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    Dating of British / Gaelic festivals

    Technically this is a "Celtic tradition" subject, but people in the UK often partake in these celebrations, with good intentions and respect, even if they do not follow a greatly Celtic path.

    With Lammas/Lughnasadh approaching, it occurred to me to consider, how much fluctuation was there in the dating? Does anyone know how the dates of Samhain etc came to be fixed, particularly as they have been fixed to the modern Gregorian calendar? If we are to have found any calendar in Iron Age Britain I imagine it would have been similar to the Coligny calendar. It seems more probable that the festival dates would have been fixed by lunar (or solar) positions, rather than the rather arbitrary dates we have at the moment, attached to an arbitrary Christian calendar.

    It also occurred to me that the four festivals are actually nearly exactly two new moons after the solstice/equinox that they are near. For example, if we went by new moons, Imbolc would have been celebrated (this year) on the night of February 8-9th (an extra full moon means it is pushed forward a week, last quarter occurs on 1st instead) Beltane would have fallen on the night of May 6-7th, Lughnasadh: August 2-3rd, and Samhain: October 30-31st. This can't be a coincidence that they are evenly spaced against the solstices.

    What do you guys think?
    Last edited by Briton; 31 Jul 2016, 11:38.
    I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
    Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
    But that day you know I left my money
    And I thought of you only
    All that copper glowing fine

    #2
    Re: Dating of British / Gaelic festivals

    I wonder if the "fixing" of them was a side-effect of Romanization and post-Romanization. Rather than pegging the festival to an actual event, e.g. the literal first grain harvest or the blooming of hawthorns or lamb births, they came to be pegged to a specific date that roughly corresponded to the events being celebrated. The Romans had a fondness for fixed festival dates, with only a few "moveable" feasts, while other Mediterranean and Western European cultures were more flexible in the timing of their celebrations.

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      #3
      Re: Dating of British / Gaelic festivals

      Whilst I sympathize with the idea of flexibility, there would have to be some sort of organization as some feasts lasted many days. It would be impossible to put the bread and meat on hold until the first grain has been ground, which could be indefinitely. Maybe they only started organizing after the reaping? So it was a mix of flexible and fixed.
      I'm not one to ever pray for mercy
      Or to wish on pennies in the fountain or the shrine
      But that day you know I left my money
      And I thought of you only
      All that copper glowing fine

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        #4
        Re: Dating of British / Gaelic festivals

        Lammas was the Roman/Christian holy day of the blessing of the bread used in the bread and wine sharing in their mass. It was meant to give a Christian meaning to the pagan festivals. The semi fixed date is based on the solar calendar and is the date that roughly falls at the midpoint between the solstice and equinox. There are those who use the astrological year to "fix" the date and those that used a lunar event tied to a certain number of days following the solstice or before the equinox.
        The actual date of the event, when fixed astronomically is always within a day or two of the "standardized" date but over time it will change due to the changes in the tilt and revolution of the earth around the sun.
        I like to think of it as a neat and tidy way of splitting the year into eight "evenly" spaced celebrations. While the name is Celtic the practice is nearly world wide.
        Last edited by DragonsFriend; 01 Aug 2016, 07:54.
        The Dragon sees infinity and those it touches are forced to feel the reality of it.
        I am his student and his partner. He is my guide and an ominous friend.

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          #5
          Re: Dating of British / Gaelic festivals

          A good book to read on the subject of how the current WotY holidays have evolved to what they are now are is Ronald Hutton's Stations of the Sun...its been a while, so I can't say for sure that it covers what you are asking here specifically, though I know he does talk about dating a little bit.
          Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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            #6
            Re: Dating of British / Gaelic festivals

            There is evidence that the were aware of the times associated with samhain, imbolc and winter solstice. They were certainly aware of the megalithic structures which identified the times for these events in association the solar/lunar events and not with a calander. We have evidence of the importance of Tara on which stands the mound of the hostages known as knowth which lights up with the quarter positon between the equinox and solstice thus identifies samhain and imbolc for that is when the sun enters the passage at Knowth. The Celts and their predecessors needed to be aware of the times of the season as a means of survival and they would be aware of many changes indicating seasonal changed from the return of the salmon to migrations of the birds but the Monolithic sturctues would have given the most precise timing. Newgrange the home of Dagda identified the exact day of the winter solstice. Many other sturctures throughout the British Isles/Ireland also identified cycles of the year and even thought the Celts did not build them (built by the Tuatha de Danann?) they would be aware of their significance.

            The celts were an oral culture, a poetic culture and very connected with the natural world around them. Exact dates were less important than the celebration itself especially in the case of samhain where distance between the otherworld and the world of the Celts was at its thinnest and the most likely time to come in contact with the otherwould the sidhe/annwn.

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