|
LUGHNASSADH Lughnassadh is traditionally celebrated on AUGUST 1, though a few groups may celebrate it on August 2. The name “Lughnassadh” comes from the Gaelic “La Lughnassadh,” pronounced “Law LOO-nuh-suh,” and means “Marriage of Lugh.” Lugh is the Celtic God of the Sun, and also of vegetation and the cultivated fields. The “marriage“ of Lugh is the Harvest, when the crops are reaped. When the harvest is completed and the last of the crops has been cut, Lugh is symbolically married to the Crone Goddess of the Dead. But Lughnassadh marks the beginning, not the end, of the harvest. It is the beginning of the Autumn or Fall season, by traditional reckoning. Lughnassadh is the Festival of First Fruits, when thanks is given for the fertility of the fields, and the first bread baked from the new harvest is blessed.
Though Lughnassadh celebrates the death of Lugh, it is a Lunar or Grand Sabbat sacred to the Mother Goddess as Lady of the Harvest. It is She who provides the bounty of the Earth, and to Her thanks are given. At Lughnassadh the promise of Bealteinne is fulfilled by the bounty of the Earth.
It is in this form, as Lady of Life, that the Goddess is portrayed in the famous Venus of Willendorf statuette. Some 30,000 years old, the Venus of Willendorf shows the Mother Goddess pregnant, Her bosoms heavy with milk, a testament to the fertility and life-giving qualities of the Great Mother.
Lughnassadh is also called Lammas, First Fruits, and Bron Trograine.
- excerpted from the First Degree Course of the Correllian Nativist Tradition of Wicca as administered on Witchschool.com |
|
