Lammas – Celebration of the First Harvest 🚜

Holly_Scope

Lammas is a Pagan festival taking place annually on the 1st August. It falls between Summer Solstice in June and Fall Equinox in September in celebration of the traditional first harvest of the season.

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Lammas derives from the Celts, who had great respect for the 4 seasons, naming them: Imbolc (1st February), Beltane (1st May), Samhain (1st November), and Lammas. The Celts would often perform rituals during Lammas to help protect against any harvesting failure. The changing of seasons was also used for contract renewals or terminations such as trade or marriage proposals.

Grain was vital for survival. It was harvested during Lammas and stored to feed the people throughout the year. Therefore, in the weeks building up to Lammas the starvation risk was at its peak, as the stored grain is close to running out. The year was even more difficult if the grain was harvested too early or too late.

During Lammas, the grain was harvested early in the morning and by nightfall, the first bread loaves were ready for the communal feast.

The symbols of Lammas reflect the harvest and time of year:

Bread 🍞

Grains

Flowers, sunflowers in particular🌻

Spears

Leaves and herbs 🌿

The deity Lugh

Apples and other fruit that represent the harvest 🍎

How is Lammas celebrated today?

Lammas is celebrated by a number of cultures, including the Christian religion.

Some people will attend a church service, or a gathering with family and friends. Perhaps serving a traditional Lammas Bread (6 Classic Lammas Bread Recipes) or making corn dollies with the children (How To Make A Corn Dolly).

If you're planning to celebrate we'd love to hear about what your doing. Or maybe even some pictures if you're decorating, baking, gathering, or celebrating another way. 🍂

Rosie_Scope

Oooh that's interesting, I'd not heard of this before. I haven't celebrated Lammas, but I remember celebrating Harvest Festivals at school where we'd collect up food to donate and sing songs about harvest time. There were some real bangers back in the day 😁

Ranald

The town of St Andrews has a Lammas Fayre, but it is more your everyday funfair daylight robbery now!

66Mustang

It's so interesting reading about the problems that had to be worked around to ensure the optimum harvest!! Having a bit of "farmer" in our family I know all too well about them … they are pretty identical to the problems faced by modern farmers, only with much more to lose than just money

Holly_Scope

I found the same when researching @66Mustang, was really interesting 🙂