Lughnasadh: Autumn Quarter Festival
Pronounced: loo-NOSS-ah
Agricultural
Harvest festivals can be found all over the world and typically have two important features: Loads of food and a day off work. Lughnasadh is the first of three harvest festivals in the Wiccan calendar. It is followed by Mabon and then Samhain, and is held at the midpoint between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox. A chance to enjoy the fruits of our labor, the many gifts of the earth are celebrated at the Early Harvest Festival.
Lammas
One of the cross-quarter days, Lughnasadh is also called Lammas (meaning Loaf-Mass). During this holiday, fire is recognized for its transformative properties, marking the transition of wheat to bread. Falling at the time of the early wheat harvest, it was tradition to bring to church a loaf of bread made from this first grain. The bread was blessed and broken into four pieces, which were put in the four corners of the storage barn. This blessed bread was believed to protect the stored grain.
Lugh
Lugh belongs to the Celtic tribe of the Goddess Danu. And his holiday, Lughnasadh, represents the battle for the harvest (or grain goddess, Eithne) between two gods. Crom Dubh generates the growth of in the fields and possessively guards his treasure. Lugh desires to claim the harvest for mankind. Lugh’s victory was followed by a great celebration including a thriving marketplace, sporting contests, horse racing, storytelling, and music.
The Magic of Lughnasadh
Correspondences
Herbs: Cornstalks, Heather, Myrtle, Oak
Totems: Rooster, Bee
Stones: Carnelian, Citrine, Amber
Colors: Golden Yellow, Orange, Light Brown
Offerings: Corn Doll, Wheat, Nuts, Bread
Spellwork
Abundance
Wisdom
Health
Connect
Insight
Lughnasadh Oil
3 drops Lavender
3 drops Lemongrass
3 drops Patchouli
Symbols of Imbolc
Bake Bread
When people bake bread in their own kitchens, there is a powerful magic that happens. Humble ingredients are transformed through a wonderful alchemy into golden brown mana. Bread Magazine goes so far as to say that the act of making bread and sharing it with others is part nothing short of revolutionary. “A revolution happens through rebuilding connections that once were commonplace but have since then been lost: between the grain and the loaf, the baker and the person who receives the bread, between generations.”
Corn Mother
The Corn Mother is part of an old pagan tradition. When the harvesting of grains was done by hand, longer strands of the chaff were available for crafting these special figurines. It was believed that the ‘Spirit of the Grain’ lived in the fields with the crop itself. Harvesting the field rendered the Corn Mother homeless, so this doll was made to give her a winter resting place. In the spring when the field was plowed, the doll was returned to the field so that she could continue to look after her children.
John Barleycorn
John Barleycorn is another ‘Spirit of the Grain’. He is strong and sturdy in the summer, cut down in his prime, and reimagined as beer and whiskey in his old age. Robert Burnes writes:
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland!
State Fair
The state fair is a variation of Lughnasadh. It epitomizes the celebratory nature of enjoying the bounty that summer has brought. It also has the element of the community coming together in joy and competition. Blue ribbons are handed out and the skills of ordinary folks are honored. Check out when your own state fair comes to town, and join your neighbors as we all celebrate Lughnasadh.
The Rigs O’ Barley
It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonie,
Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie;
The time flew by, wi’ tentless heed,
Till, ‘tween the late and early,
Wi’ sma’ persuasion she agreed
To see me thro’ the barley.
Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs,
An’ corn rigs are bonie:
I’ll ne’er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi’ Annie.
The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down, wi’ right good will,
Amang the rigs o’ barley:
I ken’t her heart was a’ my ain;
I lov’d her most sincerely;
I kiss’d her owre and owre again,
Amang the rigs o’ barley.
Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, &c.
I lock’d her in my fond embrace;
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place,
Amang the rigs o’ barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright,
That shone that hour so clearly!
She aye shall bless that happy night
Amang the rigs o’ barley.
Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, &c.
I hae been blythe wi’ comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinking;
I hae been joyfu’ gath’rin gear;
I hae been happy thinking:
But a’ the pleasures e’er I saw,
Tho’ three times doubl’d fairly,
That happy night was worth them a’,
Amang the rigs o’ barley.
Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs, &c.
Come, Here is Adieu to the City
Come, here is adieu to the city
And hurrah for the country again.
The broad road lies before me
Watered with last night’s rain.
The timbered country woos me
With many a high and bough;
And again in the shining fallows
The ploughman follows the plough.
The whole year’s sweat and study,
And the whole year’s sowing time,
Comes now to the perfect harvest,
And ripens now into rhyme.
For we that sow in the Autumn,
We reap our grain in the Spring,
And we that go sowing and weeping
Return to reap and sing.
Nurse: Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God.
She was too good for me. But, as I said,
On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
That shall she. Marry, I remember it well.
‘Tis since the earthquake now eleven years,
And she was weaned—I never shall forget it—
Of all the days of the year, upon that day.
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.
My lord and you were then at Mantua.—
Nay, I do bear a brain.—But, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!
“Shake!” quoth the dovehouse. ‘Twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.
And since that time it is eleven years,
For then she could stand alone. Nay, by the rood,
She could have run and waddled all about,
For even the day before, she broke her brow.
And then my husband—God be with his soul!
He was a merry man—took up the child.
“Yea,” quoth he, “Dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit,
Wilt thou not, Jule?” and, by my holy dame,
The pretty wretch left crying and said “ay.”
To see now, how a jest shall come about!
I warrant, an I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it. “Wilt thou not, Jule?” quoth he.
And, pretty fool, it stinted and said “ay.”
Ould Lammas Fair
At the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle long ago
I met a pretty colleen who set me heart a-glow
She was smiling at her daddy buying lambs from Paddy Roe
At the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O!
Sure I seen her home that night
When the moon was shining bright
From the ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O!
Chorus
At the Ould Lammas Fair boys were you ever there
Were you ever at the Fair In Ballycastle-O?
Did you treat your Mary Ann
To some Dulse and Yellow Man
At the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O!
In Flander’s fields afar while resting from the War
We drank Bon Sante to the Flemish lassies O!
But the scene that haunts my memory is kissing Mary Ann
Her pouting lips all sticky from eating Yellow Man
As we passed the silver Margy and we strolled along the strand
From the Ould Lammas Fair in Ballycastle-O!
Chorus
There’s a neat little cabin on the slopes of fair Knocklayde
It’s lit by love and sunshine where the heather honey’s made
With the bees ever humming and the children’s joyous call
Resounds across the valley as the shadows fall
Sure I take my fiddle down and my Mary smiling there
Brings back a happy mem’ry of the Lammas Fair