Witchcraft and many other contemporary Pagan paths such as Druidry follow an eightfold cycle of festivals, one every six weeks. As a Pagan, I follow this path myself – I’ve been practicing Paganism as a Druid and, more recently a Wiccan, for over forty years. Each of these seasonal festivals gives structure to my year, and is packed with meaning. They feature in my recent book, The Occult Almanac: A Year of Esoteric Events, Sacred Traditions and Secret Lore.
We should remember, however, the way in which the Wheel of the Year is currently practised is very different from the way that the ancient Celts would have celebrated it. Conventional Pagan thinking holds that the current Christian festivals – All Souls’, Christmas etc – were appropriated from more ancient Pagan celebrations. Although there is some truth in this allegation, it’s not the whole story, as we’ll see below.
1. Samhain (31 October)
pronounced ‘sowen’
Often associated with Hallowe’en, Samhain is regarded by many modern witches and Pagans as a festival of the dead and the beginning of the Celtic New Year.
There is little firm evidence that the ancient Celts regarded Samhain as the beginning of a New Year in quite the way that many modern Pagans do. It was certainly an important seasonal festival in Ireland, associated with the beginning of winter and with the time when cattle were brought in from summer grazing and livestock were slaughtered for the winter. Customs varied considerably across Britain and Ireland, and bonfires formed part of the celebrations in some places and periods.
Today, however, many Pagans do treat Samhain as the start of their ritual year, but mainly as an occasion to remember and connect with their ancestors and with those who have died during the preceding year. Pumpkin carving, apple bobbing and trick-or-treating may take place alongside more sombre observances such as a ‘dumb supper’, at which places are laid for the dead and a ritual meal is eaten in silence.
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2. Winter Solstice (21 December)
The Winter Solstice is sometimes described as the Pagan equivalent of Christmas, and the two celebrations share a number of familiar characteristics. It is a festival of fire and light at the darkest point of the year, when evergreens may be brought into the house and food and drink shared in celebration.
For many modern Pagans, the Winter Solstice marks the rebirth of the sun: the story of how the Goddess gives birth to a divine child and the returning light begins to overcome the darkness. Some modern traditions call this child Mabon, although this is a relatively recent usage. In some modern Pagan traditions, the solstices also mark the continuing struggle between the Holly King and the Oak King. At the Winter Solstice the Oak King defeats the Holly King and reigns as the light strengthens towards summer; at the Summer Solstice the contest is reversed. This is a modern mythic tradition rather than one that can be securely traced to the ancient Celts.
Today, Pagans may gather at Stonehenge, Newgrange and other ancient monuments to mark the solstice. Some prehistoric sites were deliberately aligned with significant points in the solar year: at Newgrange, for example, the rising midwinter sun enters the passage and illuminates the chamber. After the solstice, the days begin – slowly at first – to lengthen again.
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3. Imbolc (1 February)
pronounced ‘oimelc’
Equating to the Christian festival of Candlemas, this is also a festival of light. Imbolc is one of the traditional Irish seasonal festivals and, for many modern Pagans, is particularly associated with the goddess Brigid, or Bride. The name Imbolc is sometimes explained as meaning ‘ewe’s milk’, reflecting the beginning of the lambing season. An early Irish text, Tochmarc Emire (The Wooing of Emer), associates Imbolc with the milking of ewes at the beginning of spring. The precise origin of the name, however, remains uncertain, and several different etymologies have been proposed.
Brigid was an important figure in early Irish tradition. She is associated particularly with poetry, healing and smithcraft, and with fire and inspiration. She shares her name with St Brigid of Kildare, one of Ireland’s most important saints, and the relationship between goddess and saint has been much debated. It is possible that traditions associated with the earlier deity became attached to the Christian saint, although we cannot simply assume that everything subsequently claimed about St Brigid originated with a pre-Christian goddess. Customs varied from place to place, but might include a special meal, leaving food or clothing outside for her blessing, or making a distinctive cross from rushes or straw. These Brigid’s crosses, usually with four arms woven around a central square, remain one of the best-known symbols of her feast.
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4. Spring Equinox (21 March)
Often called Ostara, the Spring Equinox, which falls around 20 or 21 March, is one of the two points in the year when day and night are approximately equal in length, the other being the Autumn Equinox in September. From this point onwards, in the Northern Hemisphere, the days become longer than the nights.
Witches and Wiccans commonly call the Spring Equinox Ostara, while some modern Druids use the name Alban Eilir. This time of year is strongly associated with eggs and hares, which inevitably raises the question of its relationship with Easter. It is sometimes claimed that Easter, its eggs and its rabbits are simply Christian versions of much older Pagan traditions, but the real history is considerably more complicated.
The name Ostara ultimately derives from Ēostre, a figure mentioned only once in surviving early medieval literature. Writing in the eighth century, the English monk Bede claimed that the Anglo-Saxon month Ēosturmōnaþ had been named after a goddess called Ēostre, in whose honour feasts had once been held. That tantalising sentence, however, is virtually all the direct evidence we have for her. The nineteenth-century scholar Jacob Grimm later proposed a corresponding Germanic goddess whom he called Ostara, and the idea subsequently became influential in folklore and, eventually, migrated into modern Paganism.
Ēostre is sometimes described as a goddess of the dawn, and her name has been connected linguistically with words referring to the east and the dawn. Despite a persistent modern claim, however, her name has nothing to do with the word ‘oestrogen’.
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5. Beltane (1 May)
Beltane is the Pagan festival of the beginning of summer, and in modern Paganism it has become particularly associated with love, fertility and sexuality. It coincides with the traditional May Day celebrations, and a great many handfastings – the Pagan equivalent of marriage – take place around this time. The origin of the name Beltane is uncertain. It has traditionally been interpreted as something like ‘bright fire’, and attempts have sometimes been made to connect it with a deity called Bel or Belenus. The evidence for this is uncertain, however, and there is no good reason to connect Beltane with the Near Eastern god Baal, either. One of the earliest written references to Beltane occurs in Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary), an Irish glossary compiled around the ninth or tenth century. This describes cattle being driven between two fires at Beltane for protection against disease before the summer season – a practice which endured at various times into the 20th century. Fire, smoke and the protection of livestock remained important features of later Beltane customs in Ireland and Scotland.
Like other turning points in the calendar, May Eve acquired a considerable body of supernatural folklore. It could be a dangerous or uncanny night, when witches and fairies were believed to be particularly active and precautions should be taken against them. This survives particularly vividly in the customs of the Welsh Calan Mai, the first day of May, and the preceding eve, Nos Galan Mai.
Other protective customs became clustered around May Eve. In Ireland, primroses might be scattered or placed at doors, while hares found among cattle could be treated with suspicion because of the widespread belief that witches could take this animal form. In Scotland, rowan was extensively used as protection against witchcraft and harmful supernatural forces, and rowan crosses might be placed around the house or byres.
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6. Summer Solstice (21 June)
The word solstice comes from the Latin words for ‘sun’ and ‘to stand still’, and the occasion is therefore sometimes described poetically as the ‘sunstanding’. We may also know this season as Midsummer, although the traditional Christian feast of St John the Baptist falls a few days later, on 24 June, with St John’s Eve on 23 June.
The Summer Solstice marks the point at which the sun reaches its greatest height and we experience the longest day and shortest night. In some modern Pagan traditions, this is represented by the continuing contest between the Oak King and the Holly King, as described above.
As with many Pagan festivals, Midsummer customs became closely entwined with the Christian calendar. The feast of St John the Baptist on 24 June acquired many of the traditional characteristics of Midsummer, particularly the lighting of bonfires on St John’s Eve. Across Europe, the season was associated with fire, divination, healing and protection against harmful supernatural forces.
Midsummer also has a distinctly magical and uncanny quality in folklore and literature. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the most famous example: its human characters enter a nocturnal landscape in which the ordinary rules cease to apply and the fairy folk create confusion, transformation and mayhem.
Plants gathered at Midsummer were sometimes believed to possess particular power. Among the best known is St John’s wort, whose yellow flowers appear around this time of year and which acquired a considerable reputation as a protective herb. Obviously associated with St John, it was used in folk tradition to ward off evil influences and harmful spirits. Intriguingly, St John’s wort is still used today as a herbal treatment for mild to moderate depression, although this modern medicinal use should not be confused with its traditional magical one – and it can interact significantly with other medicines.
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7. Lammas (1 August)
Also called Lughnasadh (pronounced ‘loona-sath’), Lughnasadh, or Lammas, this is the great harvest festival of the modern Pagan calendar, a time of fruitfulness, abundance and celebration. Earlier 19th-20th Century writers such as James Frazer and Robert Graves tended to interpret ancient Pagan religions primarily in terms of fertility and the cycle of growth, death and rebirth, but modern scholarship is more cautious. Agricultural societies were obviously deeply concerned with successful crops, healthy livestock and the fertility of the land, but that does not necessarily mean that their practices can simply be described as ‘fertility religions’.
The name Lughnasadh is associated with the Irish god Lugh, while Lammas comes from the Old English hlāfmæsse, or ‘loaf-mass’. Traditionally, a loaf made from the new grain could be brought to church and blessed, marking the beginning of the harvest season.
Harvest inevitably has a darker side, because gathering the crop involves cutting down the plants that have grown throughout the summer. The traditional folk song ‘John Barleycorn’ depicts this process: barley is planted, grows, is cut down, processed and ultimately transformed into beer or whisky. Later folklorists and modern Pagans have often interpreted this as a symbolic death and sacrifice of the grain.
Irish tradition explains Lughnasadh rather differently. According to medieval accounts, Lugh established funeral games in honour of his foster-mother Tailtiu, who died after clearing the land for agriculture. Assemblies associated with Lughnasadh included games, athletic contests, horse racing, trading and other communal activities. Marriage and courtship customs also became associated with some Lughnasadh gatherings. Later tradition tells of temporary or trial marriages contracted at such assemblies.
Lughnasadh is well attested in medieval Irish literature, but it is much harder to establish how widely an equivalent festival was celebrated throughout the ancient Celtic-speaking world. Its surviving traditions are particularly strong in Ireland, while Lammas belongs to a different, Anglo-Saxon and Christian tradition. Modern Paganism has brought the two together as different expressions of the beginning of the harvest season.
Today, Pagans may celebrate Lughnasadh with gatherings, feasting and bread-making, and by decorating altars or homes with grain, corn dollies and other symbols of the harvest. Bonfires are also part of some modern celebrations.
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8. Autumn Equinox / Mabon (21 September)
The Autumn Equinox, sometimes called Mabon by modern Pagans, is the point in the year when day and night are once again approximately equal in length. Unlike the Spring Equinox, however, the balance is tipping towards darkness: the days will now become progressively shorter until the Winter Solstice.
For many Pagans, this makes the Autumn Equinox a time both for celebrating what the year has brought and for letting go of things that are no longer needed. You might celebrate by baking a loaf of bread – perhaps in the shape of a corn plait – or decorating the house with autumn leaves, fruits, nuts and other produce of the season.
The name comes from Mabon ap Modron, a mysterious young man in medieval Welsh literature. His name can be understood as ‘the Son, son of the Mother’, and he appears most famously in the tale Culhwch and Olwen. Mabon is taken from his mother when he is only three nights old and has been imprisoned in an unknown place ever since. In fact, Mabon is a modern name for the Autumn Equinox. It was adopted in the twentieth century by the American Pagan writer Aidan Kelly as part of the developing terminology of the modern Wheel of the Year. There is no evidence that the ancient Britons called the Autumn Equinox Mabon, or celebrated a festival of that name.
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If you’d like to know more about these festivals, and about other aspects of contemporary Paganism, the occult and other related traditions, you might like to check out my recent book, The Occult Almanac: A Year of Esoteric Events, Sacred Traditions and Secret Lore.
Words by Liz Williams.
The Occult Almanac: A Year of Esoteric Events, Sacred Traditions and Secret Lore is available now.
