A Lughnasadh Feast Menu

July 31, 2011 at 6:08 am (Food, Holidays)
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Dingle Pies
Champ
First Fruits Platter
Bannock
Blueberry Crisp with Ice Cream
Blackberry Wine or Punch

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Dingle Pies (traditional meat pies sold at Lammas fair in county Kerry, Ireland)
Pastry ingredients:
5 cups flour
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1/2 cup very cold water
Filling ingredients:
1 lb boneless lamb
1 large onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 potato, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
1 egg, beaten
Salt and pepper

For the pastry, cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender until mixture looks like coarse sand. Add the chilled water and mix briefly. Turn the pastry out onto a floured surface and knead briefly. Wrap tightly and chill briefly while preparing the filling.
Cut meat into small pieces. Place in a bowl with the diced onion, carrot, potato and celery. Mix well and season well with salt and black pepper. Preheat oven to 350F.
Cut one-third off the pastry ball to save for the lids of the pies. Roll out the rest. Use a small plate as a guide and cut the dough into six circles. Lay these out flat on the work surface and divide the meat and vegetable mixture among the six circles, piling it in the middle of each one.
Roll out the remaining pastry into six smaller circles. Lay these on top of the fillings. Brush the edges of the larger pastry circles with a little water and roll them inward along with the smaller circles, pinching the upper and lower layers together to seal them.
Pierce a small hole or cut a slit in the top of each pie so that the steam of cooking can escape. Brush the pies with beaten egg: place on greased baking sheets. Bake for one hour. Serve hot or cold.

Champ (Poundies)
Champ is mashed potatoes, Irish-style, with butter and green onions. Instead of gravy, they are traditionally served with a well of butter in the center for dipping each bite.

4 pounds potatoes
1/2 pint milk
1 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
Salt and black pepper

Peel potatoes and cook in boiling water. Drain potatoes and mash thoroughly. Add milk, green onions, salt and pepper, and half the butter.
Champ is served piled high on the dish, with a well of melted butter in the center. It is eaten with a spoon from the outside, each spoonful being dipped in the well of melted butter. Makes: 8 servings.

Berry Punch (use whatever berry is in season)
2 qt. berry juice of choice, chilled
1 can (6 oz.) frozen concentrated pink lemonade
1 bottle (32 oz.) sparkling water, chilled
2 ice cube trays filled with frozen berry juice
fresh berries

Mix juice and lemonade concentrate in punch bowl. Just before serving stir in sparkling water and frozen juice cubes. Top with berries. Makes 25 servings.

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A LUGHNASADH RITE

July 24, 2011 at 6:27 am (Holidays, spirituality)
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(A part of my “little ritual” series.  Materials from, and adapted from ADF, the Carmia Gadelica, and other sources.)  For this ritual, bring bread and flowers in addition to the usual “little ritual” supplies.

*(Edited to note: I wrote this ritual when I was a Celtic Reconstructionist and scheduled it for this later date. For info on how to convert this ritual to an ADF format, see the “little rituals” article highlighted above.)

Circumambulation (Circle ritual area three times. Skip this if ritual is in your own back yard.)

Purpose
“I am here to keep the old ways and honor the Kindred
at the time of Lughnasadh.”

Three Realms Blessing
“As it was, as it is, as it evermore shall be —
I stand at the Center of Earth, Sky and Sea.”

Fire Lighting
“I kindle the sacred fire in wisdom, love, and power.”  (light fire)
“Sacred fire, burn within me.” 

Hail to the Spirits
“Hail, Earth Mother, whole and holy, honor unto thee!” 
(touch the earth, give offering)
“I offer now as the ancients did to the Kindreds Three!”
“To the Fair Folk, I give offering and welcome.”  (place offering in bowl or fire)
“To the Ancestors, I give offering and welcome.”  (place offering in bowl or fire)
“To my Deities, I give offering and welcome.”  (place offering in bowl or fire)
“Lugh and Tailtiu, I honor you on this day.”  (place offering in bowl or fire)

Bread Blessing  Holding up bread, say:
“O Lady of the Harvest, Lord of the Grain,
Bounteous Mother and Father,
for the nourishment you have given, I am thankful. 
I honor the spirit of the grain. 
I honor the spirit of the sun and wind and rain
which have gone into the grain.
May the Spirits of Life live within me.”
Eat some of the bread and offer some to the Spirits.

Blessing Cup
“Ancient Ones, a Child of the Earth calls out for your blessing. 
Hallow these waters, O holy powers. 
Grant me the blessing I seek. 
May the Wisdom, Love and Power
of the Deities, Ancestors and Sidhe flow into this Cup of Blessing.” 
(Hold cup out with both hands and feel the energy flow into the cup.)
“This cup now holds the waters of life!
I drink this in the name of the Kindred.”  (drink deeply)
“May these waters I have received
flow through my body and through my spirit,
and may they pour out into the rest of my life.” 

Farewell to Summer
“Summer lingers here but soon will fade. 
The shortening days will be felt by
the Earth and Her children in crisp air and turning leaves. 
And so I bid my farewells to summer…”
Toss flowers, one by one, into the water
and watch them float downstream and out of sight.
If desired, for each flower you may name an aspect of summer and say “Farewell _____.”

–Optional Reading: 
“Farewell to the Season of Beltane”- from the Celtic Devotional by Caitlin Matthews (p.71),
or “Nothing Golden Stays” (original vesion) by Robert Frost:

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
In autumn she achieves
A still more golden blaze
But nothing golden stays.”

Parting Blessing
 “I offer my thanks to the Mother of All.
I offer my thanks to the Deities, Ancestors and Fair-Folk.
May the Three Sacred Kins bring joy to all beings,
and renew the ancient wisdom.
As it was, as it is, as it evermore shall be.”

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My Lughnasadh Playlist

July 17, 2011 at 6:09 am (Chants & Songs, Holidays)
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1. The Berry Song - Linda Hirschhorn (Gather Round: Songs of Celebration and Renewal)

2. John Barleycorn - Steeleye Span (Below the Salt)

3. Lughnasadh - Damh the Bard (Herne’s Apprentice)

4. Blossom Lifter (an ADF chant)

5. Hoof and Horn - Kate West (The Hearth of Hecate)

6. Corn Rigs - Paul Giovanni (The Wicker Man)

7. Scarborough Fair - Simon & Garfunkel

8. Lughnasadh – Omnia (Pagan Folk)

9. Harvest Season - Heather Alexander (Wanderlust)

10. August – Anúna (Invocations of Ireland [DVD])

11. Lammastide – from the musical “The Woman in White”

12. The Wind That Shakes The Barley - Solas (Sunny Spells and Scattered Showers)

13. The Hills of Connemara - Gaelic Storm (Gaelic Storm)

14. Lughnasadh Dance - Damh the Bard (The Cauldron Born)

15. Song of the Grain Harvest – Squirrel (Mother Earth We Sing to You) [unfortunately, no longer available]

16. Summer - Asia (Asia)

17. King Harvest - The Band (The Band)

18. Fields of Gold - Sting (The Best of Sting 1984-1994)

19. The Scythe - Gaia Consort (Evolve)

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Lughnasadh

July 10, 2011 at 6:56 am (Holidays)
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For many in the Neopagan community, Lughnasadh is one of the lesser celebrated holidays. For Celtic Pagans, however, it is a big deal; one of the four Celtic High Days. It hasn’t always been my favorite of the big four. August in the Ozarks is hot. Hardly anyone I know wants to have an outdoor ritual in August. But Lughnasadh has grown on me over time, especially as I’ve learned more about it.

Lughnasadh means ‘the gathering of Lugh’. Despite the name, Lughnasadh was not a holiday in honor of Lugh, but rather, it was called by him to honor his foster-mother Tailtiu (pronounced tal-chuh). Her name meant “Great One of the Earth”. Legend has it she died in the effort of clearing land for agriculture. The Lughnasadh games were her funeral games. Her burial place was Teltown. An older name for this High Day is Bron Trogain, which means “the earth’s sorrowing in Autumn”.

Although it is widely believed in the Pagan community that Lugh was/is a sun and harvest god, many scholars believe this simply wasn’t so. What we do know about him is that he was/is a lord of every skill, patron of the arts, traveling, influence and commerce. He was called Lamfhada or ‘of the long arm’ in Gaelic because of his great spear and sling. He was called “the shining one”, but so were many other Celtic deities and this may have been simply a general term they used to refer to their gods, just as ADF Druids do today. The epithet “shining one” could mean something other than the sun as well. Many wonder if he was a lightning god, for in County Mayo thunderstorms were referred to as battles between Lugh and Balor.

In early Ireland Lughnasadh was the beginning of harvest season. It was a celebration of first fruits of the land, but also a harvest of the people’s talents. It was a time of inter-tribal gathering, a time for races, competitive games, trading (especially of sheep and horses), reunions, marriage/handfasting (also called “Teltown marriages”), and of fairs. Lughnasadh was also a traditional time for gathering on hilltops, and for picking fraughans (wild blueberries). In fact, picking blueberries was such a big tradition that another name for the holiday was “Blueberry Sunday”. (For in the Christian era, the celebration was moved to the closest Sunday to Lughnasadh.) In “Celtic Rituals”, Alexei Kondratiev speaks of a tradition in which flowers are were worn in procession to the hilltop site and later buried in a commemoration of the ending of summer.

The traditional date of this High Day was August 1st, though Lughnasadh themed fairs take place throughout the month of August in Ireland. One of these is the famous Puck Fair. In the Christian era, Lughnasadh was renamed Lammas, a contraction of the words ‘loaf’ and ‘mass’; a loaf of bread was made from the first ripe grains and taken to church to be consecrated upon the altar.

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The High Days of the Celtic Year

January 4, 2010 at 6:58 am (Holidays, spirituality)
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Many of us who were introduced to Paganism through some form of Wicca received an explanation of the generally accepted eight holidays most commonly observed by the majority of the Pagan community. Depending on your teacher, your group’s style, or the books you read, the background of these holidays may have been explained in depth or very little. Many Wiccan “how-to” books barely mention a specific deity name, and some groups I’ve done ritual with simply skim over deity invocations and the like.When I decided to explore Celtic Paganism in depth and learn more about the character of the deities and take part in the older traditions, many of these holidays developed a greater meaning for me. If you are new to all this, may it be the same for you in time…

For the ancient Celts, the year was divided into two seasons; these were gam, which meant winter -the dark half of the year, and sam, which was summer -the light half of the year.

At the beginning of the cycle is Samhain – it marks the end of the sam season and the beginning of the gam season. Taking place at the eve of November it is considered both a beginning and an end- the Celtic “New Year” and a time of remembrance of the ancestors. At the opposite of Samhain is Bealtaine at the eve of May ushering in the sam of the year.

The light and dark halves of the year, the sam and the gam, are further divided in two. These divisions are Imbolc at the beginning of February and Lughnasadh at the beginning of August.

I will talk more about these as each season approaches.

In the Celtic way of thinking, a day begins on the previous night- the eve. Everything begins in darkness. This is so true… think about the darkness of the womb, the blackness of space, the rich deep darkness of the soil.

Celtic feast days would traditionally last seven days- three days before, and three days after. Few people can take that much time to celebrate anything anymore. But if you think about it, this kind of gives some lee-way to planning a ritual. There has been at least two calendar changes since the Celtic feast days were established- after the Roman invasion, it was to the Julian calendar, then in the mid-18th century to the Gregorian calendar, which put everything 11 days before the “old reckoning”.

But originally, the holidays were not dates on a calendar, but changed from year to year in accordance with actual seasonal indicators like cycles of certain animals and plants, and subtle changes in weather patterns. (For example; Bealtaine was when the Hawthorne was in bloom.)

About the Equinoxes and Solstices

And so you may have noticed that the Celtic High Days, or Feast Days totaled four. There is less information to go on as to how the ancient Celts celebrated the solstices and equinoxes. Monuments like Newgrange and Stonehenge that were designed to align with the rising of the solstice sun were built before the Celts arrived on the scene, but may well have been used by them. However, it is evident that it wasn’t until later times that Celtic peoples started celebrating the solstices and equinoxes, and this seems to have been from Norse influence.

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Feast Day Bread

August 9, 2009 at 12:34 am (Food, Holidays)
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banockThe following recipe and it’s variations are the breads I make for the Celtic feast days.  They are not exactly traditional- the basic recipe was originally for “Bride cakes”, I varied it somewhat to my tastes.  Traditional bannock bread is a very basic biscuit-like bread, so if you leave out the sweetener, this recipe is more authentic.  Also, it is traditional to not use any metal in the making of bannocks.   The Bealtaine Bannocks custom of throwing a knob of bread over your shoulder can be found in “Survivals in Belief Among the Celts” by George Henderson, page 262.  Bannocks are also eaten a Lughnasadh, however there is no variation to be noted.  Also, Barm Brack is usually a yeast bread- I use this recipe because I’m lazy.

Brigit’s (Sweet) Bannock
½ cup butter
¼ cup honey (optional)
2 cups oat or wheat flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup chopped dates (optional)
¼ cup (or more) buttermilk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and honey together.  Mix the dry ingredients together and add the dates, stirring to coat them with flour.  Stir dry ingredients into the butter-honey mixture and add enough buttermilk to make a dough.  Roll into a ball and flatten onto a greased cookie sheet for one regular sized bannock, or divide into two balls and flatten bannocks onto cookie sheet.  With a knife, mark the bannock(s) with an equal-armed sun cross.  Bake 15 minutes or until slightly golden.  Serve for the Celtic feast day of Imbolc.

Bealtaine Bannocks
Knead the bannock dough in your hands into a round loaf.  Pinch up nine knobs on the top of it. Dip the bannock into caudle before baking. How to use the knobs: while looking into the Bealtaine fire, break off a knob from the bread and throw it over your shoulder and say what spirit you are offering it to and why. (For example: “I give this to fox, so that he doesn’t eat my hens.”)

Samhain Barm Bracks
Prepare as for sweet bannocks, but to dry ingredients add½ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon nutmeg.  Wrap the following items in wax paper and fold into the dough before baking: a ring, a coin, a stick, a pea, and a thimble.  This is a divination to be done at Samhain.  Whoever gets the ring in her or his slice of bread will be married.  The coin represents riches, the pea- poverty, and the thimble- spinsterhood (or marrying a spinster).

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