 Hello people! I'm Ginny Metherill and I'm a fourth generation witch. Today I want to talk about that wonderful pagan festival part of the Wheel of the Year Sabbaths that we know as Lunasa or Lammas. With this video what I'd like to do is to give you sort of a general overview of Lammas and its tradition and then I'm going to give you five ways for you to celebrate Lammas so that you can incorporate this wonderful festival into your everyday witchcraft. So with that said what is Lammas? Well there's two names for it there's Lammas and Lunasa. Lammas is the christianised version of this festival and just means loafmasp. Lunasa is the pagan traditional name for it in honour of the god you who was a god of fertility. This is an ancient pagan festival and it was formalised by the great Gerald Gardner into the Wiccan Wheel of the Year on the 1st of August which is the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. However this was a deeply symbolic festival. What it celebrated was the start and the end of the grain harvest so the festival itself would probably last two weeks or so depending on the amount of grain that had to be bought in. This means that traditionally it started when the first sheath of wheat was cut and this was always done on the day of the full moon in August. This is in order that the august full moon lit the evening up so that you could try and get that harvest in as soon as possible. It finished of course with the cutting of the last sheath of corn and this last sheath of corn was known as the neck. Now it is with this last sheath that John Barley corn who is the god of the corn or Lou or as he is sometimes known the green man is killed. His blood is spilt into the earth to ensure that the crop will come up again next year. And because of this bloodletting that we have in this particular time of year this is the time when the Druins and various other people would do human sacrifice so don't get lost when wandering around farmers fields at this time of year because you're likely to be captured and slain. I actually wouldn't put that past some of my neighbours to be fair you know they're quite old ways they really are. This is an important day for the Celtic calendar because it was a quarter day meaning this is the start of one of the four seasons and the season that we're starting is autumn. Weird I know it seems we're going into high summer and we're just starting the season of autumn but this is because our ancient ancestors felt that summer was a period of growth and increase and autumn was the period of maturation and fruit ripening so this is when the harvest starts hence why the first day of autumn is the first day that you cut your first grain. Nowadays of course has been formalised onto the first of august which by lucky hap this year the full moon for august falls on the first so it's a particularly auspicious day for everyone to have a harvest of sorts. The symbolism for this festival is rife the first sheath of corn to be cut considers that the blood is beginning to be spilt for john barley corn or that god lieu depending on you know your preference. This first sheath was then immediately taken to the mill ground and flour and then baked into bread when this bread was ceremoniously shared amongst the community that day and this was the start and so the festival went on with the workers hard at it in the fields until the last sheath was left to stand then there was a bit of a sort of competition wasn't there of jostling I mean you know I'm going to cut last sheath no I'm going to cut it and it was great honour and the workers would throw their sickles at the last standing sheath of corn to try and cut its neck because this symbolised the death of john barley corn or the god lieu with his death we are grateful and thankful because it means that the blood that he spills into the earth will ensure that the crop will rise again. The last sheath of corn once it was cut was not baked into bread it was ceremoniously gathered up and often created into corn dollies these corn dollies will be bought inside and kept very safe throughout the winter so that when spring came they could be taken out and plowed back into the earth to ensure next year's crop as it was considered that this last sheath of corn in its corn dolly form held the spirit of john barley corn so it was really very well looked after over winter however this custom will change in varying parts of the UK depending on where you were when I grew up you would find corn dollies at the field entrances to every single field of grain there would be a corn dolly set there and this was an appeasement to the land spirits the fairies and an offering to ensure that the corn came back so it certainly wasn't taken into the house and looked after it was also I mean it was terribly pagan where I grew up so it was also very well known that you could pick up the corn dollies you could admire their beauty and they were very intricate some of them were magnificent much better than the things that I'm showing you how to make these would then have to be carefully replaced back and I remember the first time I bought a corn dolly in showed it to you know one of the ladies of the village and I said oh look I found I found a corn dolly and she was absolutely furious but go and put it back young girl you can't take those I never took them again I have to say but they were very beautiful the festival itself has lots of traditions that go with it mostly it was considered it would be over by the 11th of August or thereabouts and so it's at this point that you could hold a hand fasting ceremony that is if you wanted to continue the trial run that you'd started at the very beginning of the Lunar Festival so on the 1st of August you might go off and live with your preferred mate for this period of 11 days and then at the end of it you could then decide to stay together or to leave and if you decided to stay together obviously you would have a hand fasting ceremony and in fact this is where hand fasting the word comes from because if they decided that they did like each other they were bound hand in fist the hand is held fast by another or they could leave each other and try their chances with somebody else so that is my general overview Lammas is a festival of the first harvest of grain and an honour of the world's bounty and fertility in the coming year so here are five ways that you can celebrate this festival in your practice and the first one is the most obvious you simply bake some bread now baking bread is a way of honouring just this time of year you can bake it to leave on your altar you can bake it to eat with your friends it doesn't really matter but here I'd like to show you my version of baking bread because I'm rubbish at making bread so let me show you a very quick herby soda bread that you could put on your altar and is delicious for this recipe you will need 250 grams of plain flour one teaspoon of salt one teaspoon of bicarb of soda 25 grams of butter 50 grams of oats and then a teaspoon of herbs and I've got marjoram and sage although I would have preferred time but I'd run out and lastly half a pint of buttermilk the recipe couldn't be easier simply mix all the ingredients together making sure you melt the butter first which I didn't and had to take it out and melt it simply combine all the ingredients very well together and when this is done pour it out onto a baking tray lined with paper and place in a preheated oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 30 minutes or so when it is beautiful risen and golden brown it is ready to remove whereupon you can place it on your altar or eat it with sausages like we did for lunch the second thing that you should do is to leave offerings for the fey possibly with that herby soda bread perfect for them this is a covenant between the human world and the world of the fey and you know you don't want to displease them because they might well cause mischief it is very old-fashioned tradition states that if you don't leave an offering at this time of year your corn will not ripen and your cattle will no longer produce any milk you do this on lammas eve which is the night before the first of august that will be the 31st of july the lammas eve is when the fairfolk come out into the fields and play on their fiddles throughout the night until dawn those that work the land have always known that the others as the fey are called are always at work with them helping with the ripening of the wheat or the setting of the fruit it doesn't matter you know what particular branch of agriculture you have this is where the fey help out the most and therefore it's important to acknowledge them at this time so number two is set out an offering for the fairfolk number three make a corn dolly this will house the spirit of john barley corn and you can hang it in your home over winter to then take it out in the spring and ensure that your garden grows bountiful i have made some corn dollies from this year's wheat i left one in the field as an offering for the fey and the others are going to decorate my lammas table and altar it is a fun craft to do and if you look back for my previous videos you will find out how to make them they are a little fiddly but i do think they're worth it number four is to make a crop circle now this is a slightly contentious one this one isn't it because people think crop circles are aliens coming down and they might well be but we've been making crop circles forever and it is part of our heritage you would make a circle in order to perform the rituals required to venerate the god lu or john barley corn or to make your sacrifice i do love a crop circle they do send little shiver up my spine the lammas festival finally number five is to climb the highest hill around you in ireland they used to climb the hills and honor the pagan gods at the top of them and then when christianity came over patrick was then considered the patron saint of ireland and croak patrick was climbed in order to venerate him but previous to this that peak had been climbed for varying pagan gods it's a rather lovely thing it's so that you can walk up to the top of the hill and see how far the good weather is going to last you and it's considered extremely lucky from there you can also do a couple of money spells because this is a time of abundance although no i think money spells are best in the spring actually yes i don't do money spells well you can but they're best done in the spring and so that is the five things that you should do to celebrate lammas bake bread leave offerings for the fey make corn dollies have a crop circle and climb to the highest mountain even if you just do one of those i think that would be pretty cool let me know in the comments if you're going to do any or all of them and otherwise don't forget to go and check out my cover which we've just done which is the healing circles which was absolutely magical i cannot recommend it highly enough go to patreon.com forward slash ginny meddoral for all the details that are there and in the meantime please don't forget to like and subscribe because it really helps my channel and enables me to carry on making videos for you and i will see you all next week