 Hello people! I'm Ginny Metherill and I'm a fourth generation witch. Today's video is part of my ever popular almanac series which is a witchcraft for the month of August. This is a beautiful month. The grain is mostly harvested, vegetables are a plenty, it is a month of joy. So what I would like to do in today's video is to give you a general overview of the month of August and the witchcraft that you can carry out throughout the month and where these trends lead you. Then we'll get into the nitty gritty detail for the days of August and what works best and when and why. So with that introduction over let's start with the general overview for August. August is of course all about the grain harvest. This is when the barley, the wheat, the corn all is coming to fruition and is harvested aplenty. Of course us witches know the power of the grain harvest. This is what we call Lunasa or Lammas which is on the first of August. Although Lammas or Lunasa has been crystallised onto the first of August this festival actually run anytime from mid-July to mid-August and it takes about 10 days to harvest the grain. However I have done a video all about Lunasa and Lammas and how to celebrate it, its traditions and pagan rites and I'll put that up here for you should you want to have looked at it. But I did want to just talk in general about Leilines and Lunasa. So there is the St Michael's Leiline which runs from the north of coast all the way down to St Michael's Mount in southern Cornwall across the straight line the British Isles. The reason why it's called the St Michael's Leiline is because it passes through lots of Christian sites which are dedicated to St Michael. These churches dedicated to St Michael which is why it's called St Michael's Leiline because it passes through them were built upon pagan sacred sites and St Michael is basically the Christianised sun god because this is a sun leiline and around the first of August it is activated and you can watch the sun rising up on the north of coast and then streaking across the land which does take it a couple of minutes or so to the Cornish St Michael's Mount where the sun rises upon that and this sparks activity in the leiline and this leiline is the dragon line of old. It was not St Michael's Leiline but the dragon. Celtic goddess Grania was very much celebrated at this time and she is often represented as a corn dolly where the last sheath of corn in a field was taken and made into a corn dolly to be carried into the home to keep her spirit safe throughout the winter. Actually these ones here are actually last year's corn dollies. I must replace them because I didn't plow them back into the land. Oops but I don't necessarily think the spirit of the corn is in these now. I think he's already left this out in the land. Lamas has a couple of traditions associated with it. One of my favourites was the try before you buy tradition where if you wanted to say get married but you weren't completely sure about your partner you could try him or her for 14 days during the Lamas Festival which is about 10 to 14 days and if you still liked each other at the end of this festival you could then go ahead and get married. Now quite often babies were born from this union of the couple who then did not stay together however these babies were seen as blessed by the corn spirit and were especially loved and considered lucky. The Cornish of course because they're still quite pagan down that part of the world. They have a wonderful festival called the Morva and this is a festival that celebrates the some powerful land deities who were giants and these giants fought each other and the giant who was the conqueror took the other giant's daughter as his wife and this was the union that brought the land back together. The Cornish Morva is quite a nice tradition they celebrate it by enacting the battle between the two giants you know with one conquering the other. August is also the time when the fruits and vegetables in your garden are at their height but one that is often overlooked but not by us witches is the herb yarrow. Yarrow is the witch's herb and it has so many traditions associated with it it comes into its own at the end of July and August and is in its full flower and this is when we should harvest it. Now yarrow is used for a lot so I'm just going to go through a couple of the main uses that you would consider for yarrow. As a witch yarrow is a psychic herb a tea made from yarrow leaves and flowers will help you develop your psychic abilities it has an innate interest in opening the psychic self and holding the yarrow flower up to your eyes and pressing it onto them helps you develop your second sight. Yarrow will show you if your lover is actually true wear it on your chest and go and see your loved one spend as much time with them as possible and when you come back take the nosegay from your chest and place it in a drawer in the morning if it is still fresh and true then so is your lover. Yarrow was also used as part of fertility spells and scientifically yarrow does have a lot of the ingredients that help push blood to your womb and so therefore yarrow is a great one for use in fertility spells recommended that before hops were discovered as a beer ingredient it was used to make gruit with rosemary and bog myrtle as well and gruit was an early form of ale. If you make a paste of yarrow and apply it to bold patches on your head it will stop the boldness increasing it doesn't bring back hair but it does stop it developing further it is also a very traditional cure for insomnia put some dried yarrow in a cloth bag and have it on your pillow so that you inhale the fumes and you'll find you sleep true and dream beautifully. I love yarrow actually apart from Daisy and Dandelion I think the yarrow the witch's herb was the first wildflower I ever taught the kids so with the harvest gathered in and all the grain safely stored it is the time to use the fields for games this is shown in repercussions with all the fates and the fares that happen today in the English countryside and in fact our local village has got a couple of fates and fares happening which I can't wait for the flower one being my particular favorite although I'm quite keen on the dog show there we've got a dog fancy dress and I think my son and the terrier which is our little dog and don't dress up as George and the dragon it's going to be hilarious but we win fingers crossed we never win at the dog show our dogs don't catch the selectors eye and our costumes are never good enough so in the English countryside there is a lot of fates happening and a lot of them are repercussions of old pagan practices for example in Derbyshire they go all in for well dressing and this is where they have beautiful banners made of flowers which they decorate their wells with wells were considered sacred sites by our pagan ancestors and to dress a well is to basically give an offering to a well or to the spirit that lives within it and this is still happening today throughout Derbyshire but it's obviously become rather a competition because look what they do another great addition which is an echo of previous pagan happenings is the Burry man festival in Scotland this is where a man is dressed up and covered in the burrs from the burdock plant and then paraded through the area having a drink at varying people's houses and scaring the local children it must be some kind of representation of some land spirit but who knows where it comes from so that was my overview of august now we've done the overview let's go into the nitty gritty and of course we're going to start with the first of august which is the wiccan holiday of lunasa the wiccan sabbath of lunasa is the start of the autumn season because this is the time when the earth has stopped growing we're now setting seed laments therefore is one of the quarter day sabbaths indicating a new season has started and new seasons are always about fire so best thing for you to do is have a bonfire although i cannot recommend that now because it's too hot and you might burn down the wood like we did a couple of years ago so a candle inside carefully kept would be just as good the 12th of august is the night of the full moon the full moon this month is known obviously is the grain moon possibly the lynx moon or the corn moon and it is the moon of the harvest this moon happens in aquarius and so for all you aquariums out there this is your moon for the summer aquarius is all about friendship and so this is a great moon to draw down new friends so i would suggest make some moon water and then use that moon water in a cocktail at a party and that'll get you some new mates how much fun could that be the 12th and the 13th are also my favorite meteor shower day of the year which is the persians it is a great pity that you'll not be able to see them particularly well because the brightness of moon will overwhelm what do you do when you see a shooting star well of course you make a wish and wish magic should always be for yourself not for other people make sure you wish for your own wants and your own needs the 27th to the 29th of august is the knotting hill carnival now the knotting hill carnival will always have those people on stilts these known as moko jumbies and they are pretty wicked if you ask me moko was a west african god of retribution and a moko jumbie means god spirit jumbies just means spirit it has become and has taken over the years to mean a protective spirit and so the moko jumbies these tall men on stilts channel the moko jumbie spirit to protect and look down and cast their protective circles around those beneath them and it is this is a rather beautiful tradition taken straight from the slaves of africa who were shipped out to the caribbean and this is where it comes from the moko jumbies themselves were thought to reside in the silk cotton trees the huge ones that were found on the plantations because that is where the slaves attended to be hanged from and it is where they could help protect their spirit and make sure they passed over into the land of the spirits and so should you be at the knotting hill carnival make sure that you travel in the area of a moko jumbie my final date for august is the 27th where it is the new moon the new moon is in vergo new moons are always about new beginnings and new plans for the month ahead vergo is very much about organization and health very keen on you know making sure everything is right and proper and so this is a great time to start a new health regime a new diet a new organization of your cupboards in fact that is exactly what i am going to do because my house is a pit i need to go through every single cupboard clear it out give all the stuff we don't need to the local hospice and make sure that everything else is in tip top condition so i'm going to do that on the 27th august that also gives me enough time to think about it in my head and make sure i can plan it because i you know i procrastinate quite a lot and put things off i would love to know if you have any traditions for august do leave me a comment below otherwise don't forget my coven meeting is coming up over on patreon do go to patreon.com forward slash a ginny metherall come over have a look and join in otherwise please give me a like and subscribe because it really helps my channel if you do subscribe i'll see you in a couple of days