In the northern hemisphere we are reaching the days of high summer. 

Now I want you to take an excursion into the past. There is more to this time than those lazy, cray days of summer would suggest.   This is Lammastide.  It used to be celebrated with a great feast for the first harvest on Lammas Day or 1st August.   

Lammasitde is a curious word. How did that arise?

Our ancient Celtic forebears revered the passing seasons.  On Lammas Day the sun moves into the autumn cycle.  The first of August lies equidistant between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox.  This is this time when the summer changes from a season of growing to one of ripening and harvest.  The Celts celebrated through the pagan festival of Lughnasadh for which Lammastide is the successor.

The first summer harvests can be brought in for Lammastide.  Friut and vegetables are in abundance.  In Saxon and medieval societies, the first grain crop of the year was available.  This was an event of enormous significance.  The toughest conditions following a bad harvest often occurred in the following July when grain supplies were depleted and musty.  At Lammastide, medieval peasants could bake bread from the first cut of wheat.  

Later Lammas Day took a greater Christian significance.  The first bread was offered at Mass.  In old English, this offering was known as hlafmaesse (or loaf mass) suggesting a connection with the modern word.  Coincidentally “The Feast of Saint Peter’s Chains” which celebrates the deliverance of St Peter from prison takes place on the same day.

Lammas Day was a traditional day for feasting and craft festivals.  It was also a quarter day when rents fall due.  Some contend that the name comes from lamb-mass.  In some parts of England persons holding lands through feudal tenure were expected to bring a lamb to the mass as an offering on Lammas Day.

Our modern notion of Harvest Festival at the end of the harvest season comes from a much later tradtion.  In 1843 at Morwenstow in Cornwall, England the Rev R S Hawker revived the harvest celebration in the tradition of Lammas. The Lammas Day tradition had fallen out of favour on account of its pagan heritage.