Lughnasadh in Britain

[Blackbird]

The theory that Lughnasadh was not simply a localised Irish event was first proposed by Maire MacNeill (The Festival of Lughnasa, 1962.). She claimed to have identified several key elements of the festival, which she claimed to have discovered around areas of Britain and Europe.

These elements are:

Assembly on a Height
Pageant celebrating Lugh
Reaping of first fruits
Horse racing
Marriage
Burial of flowers
Reaffirmation of tribal order.

(As given by Alexei Kondratiev in 'Celtic Rituals')

In Ireland, Lughnasadh is indeed associated with a number of local assembly sites, and with the subduing of a variety of local land-spirits, such as Tailtiu, Carmun, Nas, Crom and Bres.

MacNeill suggests that 'ritual combats' enacted at this time are a memory of this, pointing at events such as the 'Jack the Tinkard' plays in Cornwall as evidence of this.

Personally, I think this is all bit shaky, and that she didn't prove her point outside of Ireland. A tradition of climbing the Brecon Beacons on the first Sunday in August doesn't prove that Lughnasadh was celebrated there. Or do you think otherwise?

However, I expect that the first fruits of the harvest were indeed celebrated around Britain. So with that in mind, it's a good time of year to seek out and discuss some of those local events and their origins

[blackwitch]

Where we are, we celebrate lammas, which i think is the british version of lughnasa.

bb Moira

[Blackbird]

Not really, though there are lots of people of your opinion.

Lammas is a Germanic festival, from the AS Hlaf-mas or Loaf Mass. From what I can gather, it is solely a first fruits festival, with a Lammas Loaf being made from the first cut sheaf of wheat. Lughnasadh (or its equivalents) is more complex. It is connected with the hiring fairs, with all the games, dealings and ... weddings that happen at fair time. The main theme of Lughnasadh is that of Lugh wresting the bounty of the harvest from the spirits of the land for the benefit of human-kind.

However, with Lammas being the best known and perhaps most widespread festival of this kind in Britain, it will be hard to separate out these Germanic customs from any surviving Brythonic ones...