Liza, :back_hug: thanks for assuring me that I'm fully qualified as a graduate of your fully accredited university. I haven't eaten my diploma, although it does smell lovely. It looks good, too, very impressive calligraphy.
As for "Lughnassa" -- yikes, I really have to improve my spelling. It's actually Lugnhasa or Lughnasadh, it is one of the Celtic cross-quarter days which fall between the soltices and equinoxes. There are believed to have been eight Celtice festivals over the course of year. They seem to have been Samhain (Nov. 1), Yule (Dec. - Winter Soltice), Imbolc (Feb. 1), Ostara (March - Vernal Equinox), Beltane (May 1), Litha (June - Summer Solstice), Lughnasa (Aug. 1), and Mabon (Sept. - Autumnal Equinox). I knew about four of them -- so I "researched" the names. I'm not a neo-pagan, so I don't know these as a matter of course.
Where was I, oh, Lughnasa. Okay, I did know that this was a festival concerned with Lugh, the god of light and the harvest. Lugh is his Irish name, to the Welsh he's Lleu Llaw Gyffes (either Lleu of the long hand or bright with a deft hand). I knew about him from the
Mabinogion, the Welsh national epic, great storie but the names, those names can make you nuts. Back to Lughnasa, I thought it was a fire festival -- and I was absolutely wrong! It's was a harvest festival.
Lugnasa is also known as Lammas: these are some other things I found, Liza.
Lammas
31st July / 1st August
The Celtic festival of Lammas is celebrated at the start of the harvesting season. It is the festival of the Irish sun god, Lugh - the name means 'shining one', and celebrates the opening of harvest time - the feast of the first fruits. The god is symbolically cut down by gathering the crops at harvest, and then reborn in the bread made from the harvest grains. The festival also honors Demeter, Greek goddess of the Bountiful Harvest.
'Lammas' was the medieval Christian name for the holiday means ‘loaf mass', and at this time loaves of bread baked from the first harvest grains are offered to gods. The first harvest of wheat, barley and the maturing of potatoes is celebrated.
At this time of the year the air is heavy with fruitfulness, as the harvest and life of the Corn Spirit/ Sun god is celebrated.
Lammas Traditions
Lammastide was the traditional time when craft fairs and pageants were held. Long summer evenings are beginning to get shorter. In Ireland Lammas is traditionally a time for buying and selling, horse trading and music.
Saint Catherine was celebrated - ‘ The Catherine Wheel’ came from the Pagan rites when a wagon wheel would be tarred, set on fire and rolled down a hill - symbolizing the decline of the Sun God as the seasons wheel turns to Autumn Equinox. If the wheel went out before it reached the bottom - poor harvest, abundant if it remained lit.
St. Ciaran's Well, Clonmacnois, County Meath - pilgrims go with torches at midnight on the first sunday in August - looking for a trout. The sun was believed to live in holy wells during the night.
Celts erected temporary hills to celebrate the harvest festival of Lammas. In Ireland a girl would be seated on the hill-top, garlanded with flowers and proclaimed the goddess of the hill. Celts would climb hills to pray to the gods and gather bilberries at Lammas.
A yellow sweet honeycomb called ‘Yellow Man’ and red sea weed - ‘Dulse’, is traditionally eaten at Lammas.
It was associated with water and earth, expressed in wells, corn, flowers, and mountains.
Assemblies on hilltops are a traditional part of the proceedings. A pilgrimage, often barefoot, would often be followed by drinking, dancing, fighting, and very unruly behavior.
Lughnasa was also a time for visiting holy wells.
Late July and month of August are traditional times for fairs because the weather is usually mild and the ground is suitable for traveling. Horse fairs were associated with Lughnasa/Lammas. Many traditional Lammas/Lughnasa fairs are still celebrated today. The Puck Fair, in Killorglin, County Kerry (Ireland) is one of the best-known traditional fairs when a male goat is crowned as king for three days and known as ' King Puck' (from the Gaelic puc, meaning he-goat). At the St James's Fair in Limerick, which lasted for a fortnight, a white glove was hung out at the prison, and during this time no one could be arrested for debt.
In County Meath in Ireland marriages were temporary unions entered into during Lughnasa. Some would last only for a day, others as long as a fortnight. At the eleven-day Lammas fair at Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, taking a sexual partner for its duration was a common practice. Such couples were known as 'Lammas brothers and sisters'. For couples thinking of a longer term commitment this was a traditional time for handfasting. Couples would join hands through a hole in a stone, and pledge their troth for a year and a day. Culturally sanctioned temporary sexual unions may offend modern morality, but many of these temporary unions were not momentary, impulsive, or casual pairings. Rather, they were the first public commitment of serious couples, later to become permanent arrangements and marriages
Lughnasa Sunday is known as 'Bilberry Sunday" in many districts of Ireland. It is traditional to climb the mountainsides to collect these fruits for the first time on this day. The size and quantity of berries at Lughnasa was a sign of whether the harvest as a whole would be good or not. Another example of these fruit-gathering traditions used to take place in County Donegal. On the first Sunday in August young people would set off after lunch to pick bilberries and not return until nightfall. Often "bilberry collecting" was only an excuse for young men and women to pair off for the day. The boys would thread berries into bracelets for the girls, competing to make the prettiest gifts for their partners.
There would be lots of singing and dancing. Before returning home the girls removed their bracelets and left them on the hillside. After climbing back down the hill the men indulged in sporting contests such as horse racing, hurling and weight-throwing. Ripening crops have to be protected from the forces of blight and from the floods and winds associated with Lughnasa. Traces of this conflict are seen in the battle imagery associated with the festival, faction fighting, and other competitive sports.
At one time Lughnasa was widely celebrated in Ireland, Britain, France and possibly Northern Spain. The oldest forms of the festival included tribal assemblies and activities extending two to four weeks.
I hope that helps you out Liza. But I'm afraid that it may be too much information. I did like the bit about "Lammas brothers and sisters" though. How they were sexual partners for the duation of the festival. I can see ArMor being those kinds of siblings, if anyone insists on a brother/sister relationship. :eyebrows: