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Imbolg
2nd February |
Imbolg is more commonly known as Candlemas, a pretty Feast of Lights.
Like all of the Celtic Great Sabbats it is a fire festival but the emphasis is on light as opposed to heat to mark the first ray of sunshine to pierce the gloom of Winter. It celebrates the quickening
of the year and the first stirrings of Spring in the womb of Mother Earth.
This festival is rooted in history and many customs are associated with it, such as spring cleaning.
In some parts of the world people light the new sacred fire of the New Year at this time instead of at Easter as it is the ancient new beginning when the re-awakening of all of nature can be seen in the first buddings of Spring.
Imbolg or Candlemas is fittingly associated with Brigid, the fertility bringer and no-where
can the belief in St Brigid be seen more than in Ireland.
There are more holy wells associated with St Brigid in Ireland than there are with St Patrick, the
patron saint of the land - because Brigid came centures before St Patrick did.
St Brigid's Day is 1st February, the eve of Imbolg and there are few who will not have heard of
St Brigid's crosses, made of rush or straw, which are still widely available in Ireland. By the side of the holy wells associated with St Brigid, bits of rag and cloth can be seen, tied to bushes and trees and these are testament to the number of people who still secretly invoke St Brigid's help in her guise as the Lady of the Rags.
Candlemas is also known as the Wives' Feast Day which is still celebrated in Scotland and in many other parts of the British Isles.
Leaving the Christmas Tree in place, minus its decorations but with its lights in place, is another Imbolg tradition still practised in many places. If the tree still has green needles on Candlemas Day then good luck is portended
One of the oldest and more commonplace beliefs associated with Imbolg is that fine weather on this day means more winter but bad weather means winter is over.
Even in Christian tradition the crown of lights is worn by a very young girl to symbolise the youth of the year. The festival represents natural turning point between Winter and Spring and should be celebrated with candles |
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This is a festival in honour of the sacrificial god Lugh or Llew, a loaf mass relating to the corn harvest and the killing of the corn king. The festival is associated with Lammas and the ancient customs can still be seen in celebrations either the Sunday before or the Sunday after 1st August when people in many parts of the British Isles still gather on hilltops. Lugh was a fire and light God, a conqueror who spared the life of a captured enemy in exchange for the secret of agricultural propsperity. He who mates with the Goddess at harvest is laready her waning year consort and Lughnasadh is celebrated with Tailltean trial marriages when can be dissolved after a year and a day by the couple returning to the place of their union and walking away from each other in different directions. The Tilltean Fair in Ireland is still celebrated to this day by games and contests. |
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A high celebration of the full joys of summer, the Summer Solstice. But the sabbat recognises what has gone before and what is still to come. The end of the reign of the Oak King and the approach of the reign of the Holly King.
Fires are often lit on hillsides in celebration of the Sun God who is at his highest and brightest and his day is at its longest. |
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The Spring Equinox, 21st March, is when light and dark are in balance and the light is gaining.
It is a solar festival which has a sacrifical mating theme and one that is reflected in the Christian
Easter with Jesus's willing death then resurrection.
Spring is the traditional time for mating ceremonies throughout nature, it is part of the natural cycle of things.
Even the humble Easter Egg is symbolic of ancient beliefs and represents the World Egg,
laid by the Goddess, split open by the heat of the Sun God and the hatching being celebrated
each year at the Spring Festival of the Sun. Decorated eggs are still rolled down hillsides in
many parts of the country on Easter Monday. |
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The Feast of the Dead, the time of the year when the veil between the old dying and the new still unborn is very thin. Hence the celebration of Hallowe'en. Dead friends seek comfort with the living at a warm hearth.
The life and death aspect of this sabbat stems from olden days when it was impossible for farmers to keep cattle alive during the winter months. So they were slaughtered and salted. Crops too had to be in or abandoned to the Snow Goddess.
This was also the very last day of the old Celtic year when New Year's Day was November 1. It is a time of year that belongs to neither past nor future for both meet.
Samhain is a defiant celebration of life and fertility in the face of the closing darkness of Winter. Sacrifices to appease the dark forces were made and children unwittingly still symbolically carry on that tradition today by lighting bonfires on Guy Fawkes' Night which has taken over the Samhain Burnings of sacrificial kings and criminals. |
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The sabbat of Yule takes place on 22nd of December, not the 25th. Yet it does represent the story of the Christmas nativity in the Christian version of the sun's rebirth. This is the Winter Solstice and marks the death and rebirth of the sun God, the vanquishing of the Oak King by the Holly King.
The wren is regarded as the little king of the waning year and is killed by his waxing year counterpart the robin redbrest who finds him hiding in an ivy or, symbolically, a holly bush.
In ireland Wren Boys Day is St Stephens Day, 26th December and in some villages the wren boys are groups of adult musicians, singers and dancers bearing a tiny model of a wren on a bunch of holly.
Lamps burning all night on Midwinter Eve is a tradition still followed today with a single candle burning in the window on Christmas Eve lit by the youngest in the house.
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The Autumn Equinox represents the balance of light and dark with dark gaining.
This is a time of rest after labour - a time to celebrate the gathering of the harvest and give thanks.
The sun is still shining but its heat has waned.
The Equinoxes represent a time of balance and repose. They are the ceasing of one phase and the intering of another.
Whereas the Spring Equinox represents a quickening, the Autumn Equinox represents a slowing down to enjoy the fruits of one's labour. |
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 Beltane - April 30th
Beltane - light is dominant Beltaine and Lughnasadh are the two greatest festivals representing sacrificial mating and rebirth. And Beltaine marks the beginning of Summer - a time for rejoicing and making hay while the sun shines. The signs of procreation are all around and humans follow suit, hence the dancing round the May Pole and a hundred other traditions that are to do with fertility. In many lands there is a Beltaine Fire Festival a feature of which is young people jumping over the fire to bring themselves husbands or wives and others jumping it to bring them good luck. Another well-known custom is washing your face with May Day dew first thing on May 1st as the dew is believed to have magical properties to beautify the skin.
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