Lammas

July fifteen, St. Swithin's Day, the old superstition being that if rain fell on this day, it would continue forty days.

August one, Lammas Day, originally in England the festival of the wheat harvest.

In the church, the festival of St. Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison.

September twenty-nine, Michaelmas, the fast of St. Michael, the archangel.

December twenty-eight, Childermas, Holy Innocents' Day.

The quarter days used for calculating rents and tradesmen's accounts are Lady Day, Midsummer Day, Michaelmas, and Christmas in England.

Whit Sunday, Martinmas, Candlemas, and Lammas Day in Scotland.

Mothering Sunday is Mid-Lent Sunday, on which the old rural custom obtains of visiting one's parents and making them presents.

So in the summer, so we couldn't really tell the difference.

Then you have Lammas or also known as Lunasa on August 1st.

That's the first harvest, the first of three harvests, three harvest festivals.

It's all about gratitude and like gratitude for your abundance.

Herevest.

The Anglo-Saxons believed that from the feast of Lammas on the 1st of August to shortly after All Saints Day in November was the season of herevest, from which of course we get the word harvest.

But from Pentecost, which was back in June until the feast of Christ the King in late November, the church is in ordinary time.

In Austria, this is called the Green Meadow because it's a time of soul growth when we come down from the mountain of all those celestial celebrations of Christmas, Easter and Pentecost and we get to work.

And so like Samhain in a lot of ways is the last of the harvest festivals and also a reset of the wheel of the year.

But then this Lunasa or Lammas is that first, the first of several harvest festivals where we're starting to bring things in in preparation for winter months.

And our last one.

maven that is the fall equinox you just had that one uh this is another one of those equal light and dark experiences uh what are we celebrating for maven what are we doing

In modern paganism, Samhain is one of the eight sacred Sabbaths on the wheel of the year, and it marks the third sacred harvest.

So the first is Lunasa, or Lammas, August 2nd in the Northern Hemisphere, Feb 2nd in the Southern, and then Autumn Eclipse, equinox, September in the Northern Hemisphere, March in the Southern, and then Samhain, end of October, beginning of November in the Northern Hemisphere, end of April, beginning of May in the Southern.

So the third harvest in the wheel of the year, the final harvest before winter is And this makes a lot of sense living here in the climate that I live in, which is pretty extreme because we get such cold winters being at high elevation.

We had our first freeze last week, just a few days after I got home.

From a letter written to Sir Emanuel Ferguson by the late Brian O'Looney concerning Mount Callan in the County Clare, we see that this legend of Crom was widely circulated.

Domnach Lunasa, or Lammas Sunday, says O'Looney, the first Sunday of the month of August was the first fruits day and a great day on Boyle Nagraini.

On Lammas Sunday, called Domnach Crom Dubh, an anglicized Garland Sunday, every householder was supposed to feast his family and household on the first fruits, and the farmer who failed to provide his people with new potatoes, new bacon, and white cabbage on that day was called a felimora guecha, or wind farmer.

And if a man dug new potatoes before Crom Dubh's day, he was considered a needy man.

The assemblage of this day was called Cochineal Crom Dubh, or the congregation or gathering of Crom Dubh, and the day is called from him Domnach Crom Dubh, or Crom Dubh Sunday.

From a letter written to Sir Emanuel Ferguson by the late Brian O'Looney concerning Mount Callan in the County Clare, we see that this legend of Crom was widely circulated.

Domnach Lunasa, or Lammas Sunday, says O'Looney, the first Sunday of the month of August was the first fruits day and a great day on boiling a grainy.

On Lammas Sunday, called Domnach Crom Dubh, an anglicized Garland Sunday, every householder was supposed to feast his family and household on the first fruits, and the farmer who failed to provide his people with new potatoes, new bacon, and white cabbage on that day was called a fellamora guecha, or wind farmer.

And if a man dug new potatoes before Crom Dubh's day, he was considered a needy man.

The assemblage of this day was called Cochineal Crom Dubh, or the congregation or gathering of Crom Dubh, and the day is called from him Domnach Crom Dubh, or Crom Dubh Sunday.

Boundaries were marked with ritual.

Every season had ceremonies, Lammas, Michaelmas, St. Martin's Day, St. Agnes' Eve.

These weren't fun celebrations.

They were desperate pleas to the universe to keep everyone alive until the next one.

Or even if it's, it's not an animal offering, if you're making bread or cakes or something like that, those should be things that you're making yourself, and hopefully including ingredients that you've raised yourself.

I, I remember many years ago, a, a certain, uh, heathen priest who we know well, and I had gone to a gathering somewhere for Lammas, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or Lath Messadai, whatever we're, we're calling that wonderful holiday, which involves the sacrifice of loaves of bread.