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Without question, things are happening right now, and it feels like Lammas-season, but Lughnasadh has long been the least-popular of the \u201cgreater\u201d or \u201ccross-quarter\u201d sabbats. If online readership is an indication of how we feel about the sabbats (and I think it is), the numbers show that Lughnasadh is not all that appreciated in the greater world. Over on John Beckett\u2019s Under the Ancient Oaks, Lughnasadh ranks<\/a> as the least popular sabbat. Things aren\u2019t quite so dire at Patheos Pagan as a whole, but Lammas still ranks in the bottom rung<\/a>. <\/p>\n Sabbats are not a popularity contest, but it\u2019s fascinating to notice what resonates with us and what doesn\u2019t. When Lughnasadh\u2019s also-ran status comes up you\u2019ll often see people attributing it to people \u201cliving in urban areas\u201d and \u201cbeing out of touch with nature,\u201d and while that might sort of be true, I don\u2019t think it really holds much water. Modern Paganism first thrived in urban areas, and the Pagan impulses of the early 19th Century began in those spaces. People are well aware of their disconnect, Paganism exists to fill<\/em> in those disconnects. <\/p>\n In a similar vein, I sometimes hear \u201cwe aren\u2019t close to the grain fields anymore\u201d as a reason for Lammas\u2019s lack of popularity. Again, Paganism grew up in the city, and it was hard to spot a grain field from London in 1954 or even 1854. Besides, equating Lammas simply with bread is pretty lazy. Lammas is a harvest festival, no matter where we live there\u2019s the potential to harvest something<\/em> in early August. Given how much Witches especially love Samhain, you\u2019d think that the first harvest festival we\u2019d be a cause for real celebration, isn\u2019t it the first indication of Autumn?<\/p>\n There are a few mundane factors that should be considered when writing about Lammas. In many places it\u2019s ungodly hot, it\u2019s hard to get excited for every much when the weather is like that. Despite the excitement often attached to the word \u201csummer,\u201d the Summer doldrums are a real thing. In normal times, early August is also a time for vacations and the like for some people. It\u2019s hard to celebrate Lughnasadh in a hotel room. But many of those caveats also apply to other sabbats in some way. It\u2019s ungodly cold at Imbolc for instance and it\u2019s also a time for the Winter blues, and people often travel at Yule. Lammas\u2019s lack of popularity involves more than just mundane concerns. <\/p>\n I think there are reasons far beyond disconnect and mundania for the shrug that generally greats Lughnasadh. And I know that some of you are out there reading this yelling at your phones that Lughnasadh is your favorite holiday. We all get that, it has to be someone\u2019s favorite holiday. I\u2019m sure there are people out there who love Arbor Day passionately too. Beyond the usual explanation here are some reasons why Lughnasadh isn\u2019t as popular as some of the other sabbats. <\/p>\n Stories To Tell<\/strong><\/p>\n Most sabbats revolve around stories, some supported by history, others less so, but they are all stories none the less. Think about Yule for a moment, there are dozens of stories to tell at Midwinter every year. There are gift-givers like Santa Claus, and deterrents against bad behavior like the Krampus. The Oak King and Holly King fight for supremacy on the solstice, and hundreds of thousands of Pagans stay up all night long to witness the sun\u2019s rebirth. There are traditions like wassailing, and evergreen trees grace living rooms across the world. <\/p>\n At Samhain we carve pumpkins and place them on our porches while we wait for the Veil Between the Worlds to drift away and offer us reunion with our beloved dead for just a moment. We celebrate the freedom to be a Witch without most of the awkward glances, and we call upon Persephone while eating pomegranate seeds. Samhain-season has long been a time for divination as well, and many Witches celebrate it as the start of the Wheel\u2019s next turn. <\/p>\n Do you see what I\u2019m getting at here? STORIES! So many of the sabbats have stories upon stories, Lammas has bread? We don\u2019t decorate our houses for Lammas or argue about whether or not the Lughnasadh Llama is a traditional Pagan figure. Some of us make corn dollies, or maybe prepare for their first visit from the Cailleach, but that\u2019s two stories, and doesn\u2019t quite compare to the thousands of stories we can tell at Ostara and Beltane. <\/p>\n I\u2019m sure the lack of traditions at Lammas is tied into the intense amount of work that occupied (and occupies) those in agricultural settings. Yule, and even Samhain, were times of less labor. Lammas was a time of even more labor. It\u2019s hard to tell a story when you\u2019ve been working for 14 straight hours to bring the harvest in. Because of this the stories that developed around the other cross-quarter days are largely absent from Lammas. <\/p>\n Lugh Is Not Sexy<\/strong><\/p>\n I mean no disrespect to Lugh, who was a god of many skills, and a fine figure to honor at Lughnasadh. Heck, his name is even in Lughnasadh, making him one of only three deities explicitly tied to a sabbat (the other ones being Brigid at Imbolc and Eostre at Ostara), but that doesn\u2019t make him sexy. There are no blogs dedicated strictly to Lugh, and I can\u2019t help but wonder if Lughnasadh would be more popular if it were called Hekatesadh. (Also in the running there was Morrigansadh.) <\/p>\n (There\u2019s also Mabon of course, which might be a fourth sabbat named after a deity, but have you ever been to a ritual where Mabon is celebrated at the Autumn Equinox? I haven\u2019t either.)<\/p>\n Perhaps if there were an ancient agricultural celebration focused on Demeter in early August Lughnasadh would be more popular, but there\u2019s just not. It\u2019s weird to me, that despite the name Lugh being in Lughnasadh, he doesn\u2019t figure in very many rituals. I realize as I write that whatever John Beckett\u2019s up to<\/a> is a big exception, but I feel like I\u2019m more likely to run into a John Barleycorn ritual in August than I am one focused on Lugh.<\/p>\n It probably doesn\u2019t help that Lugh, despite his many skills, isn\u2019t explicitly tied into many of the more common Lughnasadh tropes. Perhaps if Lugh were a sacrificial-agricultural deity his holiday would be more popular? Or what if Lugh was called Lugh the Baker<\/em> and was well known for his delicious croissants, loaves, and scones? I\u2019m having fun here, but when I\u2019m done writing this I\u2019m going to go poor a solid libation just to stay in his good graces.<\/p>\n The Over-Culture <\/strong><\/p>\n This is the big one, and while many Pagans protest when you mention that they might like Samhain and Yule more than the others because those sabbats are directly reflected in the over-culture\u2019s Halloween and Christmas, it\u2019s still most likely true. On my last trip to the grocery store the front doors weren\u2019t decorated with pictures of bread and ripe fields of grain. Instead there was no mention of anything seasonal at all. If there are any signs up right now other than \u201cwear a mask!\u201d they are generally related to \u201cback to school.\u201d <\/p>\n The sabbats simply feel bigger and more important when it seems like everyone else is celebrating them. Ostara, which doesn\u2019t have any sort of ancient pedigree, is wildly popular, often more so than Beltane, especially in the United States. This is no doubt due to its proximity to the Christian Easter both on the calendar and linguistically. It sucks that Christianity has such a big impact no our holidays, but it does! <\/p>\n And I know some of you are going \u201cwell Lammas became a Catholic holiday,\u201d but I think it\u2019s safe to say that \u201cnobody cares,\u201d because they don\u2019t. Groundhog Day is a bigger deal. I\u2019ve never turned on the news to find a story about how people were celebrating Lammas today, yesteryear, or hundreds or thousands of years ago. It\u2019s just not on our radar. <\/p>\n None of this means that Lammas\/Lughnasadh isn\u2019t worth celebrating, it most certainly is! There are lots of cool traditions having to do with time of year out there. But for the reasons mentioned here it\u2019s most likely that it will continue to be one of the \u201cugly ducklings<\/a>\u201d on the wheel of the year.<\/p>\n Lughnsadh isn’t an ugly duckling sabbat simply because we are disconnected from agricultural cycles. Beyond that usual explanation here are some reasons why Lughnasadh isn\u2019t as popular as some of the other sabbats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":493,"featured_media":13699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[266,486,54],"class_list":["post-13687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lammas","tag-lughnasadh","tag-sabbats"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/212\/2020\/07\/IMG_3533.jpg\")
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Find Jason Online<\/a><\/span><\/h5>\n
Transformative Witchcraft: The Greater Mysteries<\/a>\u00a0\n
The Witch\u2019s Wheel of the Year: Circles for Solitaries, Circles, & Covens<\/a>\u00a0\n
Raise the Horns on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 Jason\u2019s Twitter<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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\nPictures Of My Cats & Sunflowers on Instagram<\/a><\/span><\/h5>\nWitches, Whisky, & Wit (Podcast)<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n<\/span><\/h5><\/span><\/h5><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"