Greetings fellow story lovers. This is Casimir back, once again, with a new article on folklore and history from around the world. The stars must be right or something, for once again I am actually on time for the topic of today’s article. This month we’re going to be talking about a domesticated animal from South Americ — Wait, those are llamas. Today we’re going to be talking about Lammas, the Anglo-Saxon festival of the first wheat harvest.
To know why there is a celebration for the first harvest, one must get into the mindset of a people whose very life revolves around the harvest. Up until Lammas, the Anglo-Saxons had been living off of the previous harvest from the past fall. Food had begun to become scarce, and the people had begun to feel it. Lammas and the first harvest bring food and plenty of it. It was, and still is in some places, a celebration of life and happiness to fill the void between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox.
Lammas and a similar Irish celebration Lughnasadh have a plethora of shared practice,s and even a shared time of celebration. An example of one of the Lammas celebrations is that after the hay has been cut from the field a lamb would be released into it. The worker who catches the lamb is permitted to keep the lamb, as noted by George C Homens in English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century. Similar summer festival games were held as other English celebrations: feasting, dancing, and drinking to celebrate the joy of summer.
Similarly, Lughnasadh was a celebration held in the name of the god Lugh, in commemoration of his mother Tailtiu who died of exhaustion clearing the fields for agriculture in Ireland. Athletic games, storytelling, and funerary feasts were held, amongst other things. It was also a time when laws were passed and matchmaking was done. Trial marriages were even held, where couples would put their hands through holes in a door as the ceremony, and the marriage would last for a year and a day. After that point, the couples could decide whether or not they wanted to end it or have it made permanent. Other examples can be found in this quote from Maire MacNeill’s book The Festival of Lughnasa: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of Harvest.
“A solemn cutting of the first of the corn of which an offering would be made to the deity by bringing it up to a high place and burying it; a meal of the new food and of bilberries of which everyone must partake; a sacrifice of a sacred bull, a feast of its flesh, with some ceremony involving its hide, and its replacement by a young bull; a ritual dance-play perhaps telling of a struggle for a goddess and a ritual fight; an installation of a [carved stone] head on top of the hill and a triumphing over it by an actor impersonating Lugh; another play representing the confinement by Lugh of the monster blight or famine; a three-day celebration presided over by the brilliant young god [Lugh] or his human representative. Finally, a ceremony indicating that the interregnum was over, and the chief god in his right place again.”
Just as the people of the world celebrate the coming of life and fertility that is the Vernal Equinox and Aestival Solstice, they celebrate harvests and festivals of food with equal enthusiasm. As much as I am biased to say so from my love of food and drink, humanity truly does revolve around food, the harvest, and other such things even now. Look at how many places still celebrate farmers markets, county fairs, and other such things. The branches of our history reach still into modernity.
This is all that I have for today on Lammas. I hope you have enjoyed our discussion of mythology, folklore, and history on History with The Skald’s Circle. If you’d like to know more about these traditions, or perhaps discuss it with me I’m always more than willing. Also, if you have something you would like us to research or have a new article topic in mind, please let us know! If you learned something new, give us a like, and let us know, we really appreciate being noticed… Until then, I’ll be back next month with another fascinating topic. This is Casimir, signing off, and remember, always check your sources very very carefully; our culture and our history depends on it.
Sources:
- T.C. Cokayne, ed. Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcarft (Rolls Series) vol. III:291, noted by George C. Homans, English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century, 2nd ed.
- J.P. Bacon Phillips, inquiring the significance of “gule“, “Lammas-Day and the Gule of August”, Notes and Queries, 2 August 1930:83