Lammastide
By C. A. Asbrey
The first day of August is Lammas, a truly ancient festival linked to the harvest of wheat and the baking of bread. It differs from thanksgiving or harvest festivals in that those are normally held later in the year, from September to November.
Wheat was first cultivated around ten thousand years ago in the fertile crescent; an area that stretched from the Middle East to the Mediterranean. It took around five thousand years for it to reach to the furthest reaches of northern Europe and beyond, and these early farmers are also linked to the neolithic stone circles that spread all over the world. From the submerged settlement of Atlit Yam off the coast of Israel, to the Orkney Isles, the migrating farmers took their religious beliefs and symbolism with them. But stone circles aren’t just European, they have been found in Africa, Asia, and Asia Minor.
Whether or not, they all serve the same purpose is unknown. Some are obviously funereal, but there are traces of the more famous European sites also being linked to human burial, Stonehenge being a case in point. However, far too many are also aligned to the solstices for it to be coincidental – The Ōyu Stone Circles in Japan (dated around 2,000 – 1,5000 BCE), Nabta Playa in southern Egypt, (5,000 BCE), and the even older Atlit Yam off the coast of Israel (carbon dated at being 8.900 years old) are prime examples.
All these links to the marking the passing seasons and the spread of farming cannot be coincidental, but it appears that stone circles seem to have a primal attraction to humans even when they are not calendars. A truly ancient stone circle has been found, constructed by Neanderthals inside Breniquel Cave in France. These were formed out of broken off stalactites around 176,000 years ago. The purpose of these circles has never been established, as they are blocked off from the light, and hidden in the depths of the cave system. However, they are the oldest human constructions ever found, but at a weight of around two tonnes, moving the stone stalactites must have been important to those who constructed it. There are traces of fire at certain points, so they do seemed to have lit it. For what purpose, we will probably never know.
Marking the seasons at the advent of cultivation was essential for survival, and quickly became part of the religious world of early man. A whole pantheon of deities related to fertility existed around the world, but in the Celtic fringes it was called Lughnasadh in Irish, Lùnastal in Scottish Gaelic, and Luanistyn in Manx. Falling about halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox it was a harvest festival. The English name of the ‘Gule of August’ was thought to be a derivation of Gŵyl Awst, Welsh for “feast of August”.
Lughnasadh celebrated the God Lugh, and also his mother Tailtiu. She was said to have died of exhaustion after clearing the forests so the land could be cultivated. Essentially, the festival was a competition between Crom Dubh, the god who brought blight and famine, and Lugh who defeated the monster to bring a harvest of plenty for the people. It was also a tradition to hold games and sports to celebrate the harvest, culminating into a kind of ancient Olympic games called the Óenach Tailten. Horse racing, athletics, and sports sat alongside the sacrifice of a bull, music, storytelling and the settlement of legal disputes. And then there were the matchmakers. Marriages were arranged at Óenach Tailten as warring tribes put their rivalries aside. Trial marriages were conducted through a hole in a wooden door, and these marriages could be broken or made permanent within a year and a day without consequence.
It makes sense that the ancients would celebrate the first crop. It meant they could live another year. Records show that bread made from the new crop was offered as at religious ceremonies, along with trips to holy wells and games. That carried over to Christian festivals where such loaves were brought to church, but the pagan elements persisted. The last corner of a field was cut long, and the strands were retained and woven into intricate offerings and decorations that varied by country and region. I remember making them myself in the 1960s, although my clumsy, childish fingers made far more rudimentary versions than the adults. Where I lived, these were then placed back in the field as thanks for the bounty. In some places, they were placed in the home, the church, or at holy wells. Many are most beautiful and complex examples can be found online. Men wore tokens of love in the form of a harvest knot. Bilberries are also associated with the festival in Ireland, as the ancient gatherings took place on hills, and they are the prime area where the berries grow, and they are perfectly ripe at that time of year.
In modern times, the festival is often shifted to the nearest Sunday to the first of August. As reaping the harvest is backbreaking work, done against tight timescales it makes sense to shift it to a day of rest. However, that brings us to the many traditions connected to haymaking itself. And let’s face it, the connotations to ‘making hay’ are about more than just getting the work done under the optimum conditions.
D. H. Lawrence didn’t write Love Among the Haystacks for nothing. Bringing in the crops meant all hands were needed, and areas traditionally single-sex suddenly filled with every gender, age, and ability. Hours were long – 5am until dusk, with itinerant workers able to negotiate better pay and conditions for the duration. Even children joined in, often stacking the cut cereals into manageable bales, or even using sharp scythes themselves. Summer heat, a breaking down of social norms, and adrenaline driving people to work to tough deadlines made a heady mix that people enjoyed. Haystacks made for a comfortable and relatively private place for canoodling, especially in a world where privacy, as we would understand it today, rarely existed. Beds were shared by numerous siblings, and rooms contained beds with multiple generations crammed together in close quarters.
And people, being people, made use of these straw hillocks – but probably not to the degree that artists and writers have painted. An analysis of birthdates show that historically, most births took place in October and November. That meant that our forefathers – and foremothers – conceived most in the cold winter months. I suppose those long, dark, nights were a time when idle hands found other things to do.
That’s not to say that harvest time didn’t result in raucous behaviour. In some areas, a sheep was released to mow the stubble to a manageable level. That sheep could then be the property of the man who caught it with his bare hands – no easy task, and no doubt accompanied by much cat-calling and derision from onlookers. William Hone speaks of hijinks in The Every-day Book (1838) in Scotland where they built towers of peat over which they mounted flags and rival farmers would try to level them to the ground and seize their colours. According to Hone, this was abandoned when four people died in the brawl.
In England, it was known as ‘Harvest Home’, or ‘ingathering’, and the end of one of the most intensive periods of work. It meant kicking back and indulging in a few rewards. Villages and churches were decorated in boughs, and parades and celebrations took place.
The four financial quarters were based around the religious quarter-holidays of Candlemas, Whitsun (also known as Pentecost), and Lammas. Rents and taxes were often due on these dates, and that originated the saying that they’d pay at “later Lammas”, literally meaning a day that never came, but in effect meant that people would pay when they were good and ready. In the highlands of Scotland menstrual blood was scattered on floors and cattle in an attempt to protect from evil.
In a modern world with so few tangible links to our truly ancient ancestors, it’s good to see that there are still things we can share and enjoy with them, even if the ideologies and concepts behind them have shifted. Eastbourne in England holds a Lammas parade along the seafront with music, Morris Dancers, dancers, and drummers. Ballycastle in Northern Ireland also hosts Ould Lammas Fair, which features the horse racing, crowds overindulging in tempting fare, and fireworks. Even if these have evolved through time, there’s one thing our ancestors would relate to – gathering together to enjoy good fun, good fare, and good company.