August – Lammastide - Lughnasad

Lammas means 'loaf-mass', a Christian identity given to obscure the old Lughnasad festivities. It was the day when harvesting officially got under way. Loaves made with the first of the year's ripened corn were taken to church for a blessing. The later festivals, celebrating the harvesting being completed, remain with us including the community-encompassing harvest supper, or similar meal of some kind.
Lammas was also one of the Celtic Quarter days, when rents fell due and contracts were renewed or terminated and the fairs were big; and often bawdy.

Country folk came to town, to sleep among strangers on straw-lined floors in a very friendly sort of way. Taking sexual partners during the 11-day fair was a common occurrence and the couples were accepted as Lammas brothers and sisters.
Lammas was a good time for couples considering a more long-term relationship to take the plunge by handfasting, joining hands through a hole in an ancient stone to plight their troth to each other for a year and a day. If they were still together after the trial period they would become man and wife. Stones throughout the South West and the UK are still used for handfasting ceremonies to this day.
Lammas fairs also continue throughout the country, though many in rural areas today may be hiding behind titles such as --- (Town or Village) --- Fair or Revel or masquerading as a fete.

Many of the surviving medieval Lammas Fairs possess Charters from monarchs that granted local privileges, a day without being subject to taxes or establishing a monopoly for certain traders plying their wares during the period.
But, by mediaeval times the festivities already had an ancient, half-forgotten history.
The pre-Christian Lughnasad festivities had set the pattern for celebrations and ritual that covered a period of time, some ten to fourteen days’ duration and the sanitised version followed suit.
 
Lugh, (Loo) the god/demon, was a self-proclaimed master of all things, due to his possessing a formidable weapon the Sword of Light. Eat your hearts out Star Wars fans. Lugh was the embodiment of an autumn sun that ensured the harvest but, to bring on the autumn sun, Lugh had to first kill his grandfather Balar – aka Bel or Baal, commemorated at Beltane, the May festival. Balar was the glaring, one-eyed summer sun, and Lugh killed him by knocking his eye out with a sling.

Shakespeare with his Titus Andronicus nor horror writers of today with their head-revolving, eye gouging episodes are a match for the gory stories that surround Lugh the ancient God or Demon. Readers might also take look at Brian Friel's play ‘Dancing at Lughnasa’.
Ulster especially honoured Lugh, as he was the half-father (another story altogether) of Cuchulainn, who single-handedly defeated the rest of Ireland while the warriors of Ulster were crippled with the pains of Tabour, explained in the epic Tain bo Cuilange. Only once did Lugh himself have to intervene to assist his precious son.

Cuchulainn's performance on the battlefield was aided by his own secret weapon, the gae bolga, a spear with special barbs for disembowelling opponents but for those that want to know the gruesome details of what happened to Cuchulainn, or Lugh during the throes of fighting frenzy the local library is for you.

For the faint hearted, a Lammas warning.
Faeries regularly visited fairs throughout the year, with the intention of stealing human babies and replacing them with changelings.
Lammas offered mortals the opportunity to attempt to reverse the process by placing a suspected changeling child in a hole in the ground overnight in the hope that the original child would be returned.

Farmers, suspecting that a poor flow of milk from their cows was the work of witches could benefit from Lammas by putting a ball of hair in a pail of milk.
It was said to be sufficient deterrent to witches who would then leave the cows alone.

Lammas time is when local, Exeter people remember their local saint, St Sidwell.
The church bearing her name is just beyond the east wall of Exeter. Sidwell was an heiress with a wicked stepmother who coveted the young girl’s lands. The jealous woman hired some assassins who used a scythe to decapitate the defenceless female. A spring gushed forth where the girl fell – and healing wells were formed

Her murderers tried to cover the wells, but to no avail, so they hid her body. Night watchmen saw a shining light from heaven, followed it and found the body. They ran as the headless corpse arose and carried her head to a place where she laid the head on the ground. Next morning the people of Exeter found Sidwell dead, but with her head in place. Later, a church was built on that place and, although rebuilt many times, the church is there today. Two wells are recorded as existing nearby, St Sidwell's Head well and St Sidwell's well. The latter was only demolished at the end of nineteenth century and, both are said to have provided water with healing qualities to Exeter.

But is an older, pagan practice hidden beneath Sidwell’s name?
Sidwell is derived from two words, scythe and well, which infers the person post-dates the tale since there is no suggestion handed down that the name foretells the murderous event.
Was Sidwell then a necessary Christian invention that cloaked a persistent pagan harvest-sacrifice ceremony? 

Lammas and St Sidwell take us two days into August.

There’s a lot of folklore about you know. Oh! Almost forgot.

Last month we mentioned Nessie Day and included the facts that; 
“By the 1950s photographs of the (Loch Ness) beast or beasts started appearing
In the 1970s high- profile naturalist Sir Peter Scott put his seal of approval on the believers' cause, basing his faith on some spectacular close-ups and giving the monster an acceptable Latin and scientific name, Nessiteras rhombopteryx, ' the Ness monster with the diamond- shaped fins'.
Or did he? Could it be there is more to this than just the name he gave Nessie?”

In answer to the questions we left we would now add that ill informed researchers still occasionally quote ‘Nessiteras rhombopteryx’ as being the scientific name for one of the UK’s favourite monsters.
However, cryptic crossword-crackers have long pointed out that the Latin name that Scott christened the (possibly) mythical beast with was actually an anagram of

'monster hoax by Sir Peter S.'

© Roy & Ursula Radford