Lammas Day - Festival of the Wheat
by Lady Scholastica Joycors
Grain has held a place of importance in civilization back nearly to the beginning of time. Grain became associated with the cycle of death and rebirth. The Sumerian god Tammuz was slain and his lover Ishtar grieved so heartily that nature stopped producing. Ishtar mourned Tammuz, and followed him to the Underworld to bring him back, similar to the story of Demeter and Persephone.
Originally called the Gule of August, Lammas was a celebration of the grain harvest and one of the four great pagan festivals of Britain. When Christianity was introduced, the day continued to be celebrated, and a LOAF OF BREAD made from the newly harvested grain was the usual offering at church. For this reason it was called Hlaf-mass (loaf mass), subsequently shortened to Lammas or Festival of the Wheat. Another theory about the name's origin is that it came from LUGHNASA, the ancient autumn festival in honor of Lugh, the Celtic sun god.
Lammas marked the changing of the seasons, which people in all parts of the world have honored since ancient times. Some cultures divided the year into two seasons, summer and winter, and marked these points of the year at or near the summer and winter solstices, during which light and warmth began to increase and decrease, respectively. In pre-industrial times, humans survived through hunting, gathering, and agricultural practices, which depend on the natural cycle of seasons, according to the climate in the region of the world in which they lived. Thus, they created rituals to help ensure enough rain and sun in the spring and summer so crops would grow to fruition at harvest time, which was, in turn, duly celebrated.
In early Ireland, it was considered a bad idea to harvest your grain any time before Lammas; it meant that the previous year's harvest had run out early, and that was a serious failing in agricultural communities. However, on August 1, the first sheaves of grain were cut by the farmer, and by nightfall his wife had made the first loaves of bread of the season.
In Gaelic Ireland the festival of Lughnasadh (LOO-nah-sah) was the celebration of the first harvest. Lughnasadh honored the god Lugh (modern spelling: Lú) as a funeral feast and sporting competition to commemorate of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, who died of exhaustion after clearing the plains of Ireland for agriculture. It was also the preferred time for handfasting —trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day, with the option of breaking or formalizing a lasting marriage. If a couple found that their marriage was not working they would return they could handpartˆ without social disapproval, they need only stand back to back and symbolically walk away from each other.
On Lammas Day in England, it was customary for the villagers to bring a loaf of bread made from the first wheat of the new harvest. The loaf was blessed and was then the sacred bread would be broken into four pieces. Each piece was placed in the corner of the grain storage barn or silo to protect the rest of the garnered harvest.
English tenants were obligated to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on Lammas Day, which was also called “The Feast of the First Fruits.” It was also customary for other contracts to be negotiated at this time for business. Throughout the Middle Ages in England, Lammas was a time for holding great fairs, and paying certain rents and electing government officials.
In Scotland the feast was celebrated from at least medieval times and was known as the ‘Gule of August’. In the weeks before harvest, communities were at their highest risk of starving, as stocks from the previous harvest came close to being depleted – Lammas Day heralded the new harvest and hopefully a return to times of plenty. In the Every-Day Book (published in 1838), author William Hone described celebrations held by Edinburgh farmers which included the building of towers, with communities competing to knock down each other’s towers. This was a boisterous and often dangerous contest, at which participants were occasionally killed and often injured.
Lammas is also recognized as one of the four Scottish quarter days; a legal term for a period of time at which contracts could be terminated or renewed and servants could be hired or dismissed. The four dates were traditionally: Candlemas (28 February), Whitsunday (28 May), Lammas (28 August) and Martinmas (28 November).
While Lammas Day is not a major holiday anymore it is still celebrated in smaller communities with the making of corn dollies (similar to corn husk dolls made of the sheaves of grain), parades, bonfires, games and lots of bread, it represents the end of harvest and the beginning of the next season of life.
Bibliography
Debs. (2012, August 01). Lammas Day a Medieval Celebration. Retrieved from Deb's Dust Bunny: http://debsdustbunny.blogspot.com/2012/08/lammas-day-medieval-celebration.html
History Scotland. (n.d.). Retrieved from Scottish traditions - Lammas Day: https://www.historyscotland.com/articles/features/scottish-traditions-lammas-day
Lammas Day. (n.d.) Holiday Symbols and Customs, 4th ed.. (2009). Retrieved July 18 2018 from https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Lammas+Day
Rasbold, K. (2015, July 27). Lammas: Where Did it Come From? Retrieved from Patheos: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/energymagic/2015/07/lammas-where-did-it-come-from/
Wigington, P. (2018, July 2). Lammas History: Welcoming the Harvest. Retrieved from ThoughtCo: https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-the-lammas-harvest-celebration-2562170
©2018 MyLinda Butterworth (scholastica.ppa at gmail.com) This article first appeared in The Yeoman: August 2018
Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited and receives a copy.
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