Origins Of Holidays

[Lee]

there is a good book by Ronald Hutton (praises be upon him!) called Stations of the Sun which covers this very subject.

i think we are hampered in many ways because very little has survived from before the rise of Christianity so what we do have as survivals cannot be verified as being pre-xtian. so, traditions of gathering on top of hills at Lammas in wales might be survivals from the iron Age and be related to Lugus OR it may just be one of those things that has emerged and merely looks like pre-xtian.

[redraven]

Not sure that the concept of holidays in the modern terms would have been applicable. And if you look at the South American cultures, you see that there were actually different "calenders" in use. which lead to some clashes of interpretation. In an island with strong tribal identities that were present in Britain, I would suggest that it is a high probability that there would have been very little shared "holidays" but possibly a couple of shared ritual dates. Commonly shared holidays need a shared notion of nation to apply culturally, there is little to suggest this was present before the 11th century.

RR