Here we are close to August 1st and time for the annual article about the Sabbat called Lughnassah, by those who can get their eyes around the spelling of the Irish, and Lammas by those who can’t.

Lughnassah or Lammas occurs on the first of August. This was the day on which the Christianized Saxons brought the first fruits of their fields to their landlords, the year's first harvest festival. This may have been the rent for some tenants, since this day was one of the four days when rent became due to landowners.

Here we are on August 1st and time for article 219 about the Sabbat called Lughnassah, by those who can get their eyes around the spelling of the Irish, and Lammas by those who can’t.

Lughnassah or Lammas occurs on the first of August. This was the day on which the Christianized Saxons brought the first fruits of their fields to their landlords, the year's first harvest festival. This may have been the rent for some tenants, since this day was one of the four days when rent became due to landowners.

It’s one week now before August 1st and I checked the 148 article titles in the archives and realized that I hadn’t yet put on a posting about the Sabbat called Lughnassah, by those who can get their eyes around the spelling of the Irish, and Lammas by those who can’t.

All the other Sabbats have had some kind of treatment. But it turns out that everything I have written about Lughnassah was in notes for students and not for the blog readers. So here goes a little summary. Mea culpa!

June brides were a pop song cliché when I was young. But it wasn’t just because June rhymed with Moon. It is a very ancient custom. People tended to get married in June for centuries because in the old days when Beltane was celebrated as the beginning of summer in May, that month was the month in which the god and goddess were wed and conceived the divine child to be born at Yule, nine months later. (See my posting Hooray! Hooray! The first of May…Beltane 4/27/2007).

Every pagan knows about that connection. People then didn’t want to compete with the deities, and marry in May, bad luck at least and great misfortune at worst. So they waited until June to follow the marriage example. And June 21, the Summer Solstice was treated by them as Midsummer, not the beginning of summer.