Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

[JamesByrne]

Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Lughnasas a neopagan fire festival but its more popular in celtic neopaganism at the mo to call it a harvest festival. There are loads of folk traditions to draw on from the folk culture and in some celtic nepaganism the corn king is diminshed as the focus in favour of the cultic cailleach who is central in the folk traditions. She is incarnate in the crops, she makes the crops grow then dies when they are harvested. The trad is the last sheaf was called the cailleach and was brought indoors so thered be a good harvest next year. There are corn dolls and loads of other handicrafts that go with the time with the fraughan berry harvest you could probably have a lughnasa smoothie!

I personally dont think it works as a neopagan harvest festival though. I love folk tradition and its the major part of my neopagan spirituality but I think in a neopagan context it doesnt work because of conflicts between folk culture and medieval culture. I feel personally that I have to choose between the fire festival with lugh and the harvest festival with the cailleach.

[Witcher]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

It all depends on your outlook. To a Pagan more interested in keeping with cultural traditions and being more accurate, re-birthing or recreating if your will, then getting it "right" would be important. To a lot of other people in the contemporary Pagan community like Wiccans, then the Wheel of the Year's festivals are more contemporary and accuracy really isn't the goal. I mean, Mabon is completely invented as a term and concept. I think it works as a contemporary Pagan festival just fine as long as we admit that we are changing and adapting everything for our own contexts.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

I don't think harvest festivals and fire festivals are mutually exclusive. Most of the major festivals seem to have had bonfires. And the word bonfire may well have originated as 'bone fires' i.e. fires of sacrifice.

[ChainLightning]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Yes. Works as a Pagan one, too.

[JamesByrne]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Yes. Works as a Pagan one, too.

Why do you say that Chain? Are you debating the term neopagan or are you speculating on what it used to be like historically?

[ChainLightning]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Why do you say that Chain?

As far as Lughnasa goes, I totally agree with Mrs. P. I'll even go further with that etymology. "Festival", more specifically its root, fest, and the word feast have had a very close relationship for their entire co-existence. They come from the same place. Following that line of thought, that we're talking about a harvest feast, then, it only stands to reason that there would be fire for cooking, at the very least, and probably for light and perhaps safety, in those days, for after dusk.

Trying to exclude just one particular kind of feast from a seasonal feast makes my skin crawl.

Are you debating the term neopagan or are you speculating on what it used to be like historically?

Honestly? IMO, "neopagan" is a pointless fiction, created solely for the purpose of differentiating a modern belief system, even though most sources are far from contemporary. The exceptions each have their own name, so there's no need to give them another one. The umbrella term Pagan is quite sufficient without have to say New Pagan. New, old, backward, upside-down it's still the same group of world views and doesn't need extraneous prefixes to further confuse the unfamiliar.

Not only that but, to me, "neopagan" sounds like a self-serving special term, to describe one's infatuation with some current fad.



In either case, I find it to be a senseless term, with no meaning and no redeeming qualities. If people want to talk specifically about modern Paganism, say "modern Paganism". If they want to compare and contrast the world views from centuries ago with a more contemporary dogma, there are already a host of formal, informal, recognized and accurate adjectives to separate one pagan from another Pagan. Like the 'spaghetti monster', neopagan shouldn't be used to describe serious religious traditions.

/soapbox


I know. I have a very strange perspective. But I have (albeit dubious) logic behind it. :devil:

[thalassa]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

In either case, I find it to be a senseless term, with no meaning and no redeeming qualities. If people want to talk specifically about modern Paganism, say "modern Paganism". If they want to compare and contrast the world views from centuries ago with a more contemporary dogma, there are already a host of formal, informal, recognized and accurate adjectives to separate one pagan from another Pagan. Like the 'spaghetti monster', neopagan shouldn't be used to describe serious religious traditions.

/soapbox


I know. I have a very strange perspective. But I have (albeit dubious) logic behind it. :devil:

You are not alone.

And, actually, most of the Pagans I know IRL have this view also. The only place I ever see "neopagan" bandied about is on the internet.

[Jembru]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

I thought we'd quite clearly explained in another thread, why so many of us feel uncomfortable with the term neopagan. It's fine if the op wishes to identify his own beliefs with this expression, but I think Chain was just trying to point out that it's not the umbrella term it is being attempted to stand for in these thread titles.

As for Lughnasadh: I have Wiccan roots, so still copy the 'sun festival' 'fire festival' terminology. They all, in one way or another involve fire though. I couldn't imagine Yule without my log symbolising the returning sun-god for example. I just considered the different lables for the quarter and cross-quarter feasts, to be explaining the fact that four of them specifically mark the stages of the sun while the other four mark the different growing seasons. They still have their own themes and as they're technically two calendars overlapped for want of more frequent reasons to have feast, drink and have fun, then they tend to overlap somewhat too. But I don't sweat the details.

So short answer: it is both!

[JamesByrne]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

As far as Lughnasa goes, I totally agree with Mrs. P. I'll even go further with that etymology. "Festival", more specifically its root, fest, and the word feast have had a very close relationship for their entire co-existence. They come from the same place. Following that line of thought, that we're talking about a harvest feast, then, it only stands to reason that there would be fire for cooking, at the very least, and probably for light and perhaps safety, in those days, for after dusk.

Trying to exclude just one particular kind of feast from a seasonal feast makes my skin crawl.

I appreciate your attempt at etymology but germanic languages have no baring on a celtic festival. They are Oenachs not festivals but if you want to recontextualise them as renne faires because it gives them a context you can understand then go ahead.

Honestly? IMO, "neopagan" is a pointless fiction, created solely for the purpose of differentiating a modern belief system, even though most sources are far from contemporary.

I know what you think from your original post Chain. My point in asking was to challenge you on an act of pure bad charactor. There is a thread about neopagan v pagan this is about lughnasa a festival thats a few days away and a big deal in my culture. Its got nothing to do with neopagan or pagan in bringing it up here when youve nothing to say about lughnasa is just pure trolling. I like a good troll myself its lots of fun but I dont really want to troll the forum and flame bait isnt james bait sorry bud.

It is disrespectfull to me as a forum member and to my culture to try and twist the thread into some hostile argument. If theres no space for Irish culture on the board say so and Ill go.

- - - Updated - - -

I thought we'd quite clearly explained in another thread

Me too, why flog a dead horse.

As for Lughnasadh: I have Wiccan roots, so still copy the 'sun festival' 'fire festival' terminology. They all, in one way or another involve fire though. I couldn't imagine Yule without my log symbolising the returning sun-god for example. I just considered the different lables for the quarter and cross-quarter feasts, to be explaining the fact that four of them specifically mark the stages of the sun while the other four mark the different growing seasons. They still have their own themes and as they're technically two calendars overlapped for want of more frequent reasons to have feast, drink and have fun, then they tend to overlap somewhat too. But I don't sweat the details.

So short answer: it is both!

Thats cool both is an interested approach. A theory is only a theory lots of them can be right in different ways or from different perspectives.

One of the reasons I think they conflict is the original festival and the contemporary festival are different things. The neopagan one would be distinct again imo but prior to this it was based on the original and now its trying to mix the two in calling it a harvest festival. Its oil and water though.

For example in medieval lit Lughnasa is an auspicious time for marriages and the famous trial marriage used to legitimise handfasting in a celtic context was supposed to start at lughnasa but in a contemporary context lughnasa is an inauspicious time for weddings because the harvest is a time of death not the fertility usually associated with marriages. Imo thats down to the shift in the 8th century visible in the archaeology away from the cow and towards grain naturally as the focus of Lughnasa changed some of the meaning changed too. Prior to the 8th c we farmed cattle almost exclusively and grazing land to support the massive herd existed to the exclusion of grain crops. I dont know what exactly the difference was when Lughnasa was about cows but given Imbolg or Oimelc was about Ewes milk id imagine it was because an animal concieved at Samhain would be born at lughnasa and a cow would give milk with a calf at foot. We had no crops so no hay and the dry stock was slaughtered at samhain, it would be the last chance for a cow to survive for the winter by becoming pregnant.


My best guess. Whatever the reason for the fertility it was there and now its gone its one example of how the two contradict each other. Even the name changes in later lit. Lughnasa in the 8th by the 10th we get Bron Trogain the sad harvest mentioned. Im sure even a lazy neopagan has noticed that.

[ChainLightning]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

Alright. I'm confused. I'm not supposed to answer questions that are put to me. That's fine. I answered the original question, in this thread, since it asked. I don't need to linger. I'll be leaving the thread now.

[Witcher]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

The Pagan festivals, celebrations, whatever, (as they were originally celebrated are not part of anyone's culture. Ireland has been staunchly Catholic for centuries. It's like a Greek Hellenic recon talking about Greek Pagan festivals and their "importance to their culture" even though Greece is dominated (and I mean dominated) by Orthodox Christianity and has been since the days of old Byzantium. The festivals that have survived the ages have been thoroughly Christianized and us contemporary Pagans (also not a huge fan of the term neopagan) are not carrying on some unbroken tradition. To act like Ostara (just to jerk one example out) has "survived" is silly because if you went to any part of the Western world and found a celebration of this festival it would be drenched in Christian rewrite that is centuries old, i.e. it would be Easter. No matter what Lughnasa might mean in Ireland, it certainly isn't Pagan in a country so influenced by Catholicism. Pagan celebrations of it are, by definition, going to be reconstructions at best so it seems silly to be hung up on acting like there is a continuation when there isn't. There is an ancient precedent, a very very long interlude of Jesus Jesus Jesus and then contemporary Pagan reconstruction. And any reconstruction is going to differ from the past.


EDITED:

Also your use of terms like "lazy neopagans" just shows the elitism of so many self-styled recons. You go around killing Wiccan and "neopagan" holy cows like you're showing us something we haven't known since Gardner and Valiente were cooking up histories. Nothing new here, and recons don't own the realm of good scholarship.

[JamesByrne]

Re: Does Lughnasa work as a neopagan harvest festival?

The Pagan festivals, celebrations, whatever, (as they were originally celebrated are not part of anyone's culture. Ireland has been staunchly Catholic for centuries. It's like a Greek Hellenic recon talking about Greek Pagan festivals and their "importance to their culture" even though Greece is dominated (and I mean dominated) by Orthodox Christianity and has been since the days of old Byzantium.

Also your use of terms like "lazy neopagans" just shows the elitism of so many self-styled recons. You go around killing Wiccan and "neopagan" holy cows like you're showing us something we haven't known since Gardner and Valiente were cooking up histories. Nothing new here, and recons don't own the realm of good scholarship.

ok 3 things

1 thats why theres a split between the hellenismos and the ethnikoi, the Hellens had a touch stone and they lost it over that thinking. Most thinking men wont have anything to do with people who try and lift their culture from them like a pickpocket taking a wallet. You can ask, you can borrow if you give back but dont piss in my pocket and tell me its raining.

2 lunasa is celebrated in ireland as a part of our traditional culture, we are raised on the stories they sacralise our landscape and we have folk trads on top of that. Knowing those things is a part of being naturally accultured and our universities are the cutting edge of celtic studies, so its not surprising that I find foreign neopagans lazy in comparason

3 Im not a feckin recon just cos I can read a book. I could ask a 10 year old here a question and theyd give me a more considered opinion in their alphabetti spagetti then a recon is capable of. legitimising something in an idiom and railing against other people who dont join you in it is not doing basic research. And doing basic research is nothing to brag about. Its certainly not something that would define a form of neopaganism. Even wicca is a reconstructed fertility cult recon is no different apart from the fact its an affectation where in the 50s people were limited but genuinely dedicated.

EDIT: So I agree with you. Feck recon and recons annoy thing and things that they are.


Glad I stopped back to this non stop festival of happy times. Ive got stuff to do in the morning gnite. :sick: