Wheel of the Year

Lammas

The first harvest, when grain is cut and bread is baked in thanks.

When: 1 August in the north, 1 February in the south.

What it is

Lammas is the first of the three harvest festivals. The grain is ripe and the first fields are cut, while the summer is still at its height. The festival gives thanks for what has grown, and it knows that every harvest is also an ending: what is cut does not grow any further.

Witches use the day to look at what their own year has borne so far, and to share it.

Where it comes from

The festival has two names from two countries.

Lammas is English. It comes from the Old English hlafmæsse, "loaf mass", and is named in writings of the tenth century: on this day a loaf baked from the first new grain was brought to church and blessed. Later the day was a date for fairs and for paying rents.

Lughnasadh (say "LOO-na-sa") is Irish and means the assembly of Lugh, a god of many skills. Legend says that he founded the festival in memory of his foster mother Tailtiu, who died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for farming. A great assembly with games and markets was held at her burial place into the Middle Ages.

In Ireland the custom lived on in another form. On the last Sunday of July people climbed hills and gathered at lakes to pick the first bilberries, to dance and to court; a scholar counted nearly two hundred such places in the twentieth century. The pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick on that Sunday is kept to this day.

The Lammas of modern witches was shaped in the 1950s. It is one of the eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year.

Ways to celebrate

• Bake bread: any loaf will do. Break the first piece with thanks.
• A meal of first fruits: whatever is ripe where you live: berries, new potatoes, the first apples.
• A harvest list: write down what this year has brought you so far, the large things and the small.
• A figure of straw: plait a small figure or a knot from straw or long grass and keep it until spring.
• Give something on: take part of your harvest, or of your shopping, to a neighbour or a food bank.

Good to know

Tell those you share bread with what is in it; wheat, milk and nuts are common allergens.

Gather only wild berries you know for certain, and wash fruit that grows close to the ground.

Gratitude cannot be ordered. In a year that has brought little, a short list is an honest one, and to have come through such a year is a harvest too.