Lammas is a European festival which is celebrated on August 1st. This holiday falls between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox, and has been called a Cross Quarter Day. While the Solstice is the first day of summer, Lammas represents the height of the season. It is a feast of the first harvest with ancient roots in the pagan festival of Lugnasad.

For thousands of years the harvest was one of the most significant human events. Although it does not seem as important in our technological society, a good harvest meant survival during the coming winter. People have celebrated this occasion in many cultures throughout history. The Greeks worshiped Demeter, Goddess of the Grain, in a Green Festival which marked the first harvest. The Iroquois indians honored the Corn Spirit which protected their crops, and they held a Green Corn Festival in early August.

In Pre-Christain Europe the harvest festival was originally called Lugnasad. It was an ancient celebration honoring the marriage of the Celtic sun god Lugh to the Earth Goddess. At this time, the earth is fecund with ripening crops, and it is a time of passion, life and abundance. Lugh was the God of Light and the God of the Corn (in Europe the word corn was a generic term which meant any kind of grain). When we harvest grain, we are actually a killing and sacrificing the living plant so that the grain can later nurture and sustain us. So the god Lugh, representing the Corn, would be put to death after consumating the marriage, to be born again on the Winter Solstice. In many cultures there is a sun god who dies and then is reborn to signify the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth. The birth is usually at winter solstice, Christmas time, because this is the beginning of the sun's return, when the days start to lengthen. Lugh the sun god died August 1st not only because it was harvest time, but also because the sun's power is declining then. After August 1st, other signs of the approaching autumn become visible. We don't want to admit it yet at this time of the year, but the nights are getting colder, and a few leaves are actually beginning to change color, at least here in western New York.

In the ancient pagan celebration of Lugnasad, there was a procession honoring the god Lugh. People gathered together to dance and sing. There were games and sporting events. Everyone joined in a banquet consisting of the first harvest, and drank pure water from holy wells. It was also a time for excursions to hilltops to pick berries. Shepherds go up to the high fields and bring down herds of sheep and cattle that graze there during summer months.

After Christianity was established through Europe, the traditional harvest festival honoring the god Lugh was changed. The Christians took the first ripe grains of the harvest, and baked them into a loaf of bread. This loaf was consecrated at a special mass which took place on August 1st, the day of the old pagan festival. This was called Hlaf-Mass (meaning loaf mass), and the word degenerated into Lammas.

Despite the new Christian overtones, people continued to include the old traditions and practices in their celebrations. Many of these customs persisted into the last century, while some continue today in rural parts of Europe. In Germany, France and England, Lammas survives as a legal and farming date. Summer grazing for livestock ends on Lammas, and "Lammas Land" means a pasture leased until August 1 each year.

In Britain on Lammas, people used to leave their usual jobs to help with the harvesting. Some would work on cutting, binding into sheaves, and carting the grain. Others would prepare food and drink for the workers. Hunters would drive rabbits from the standing grain to be shot and made into rabbit pie and stew for the reapers.

An old British poem goes like this:

Cutting the last standing stalk of grain was considered unlucky, because it was a symbolic slaying of the Spirit of the Grain--changing the energy from a living force in the grain to a static force in the cut sheaves. There was an old custom called "Crying in the Neck". All the harvesters would stand around the last stalk of grain and throw small sickles at it, so no one person would be responsible for cutting it down. This last sheaf was sometimes called the Corn Mother or Old Woman, while in other traditions it was called the Corn Maiden. After this last sheaf was cut, the best ears were taken and woven into a Corn Dolly. This was placed on display over the hearth during the winter, as a kind of altar, surrounded by pictures of family members, ornaments, and candles. Then in the spring when it was time to sow the grain, the seed from the Corn Dolly was added to the seed corn so that the fertility of the last harvest would be shared with the new crop.

In Ireland the Lammas celebration was held on the nearest Sunday to the holiday, called Garland Sunday. The festival was held on a hilltop. A young girl was decked with flowers and seated in a chair. The people of the town danced around her, and girls took flowers from her as they danced. These festivals continued into this century. As late as 1942 the Irish Folklore Commission identified 195 hilltop assembly sites used for Lammas.

Many people today are beginning to look to nature as an expression of spirituality, and seasonal celebrations are being revived. This is happening here in Chautauqua County. The Brushwood Center in Sherman hosts Pagan Festivals which celebrate nature. At Lily Dale, there are Sweat Lodges each Solstice and Equinox to mark the change of seasons. In Jamestown, both the Unitarian Church and the Center for Creativity and Spirituality have had ceremonies to mark the seasons. Chautauqua Institute has hosted a sunrise ceremony by Native Americans. Rather than the Celtic traditions found in Europe, many here look to Native Americans for their connection to nature. The Native Americans honor Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, and Grandfather Sun; and they consider the animals and even trees and rocks to be their brothers and sisters.