Lughnasad - July 31st
Lammas, Lugh-Mass - July 31 / August 1
Lughnasadh ("Loo-nahsa") or Lammas begins the
season of fall, and celebrates both the awareness of the solar deity's
decline and the beginning of the harvest. Light diminishes the days
grow shorter, we have worked hard to bring things to fruition, but the
Harvest is not yet clear, we know that to harvest we must sacrifice.
This is the time to look within and see the sacrifice that needs
to be made to transform. This is the first Harvest, the honoring
of the Grain and the Corn. In Pagan times this was the time of games
of skill and competition, and Lugh was Honored. Horse races, athletic
contests, craft fairs, and weddings are all traditional activities of this
time. Harvest Deities, as well as others representing seniority,
are the common focus. Apple products, including pies, cakes, and
cider, as well as mead, and other home brewed beverages, are consumed in
reverent quantities.
Lughnasadh is known in Modern Irish as La Lunasa,
in Welsh as Gwyl Awst (August Feast), as Lla Lluanys or Laa'n Ouyr (Day
of the Harvest Season) in Manx, and as Lammas, Apple Day and Harvest Home
in English. Essentially a harvest festival, this signals the beginning
of the harvest season and the ripening of the apples (as well as other
fruits and vegetables). Historically, the day the fair of Taitlu
is held.
This holiday is a day of mixed joy and woe
(Irish wakes are an old tradition), for it is by now obvious that the days
are getting shorter. Stories of the battles between Lugh and Balor
(the light Sun / Fire God and the Dark one) are retold, as the autumn quarter
of Foghamhar begins.
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