Lammas Festival

Lammas Festival, celebrated every August 1, is a wheat harvest festival that is also known as Loaf Mass Day. The event encourages celebrations and public gatherings where people thank God for the season's first harvest. In early Ireland, it was not good to harvest grain before Lammas Festival. If you harvested earlier than that, it meant that the current harvest was finished before the following crop was prepared. This implied that the farmers would have been unable to support their community. The word "Lammas" comes from an Old English expression that means "loaf mass." The first grain sheaves were cut on Lammas, and the first loaves of bread for the season would have been made by that evening. The first seasonal loaves were blessed by the church during mass in early Christianity.

Early Britons prepared bread from the fresh crop to put on church altars to celebrate Lammas Festival, and they also adorned lavish feast tables with corn dolls. Nowadays, modern-day pagans bake bread and cakes to celebrate the historical grain harvest. Some observers celebrate with a harvest ritual. Casting a circle and uttering words to the earth in thanksgiving for the harvest are parts of some of these rituals. Following that, everyone will share a loaf of bread and sometimes a glass of wine to wash it down. After that, there is also feasting. Normally, during this time, one prepares this feast using their harvested crops (if they have their own garden).

Duration: August 1

Location: The United Kingdom