The festival of Lammas, Lughnasadh, the first festival of harvest
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Rituals
Lughnasadh with the Grove of Four
Pronounced loo-nuh-sah in Gaelic, sometimes spelled Lughnasa, this festival is the feast of the sun god Lugh, he of the ‘Skilful Hand’, the Irish counterpart of the old British god Llew Llaw Gyffes who was equated by the Romans with their Mercury. In Saxon, the festival was called Hlaef-mass, meaning ‘loaf mass’, now Lammas, the celebration of the first sheaves of the harvest. In Welsh, it is Gwyl Awst, pronounced gwil oust, and translated as ‘the feast of August’, its traditional calendar date being the first of the month. For those who place the festivals by the cycle of nature, Gwyl Awst is celebrated with the first loaf made of the freshly harvested wheat. Of course, for our ancestors, immediately the harvest begins the hard work begins too. It is a time of community, of everyone giving everything they have in terms of time and energy to gather in the crops and get them to market. (Excerpt from Ritual by Emma Restall Orr)