Lammas (redirected from Lughnassa)

Lammas

1. RC Church Aug. 1, held as a feast, commemorating St. Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison

2. the same day formerly observed in England as a harvest festival. In Scotland Lammas is a quarter day

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Lammas

August 1

Possibly one of the four great pagan festivals of Britain—the Lugnasadh—Lammas was known as the Gule of August in the Middle Ages. It celebrated the harvest, and was the forerunner of the Thanksgiving celebrated in the United States and Canada. In medieval England, loaves made from the first ripe grain were blessed in the church on this day—the word lammas being a short form of "loaf mass." Lammas Day is similar in original intent to the Jewish Feast of Weeks, also called Shavuot or Pentecost, which came at the end of the Passover grain harvest. A 15th-century suggestion was that the name derived from "lamb" and "mass," and was the time when a feudal tribute of lambs was paid.
In the Scottish Highlands, people used to sprinkle their cows and the floors of their houses with menstrual blood, which they believed was especially potent against evil on this day. It was also one of the Quarter Days in Scotland, when tenants brought in the first new grain to their landlords.
Along with Candlemas, Walpurgis Night, and Halloween, Lammas is an important day in Neopagan calendars.
A phrase used from the 16th to the 19th century, "at Latter Lammas Day," meant "never."

SOURCES:
BkDays-1864, vol. II, p. 154
DaysCustFaith-1957, p. 199
DictDays-1988, pp. 51, 66
DictFolkMyth-1984, pp. 601, 961
FestSaintDays-1915, p. 163
FolkWrldHol-1999, p. 484
OxYear-1999, p. 315
RelHolCal-2004, p. 273
SaintFestCh-1904, p. 349

Celebration day: Aug 1