Lughnasadh

Lughnassadh

August 1

(February 2 in the Southern Hemisphere)

Lughnassadh is the first harvest festival in the Wheel of the Year; Mabon (the Autumnal Equinox) is the second. The Goddess is the Mother, but the God is slowing dying.

Lughnassadh is one of the four Greater Sabbats (Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnassadh, and Samhain), and is usually celebrated outdoors. The Celtic festival is also called by a Saxon name, Lammas, meaning "loaf Mass," a harvest festival. There are many local surviving Lammas Fairs, which were once famous for their "handfast marriages," trial unions that either party could end, without any social stigma, after a year and a day. Modern Neopagan Witches have derived their own concept of "handfasting" as "Craft marriage" from this custom.. (Witchcraft Today ~ Encyclopedia of Wiccan & NeoPagan Traditions, by James R. Lewis ©2001)

Lughnassadh was named for the Celtic sun god, Lugh. This is a day which people held processions in honor of the dead sun god. After the summer solstice, the sun's power begins to decline; the sun god dies symbolically, only to be reborn again at the winter solstice. Lughnassagh is the time the first signs of autumn start to appear. (An ABC of Witchcraft Past & Present, by Doreen Valiente ©1973)

Lughnasadh (prounounced loo-na-sa), known also as Lammas, or Lammastide, the first of three harvest festivals on the Wheel of the Year. Named for Lugh the Long Handed, a Celtic God of light and fire, this Sabbat marks the ending of summer, and the first harvest of the grain. In ancient times the God of Grain, or John Barleycorn as legend knows him, sacrificed himself so that people would have plenty of food for the coming winter. (Simple Wicca, by Michele Morgan ©2000)

Midsummer

Mabon

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