LUGHNASADH

Lughnasadh (Loo-nah-sah) or Lammas is the first of the three harvest festivals (Lammas, Autumn Equinox & Samhain). The foods are ripening - fruits, berries, wheat and grain - and it's time to celebrate.

Lughnasadh means the funeral games of Lugh, referring to Lugh, the Irish sun god; however, the funeral is not his own, but the funeral games he hosts in honor of his foster-mother Tailte. For that reason, the traditional Tailtean craft fairs and Tailtean marriages are celebrated at this time.

As autumn begins, the Sun God enters his old age, but is not yet dead. The God symbolically loses some of his strength as the Sun rises farther in the South each day and the nights grow longer.