Lughnasadh

Old Irish Lugnasad; Irish Lúnasa

See it on the Wheel of the Sky

When it comes round

North of the equator: traditionally Sun, 08/01/2027. The Sun reaches 15° Leo, the astronomical Lughnasadh, on .

South of the equator, where the seasons are reversed, the Wheel of the Sky keeps Lughnasadh in the same season, half a year later or earlier: traditionally Mon, 02/01/2027, and astronomically when the Sun reaches 15° Aquarius, on .

The fire festivals sit halfway between a solstice and an equinox: 15° of a fixed sign. The traditional day comes first; the Sun reaches the halfway point a few days later. Worked out with the same Sun calculation as the calendar and the Wheel of the Sky.

The harvest festival on August 1, named for the god Lug, with a great fair at Tailtiu.

In history

Lugnasad was celebrated on August 1 as the feast of the marriage of the god Lugus, and it was also the day of the harvest fair (Britannica). In Irish tradition he was Lug Lámfota, “Lug of the Long Arm,” also called Samildánach, “skilled in all the arts,” and how widely his festival was kept in Celtic lands is one sign that he was among the most powerful of the Celtic gods (Britannica, “Lugus”).

Irish place-lore tells how the great fair at Tailtiu began. Tailtiu, daughter of Magmor, cleared a wood until it became a plain blossoming with clover; the work burst her heart, and in her sickness she asked her people to hold funeral games to lament her. She died “on the Lugnasad of Lug,” around the first of August, and from then on the chief fair of Ireland was held around her grave (the Metrical Dindshenchas, “Tailtiu”).

The Wooing of Emer calls the day Brón Trogaill, “Lammas-day, viz., the beginning of autumn,” “for it is then the earth is afflicted, viz., the earth under fruit.” In England August 1 was Lammas, from the Anglo-Saxon for “loaf-mass,” kept in the early English church as a harvest festival when loaves made from the new grain were consecrated (Britannica). In Ireland today, a popular pilgrimage climbs Croagh Patrick in County Mayo on the last Sunday in July, many people barefoot (Britannica).

In modern practice

In the modern Wheel of the Year, Lughnasadh is the sabbat of August 1 (Britannica, “Wicca”). The eight-festival Wheel of the Year itself is modern: Wicca, which emerged in England in the 1950s, typically keeps eight seasonal festivals, called sabbats, based on traditional celebrations drawn from different periods of British and Irish history, and many Wiccans in the Southern Hemisphere move them to fit their own seasons (Britannica, “Wicca”).

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