on Lhuany's Day. There is a local story that the custom
died out when a clergyman started to take a collection on the
summit. In Lothian until the 1790s young herdsmen would gather
together in bands of up to one thousand strong and build 'Lammas
towers' of turves seven to eight feet high, topped with flagstaffs
and ribbons. They would sally forth from their towers and fight
rival groups with cudgels, or those with no local rivals would march
to the village at noon and hold footraces.

The massive man-made Silbury Hill, 130 feet high, was in Neolithic
times nearly 4,600 years ago. For years archaeologists thought it
must be a burial mound, but investigations have disproved this.
Turves were used to construct the inner part of the hill in the
Stone Age and remain within, with the grass and insects preserved.
They were cut at the beginning of the harvest, about the time of
Lughnasa. Then over a period of about 50 years blocks of chalk
covered the turf. According to folklore, King Sil sleeps within
Silbury Hill, clad in golden armour, waiting to one-day ride forth
once more. There is some speculation that it is a harvest mound,
representing the pile of earth raised up over a seed to make it
grow. The same idea is echoed in burial mounds and even the great
pyramids of Egypt- the mounds will bring the dead within to rebirth;
Sil may be the sacrificed corn god. Possibly this is the idea
reflected in the turf towers built in Britain and Ireland and the
mountain pilgrimages at Lughnasa. Festivities were held on Silbury
Hill into the eighteenth century with horse races, and bull baiting,
after which the bull was killed, roasted and eaten. Paul Devereux
noted that a double sunrise effect might be observed at Beltane and
Lughnasa from the hill.
HOLY WELLS

Lughnasa was a day for visiting wells and those on the Isle of Man
were said to be at the peak of their healing powers. St Maugold Well
near Ramsey is reputed to cure sterility if the sufferer throws a
pin in the well or dips their heel into it. Assemblies at wells
would often be celebrated on the feastday of the local saint, but
many of these gatherings were moved from the saint's day to late
July and early August; probably evidence of an earlier Pagan custom
reasserting itself. In many English villages, wells are dressed with
elaborate floral tributes on various dates, but notably on the Feast
of the Assumption, or Marymass, on the 15th August, four days after
Old Lammas Eve. Many sacred Pagan wells were renamed after Mary,
this festival and its customs are very clearly yet another example
of the Christianization of earlier traditions and beliefs. In
northern Scotland, where the harvest was later, Marymass replaced
Lammas as the festival of the first harvest. Mary took on the
characteristics of harvest goddesses depicted in robes decorated
with ears of corn.
WAKE FAIRS

Late July and month of August are traditionally times for fairs; the
weather would usually be mild and the ground suitable for
travelling. Many traditional Lammas/Lughnasa fairs are still
celebrated today. The Puck Fair, in Killorglin, County Kerry
(Ireland) is one of the best-known traditional fairs when a male
goat is crowned as king for three days and is known as ' King Puck'
from the Gaelic puc, meaning a he-goat. There were once several
other Irish fairs during which male animals were enthroned. At
Lammas and Lughnasa fairs throughout Britain and Ireland various
other symbols were displayed, such as a white glove, or the rods and
wands of office belonging to the local sheriffs and bailiffs. At the
St James's Fair in Limerick, which lasted for a fortnight, a white
glove was hung out at the prison, and during this time no one could
be arrested for debt.

Many traditional summer fairs are called 'wake fairs'. A wake is a
vigil kept in the presence of the body of a dead person in the
period between the death and the burial. Traditionally games,
feasting and drinking play a large part in the proceedings. It was
also the custom to hold a wake, with a vigil and prayers, on the eve
of the feastday of the local saint and follow it with a fair on the
next day. Over a period of time this custom died out and all that
usually remained was a purely secular occasion with much feasting
and merrymaking. It seems likely that the original deity honoured
with a summer wake would have been the corn god who dies with the
cutting of the corn.
GAMES AND CONTESTS

Lugh is said to have founded annual games to commemorate Tailtu, his
foster mother, and sports are a common feature of Lughnasa
survivals. The various Highland games are probably a descendant of
the Lughnasa games. Some are still held around the traditional time
of Lughnasa, but nowadays they may be held at any time during the
summer or autumn, allowing champion sportsmen to compete at several
different venues.

MATING AND TEMPORARY MARRIAGES

Telltown, Teltown, or Tailtean Marriages were temporary unions
entered into at Lughnasa. One of the largest Lammas fairs was held
at Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. The
fair lasted eleven days and taking a sexual partner for its duration
was a common practice. Such couples were known as `Lammas brothers
and sisters'. For couples thinking of a slightly longer term
commitment this was a traditional time for handfasting. Couples
would join hands through a holed stone, such as the ancient Stone of
Odin at Stenness, and plight their troth for a year and a day. Many
such temporary unions became permanent arrangements.

FACTION FIGHTING AND BATTLES

Faction-fighting was a customary feature of many Lughnasa
assemblies. Groups of young men from rival villages would gather and
fight. Faction-fights could be fierce and lead to injuries and very
occasionally death, but it was the observance of the custom that was
considered important, rather than winning at all costs. There is a
strongly held belief in Irish folklore that the success or failure
of the harvest was dependent on the fairies, and was decided by a
battle between two troops from neighbouring areas. This idea that
success in battle bought fruitfulness to the crops of the winning
side is probably the origin of faction-fighting. Máire MacNeill
[Lughnasa] suggests that these fights were symbolic re-enactments of
these fairy battles.

The Battle of the Flowers takes place on Jersey, one of the Channel
Islands, in mid-August. The `battle' is between groups of islanders
who compete to see who can make the most original picture from
flowers. Since the nineteenth century these have been paraded on
flat trucks like a carnival float, but the local tradition of making
floral patterns and pictures is much earlier. Exhibits can be up to
forty-five feet long and contain a hundred thousand or more fresh
flowers; hundreds of volunteers spend all night cutting heads off
flower stems and sticking them to the framework. It also features an
illuminated moonlight parade. The parade consists of massive floats
with marching bands, and dancers. The "Battle of Flowers Festival"
attracts an audience in the region of forty thousand people.

FIRST FRUITS

Lughnasa is known as `Bilberry Sunday" in many districts of Ireland,
and it is traditional to climb the mountain sides to collect these
fruits for the first time on this day. The association between
bilberry picking and Lughnasa is very widespread and has given rise
to a variety of names for the festival- Blaeberry Sunday, Domhnach
na bhFraochóg, Heatherberry Sunday, Whort Sunday etc. The size and
quantity of berries at Lughnasa was taken as a sign of whether the
harvest would be good or not. A typical example of these fruit-
gathering traditions used to take place at Croc na Béaltaine in
County Donegal. On the first Sunday in August the young people would
set off after lunch to pick bilberries and not return until
nightfall. Often the bilberry collecting was an excuse for the young
men and women to pair off. When the fruits had been collected the
boys would thread the berries into bracelets for the girls,
competing to make the prettiest for their partners. There would then
be singing and dancing. Before returning home it was traditional for
the girls to remove their bracelets and leave them on the hillside.
After climbing back down the hill the young men indulged in sporting
contests such as horse racing, hurling and weight-throwing.

In parts of Ireland the nearest Sunday to Lughnasa was known as
Cally Sunday. It was the traditional day to lift the first new
potatoes. The man of the house would go out to dig the first stalk
while the woman of the house would don a new white apron and prepare
to cook them, covering the kitchen floor with green rushes in their
honour. The family would give thanks that the `Hungry Month' of July
was over, as the harvest had begun. It seems likely that the custom
of first fruits would once have applied to grain. In later days,
when grain crops were the province of large landowners, the custom
was transferred to the introduced potatoes, grown by everyone with a
patch of ground as a subsistence crop.

Marymass, sometimes known as Murmass, is the Scottish name for the
feast of the Assumption on 15th August. It replaced the earlier
festival of Lughnasain these northern regions where the harvest was
later. The Lammas bannock (a traditional Scottish loaf) made from
the new corn would be dedicated to Mary Mother of God. There were
sundry customs surrounding these celebrations, many of which
survived well into the nineteenth century owing to the isolation of
the islands and highlands of Scotland.

ANCIENT THEMES FOR MODERN PAGANS

A popular misconception is that Lughnasa was a fire festival. It was
not. It was associated with water and earth. Fire played no part
unless you count incidental fires to cook the feast. The practice of
calling the four Celtic cross-quarter festivals `the fire festivals'
is a modern one. Fire is just as closely associated with the
solstices and equinoxes, for obvious reasons.

Pagans today honor the sacrifice of the God at Lammas. As the
vegetation spirit he dies so that we might live and eat. At the
Autumn Equinox he will enter into the womb of the Goddess, as the
seed enters the earth. At Samhain he rules as King of the Dead and
at Yule he is reborn with the sun and the cycle of growth begins
once more.

The ripening crops have to be protected from the forces of blight
that come in with the autumn, and from the floods and winds
associated with Lughnasa. In Irish mythology this is symbolized by
the battle between Lugh, the sun god, and Balor, a fearful one-eyed
giant and leader of the Formorians, gods of blight. There are other
stories of Lughnasa heroes fighting giants and winning their
treasure (the harvest) at Lughnasa, including Tom Hackathrift in
England's East Anglia and Tom the Giant Killer. The Phouka [`goat-
head'] represents another god of blight and spoils the berries.
Traces of this conflict are seen in the various battle customs
associated with this time, such as the Battle of the Flowers in the
Channel Isles, faction fighting, and the competitive games of
Lughnasa.

It is possible that the Lughnasa assemblies and fairs were wakes,
mourning for the death of summer, or the death of the corn god,
similar to the mourning for Tammuz/ Adonis in the Mediterranean and
Near East. The seasonal Lammas fairs in England were called wakes.

The tradition of games at a funeral is a very ancient one. It was
the custom to mark the burial or cremation of a king or hero with
competitions. The original Olympic Games were funeral games held
every fourth year at Olympia in Elis in July.

Extrapolated from Lammas by Anna Franklin and Paul Mason, published
by Llewellyn, July 2001

Illustration by Anna Franklin

http://www.geocities.com/annafranklin1/lughnasa.html
Because Lughnassadh is the first of the Three harvest festivals,
Starhawk says it "lies between hope and fear" -- hope that the
harvest may be bountiful, and fear that something could still go
wrong and the bulk of the harvest be lost.
Therefore, the idea of sacrifice arose as one last possible
ingredient to ensure the good harvest. Lughnassadh is therefore
closely associated with sacrifice.

This relates to the "Wicker Man" concept, and the historical "Lindow
Man" -- a Celtic Prince whose body was found mummified in a bog, and
is beleived to have been an ancient sacrificial death.


Lughnassadh is seen as the "wake" of the Sun-God Lugh
(pronounced "Lew"), who is associated with all sun-Gods, and as
such, was beleived to die with the "dying" sun on Summer Solstice
eve, as he embraces his Bride, the Goddess. A common chant sung by
Pagans on Lughnassadh is:
"This is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King,
He died a sacrifice on Solstice Day."

An *excellent* novel that thoroughly explains this in interesting
and intriguing terms, is "Lammas Night" by katherine Kurtz, about
Pagans during the Second World war, and the possibility that the
English Crown was much more involved in Pagan practices than is
currently known.

Here's the blurb on the book (I'm hoping it will intrigue you enough
to get the book -- a paperback -- because it's a GREAT resource on
Pagan beleifs, practices and history!)

"What Magic Can Stop Adolf Hitler -- History's Most Evil Black
Magician? The year is 1940. Hitler's Germany is about to employ the
secret arts of evil witchcraft to destroy England. What can stop
them?
Ancient Weapon
It is the mission of John Graham, colonel in British Intelligence,
to stop the onslaught of evil with an extraordinary strategy that
defies all the rules of twentieth-century warfare: Unite the
different witches' covens throughout England, drawing upon powers
that reach back through dark centuries, in a ritual of awesome
sacrifice on the first night of August, the magical
Lammas Night

All Customer Reviews Avg. Customer Rating:

Spectacular!, February 9, 2002
Reviewer: J.H. Minde (see more about me) from Tamarac, FL USA
LAMMAS NIGHT is one of the most original and interesting treatments
of World War Two-era fiction ever to be penned. Like many another
reader, I came across Sir John Cathal Graham while reading the ADEPT
series, and wondered why he didn't rate his own series. I still
wonder why he is the central character in only this one book,
because Gray Graham is fascinating and complex, far more
multidimensional than the too-well-turned-out Sir Adam Sinclair, and
capable of so much more literary development. This is one of my
favorite books.

Kurtz's writing is crisp, detailed, fast-paced, informative and even
educational without being dry. The book could serve as a primer on
practices of the Old Religion, which it portrays in a sensitive and
sympathetic light. LAMMAS NIGHT includes a spirited discussion of
reincarnation theories and comparative religion, written with
subtlety and creativity. There are no lectures in the book, just
presentations fitting seamlessly into the telling of the tale. There
are no magical pyrotechnics here, just psychological drama, good
taut storytelling, a compelling plot, and a sense of historical
place and time that is undeniably alluring. Hardly the stuff
of "Sword and Sorcery" or "fantasy," writing, this novel could
easily be classed with Ludlum, LeCarre, Forsyth, and Follett as an
espionage thriller par excellence. This may be Ms. Kurtz's finest
book."

----------------
GAIA adding:
The practice of creating a "corn dolly" (all grains were
called "corn") from the first harvest of wheat is supposedly an
ancient Pagan practice. The dolly was kept as a protective or
prosperity charm throughout the winter, and on Imbolc- Brigidmas-
Oimelc (February 2), exactly opposite Lughnassadh on the Wheel of
the Year, the dolly was brought out, dressed up as a Bride ("Bride"
and "Bridey" were folk names for the Goddess Brigid, who was later
turned into a Catholic Saint); then lain in a specially-prepared
basket called "Bride's Bed," with the phallic wand across it, to
symbolize and magickially invoke the mating of the God and Goddess,
the re-awakening of the Earth after the long winter, and the return
of Spring.

So -- what might yet need to be done to ensure you a bountiful
spiritual harvest this Lughnassadh?