August Eve
One of the four Greater/Major Sabbats on the Wheel of the Year, Lughnassa marks the beginning of the harvest season. Seeds
sown in the spring are now golden sheaves of grain and summer squashes gleam yellow from under their canopies of green
leaves. The Earth Mother is glowingly pregnant and is attended proudly by her consort and protector the Sun God even as
his power is waning.
In the Celtic world, Lughnassa was a time of tribal gatherings. These gatherings, called oenach, took place four times per year on the cross-quarter holidays of Imbolg, Beltane, Lughnassa and Samhain and were a mixture of business, work, celebration, athletic competition and religious ritual. While chieftains conducted business and settled tribal affairs, commoners gathered grain from the fields and prepared it for the next day’s threshing. Threshing and grinding of grain are acts of transformative magic in that they convert stalks of grain into food and drink, but first the fields must be cleared. Before the machine age, the reaping was done by hand and required the assistance of the entire community. The grain harvested now would provide sustenance through the coming winter, every stalk was valuable and yet the people felt the need to reciprocate the blessings of the gods. The specific practice of offering varies by area. The first (or alternately the last) stalk was left standing or it was cut down and then buried, or burned then scattered back into the field. Once the work was done, celebrations could begin.
Lughnassa translates from Irish Gaelic as “the games of Lugh” or “the commemoration of Lugh” and athletic games, horse races
and competitions in every imaginable capability were though to please the shining god of many skills. The Tailltean Games,
as they were called in Ireland, were initiated under the direction of Lugh himself as a means for the people to honor and
remember the sacrifices of his foster mother Tailte. Tailte was the great queen and earth mother goddess of the Fir Bholg,
an ancient race of grotesque giants who arrived in Ireland from Greece. Exhausted from clearing the fields in order to
prepare them for cultivation, Tailte died. It is fitting that she be remembered and honored at harvest time, for without
her original efforts the harvest would not be possible. Tailte’s gift of fertility is acknowledged in Tailtean marriages,
which may be dissolved after one year and one day, should the newlyweds choose. To end their union, the couple should
return to the site of the ceremony and walk apart to the directions north and south respectively. Tailte lives on in modern
Ireland in the name of Tailtean (formerly Teltown and Taitui) a village in County Meath.
Lughnassa rituals were held to thank and venerate the God and Goddess who had made the harvest a reality and to seek their
blessings for the newly sown crops that would mature just before the cold winter months set in. The bread that has become
an integral feature of Lughnassa feasts represents the harvest, the Earth Mother and grain goddesses, the home and hearth,
nourishment and sustainability as well as the blessings of the gods. Lammas, an alternative name for the holiday, is from
the Anglo-Saxon hlaef-mass meaning “loaf mass” and the first loaves of baked bread were offered to the Goddess as a
reciprocal gift. Fertility rites took place in the fields, echoing the greenwood rites of Beltane. Dolls, fashioned from
sheaves of grain, were made to look pregnant to acknowledge the holiday’s fertility connotations and the child that the
Goddess carries in her womb that will be born at the Winter Solstice.
Rituals also held sacrificial elements. The grain, personified by the vegetation god, was being cut down and the power of
the sun visibly wanes as sunsets come earlier and earlier each day. The vegetation god, who so willingly accepted his fate
so that his people could survive, is known by various names: the Green Man, the Wicker Man, Corn Man or Corn King, and John
Barleycorn are a few examples. The sacrifice of the vegetation god is symbolic only, he dies for three days which he spends
in mating with the earth goddess when her fertility is assured, he returns to preside with her over the remaining two
harvest Sabbats. The mortal kings of the Celtic world, who personified their entire tribes were more than symbolic
sacrifices, they were real.* It was believed that the king must die in order for the people to be nourished. King William
Rufus was felled by the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrell in New Forest in 1100 CE; scholars have theorized that the king was a
willing sacrifice in a Lughnassa ritual. After the Kings of Ireland were killed, processions climbed Tara hilltop, which
held the stone upon which the new king would be crowned. It is said that when the correct person was seated on the stone,
the stone would emit an audible groan. These processions, without the sacrifice and crowning of course, continue to this
day and retinues of faithful pilgrims also continue the tradition of climbing the 2510’ Croah Patrick in County Mayo where
St. Patrick was said to have fasted for 40 days and slay his demons. During the Middle Ages, the king was replaced in
sacrifice by a lesser prince and later by animals. Bulls and cocks, long held to be symbols of virility and royalty, had
their blood flowed to assure the continued sustenance of the people. Eventually, the sacrifices become completely
symbolic in nature and kings, princes, and animals were spared.
Today, Lughnassa is celebrated as one day, but in the past it was actually a series of days. Harvesting acres of grains by
hand took some time and there was still the threshing, grinding, baking, celebrating and feasting to do. After
Christianization, celebrations began occurring on the Sunday before or after August 1 since Sunday was the day of rest.
In Ireland the last Sunday of July became known as Crom Dubh’s Sunday, referring to the “black bowed one”, a euphemism
for the harvest king. That Sunday has various other names as well: Garland Sunday, Garlic Sunday and Bilberry Sunday. To
celebrate Bilberry Sunday, the people gathered all the bilberries that could be found, the amount they gathered was said
to foretell their future prosperity and was also an indication that the rituals had been well received by the gods.
Blackberries, which ripen at the end of July or the beginning of August, are also an important part of this time of year.
They are gathered and baked into pies or pressed into wine to honor the goddess Brigit in the mother aspect and the Norse
god Thor, to both of whom they are sacred.
Modern Lughnassa celebrations typically take place on the eve of August 1st or August 2nd, other covens choose to celebrate on the Old Style date of August 12th. The difference in dates goes back to Pope Gregory XIII’s adjustment of the Julian calendar. Alternately, the date of the celebration and ritual may be dictated by the ripening of the crops, as it most likely was by the ancients who lived closer to nature.
They've hired men with scythes so sharp,
To cut him off at the knee,
They've rolled him and tied him by the waist,
Serving him most barbarously
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