by Nora Lisius
Lugh, from whom we take the name "Lughnasadh," was the son of Cian, of the Tuatha de Danaan, and Ethlinn, who was the daughter of the king of the Fomor, Balor of the Evil Eye. Lugh, however, was given to his foster mother Taillte to raise, inasmuch as Balor wanted him dead. A prophecy had been given out that Balor was safe and could be killed by none but his own grandson.
Lughnasadh means "the funeral games of Lugh," but the games were established by him to honor his foster mother, Taillte, whose valiant heart gave out after clearing a forest for agricultural cultivation. Taillte was the last queen of the Fir Bolg, who I understand were an agrarian people. Depending on which version of the story you read, Taillte either told the people gathered about her death bed that she wanted the funeral games established in her memory, or Lugh decided himself to honor her in this way. In the first version, she is said to have guaranteed that Ireland would never be without song, so long as the games were observed.
The Taillten Games, Anglicized as Teltown, were apparently a rowdy affair. I ran across this quote several times in my research, but have not so far been able to pin it down to a specific "Medieval eyewitness," so take it for what it is worth: Teltown Lughnasadh consisted in "trumpets, harps, hollow-throated horns, pipers, timpanists, unwearied fiddlers, gleemen, bone-players and bag-pipers, a rude crowd, noisy, profane, roaring and shouting." It sounds like a grand time.
The Teltown Games grew over time into a great clan gathering. One would find musicians, statesmen, craftsmen, dancers, athletic events, horse races and even a marriage market. Legal and political types gathered to settle matters of policy for the coming year, while the young folk came to find a potential mate. Apparently the girls would line up on one side of a chinked wall, with the boys on the other. You basically just reached through and grabbed someone at random. He or she would be your hand-fasted partner until the next year's games rolled around, at which time you could solemnize and cement the union, or you could simply make the symbolic split and go your separate ways. The couple would simply turn their backs on one another and walk in opposite directions as a way of saying, sorry-it just didn't work out. I don't know what would have happened if the year-long union had produced a child.
Lughnasadh was above all a harvest festival, possibly with ties to the Mother (or Earth) Goddess. It was the first of three harvest festivals, with the first fruits ripening and the stores of last year all but eaten up. It was followed by two more harvest festivals, Mabon (or autumn equinox) and Samhain. Because of its strong association with harvest, Lughnasadh had other names such as Feast of Bread, Harvest Home, Bilberry Sunday and Cornucopia. It was Christianized as Lammas, meaning "loaf mass" and referring to the custom of placing freshly baked bread on the altar of the church.
As mentioned earlier, Taillte is associated with cultivation and with the agrarian Fir Bolg. As such, she may indeed represent a relatively modern incarnation of the Earth Goddess. In some Lughnasadh celebrations, a young woman or a symbolic replica of one would sit in a place of honor while dancers and musicians whirled about her and tried to pull a ribbon or garland off of her for good luck. One writer has suggested this is a remnant of the earlier honoring of the goddess of the harvest.
And then there is the prevalence of horses at these gatherings. The white horse frequently represents Epona or another similar deity who is a granter of sovereignty. Without her imprimatur, a king was truly not a king. In some areas the people rode their horses directly into the sea at Lughnasadh, reminiscent of Lugh and his magic steed.
Another ancient association that was connected with some Lughnasadh celebrations is the sun wheel, or Catherine wheel, another tradition Christianized with a saint's name to disguise its original purpose. A wagon wheel was coated with tar, set ablaze, and rolled down a hill. This probably represented the "beginning of the end" of the sun for that year. Its power was just beginning to diminish at first harvest and would be extinguished, only to begin again, at the winter solstice.
Lughnasadh has never been a holiday with which I felt much resonance, but when you begin to uncover the hidden ancient traditions, it is really quite fascinating. Those of us who can just go to the supermarket and buy our food at any time of the year probably have no sense of what it meant to these early agrarian people to see that, yes, the earth was beginning to provide for them once again and would likely continue to do so through Samhain. It's not hard to see the genuine relief and rejoicing behind the Lughnasadh celebrations.
References
http://www.chalicecentre.net/lughnasadh.htm
http://owlsdaughter.blogspot.com/2008/07/lughnasadh-eve.html
http://www.angelfire.com/de/poetry/Holy_Days/Lughnasadh.html
http://merganser.math.gvsu.edu/myth/teltown.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lughnasadh
http://www.irishculturalsociety.com/essaysandmisc/lughnasadh.html
Nora Lisius lives in Central Oregon, where she has served as an officer and board member for the High Desert Celtic Society and occasionally writes for their newsletter, "The Seanachie." Before the onset of middle age and arthritis, she was also a member of their Scottish Country Dance performance team. Nora holds a degree in English literature from the University of Oregon and continues to pursue a life-long interest in folklore and mythology, particularly as pertains to the Celtic and Nordic peoples. She is currently studying with Tira in the Hazel Grove. Nora can be reached at nlisius@bendbroadband.com
The Teltown Lughnasadh Festival copyright © 2009 by Nora Lisius, all rights reserved. Used with permission. Top of Page
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