Lughnasadh is the name of a major Celtic feast that can be traced back to early medieval sources. It means ‘Festival of Lugh,’ a god who appears frequently in early Irish literature, and was held on or about August 1st, which in the British Isles marked the beginning of the autumn season. In America, however, we find ourselves at mid-summer at this time due to climatic differences. According to historian Ronald Hutton in his 1996 book The Stations of the Sun, this pagan Celtic festival and its Anglo-Saxon counterpart, Lammas, are attested to in official records as early as the seventh century. They were both intended to celebrate the opening of the harvest season, when the first batches of corn were ready to be eaten (pp.327–331). The evidence for how these festivals were celebrated is scant, but the sources suggest it generally involved open-air feasting, hill-climbing, and assorted sports and games, which seems appropriate for the warmest season of the year.
Given that our celebration of Lughnasadh occurs at mid-summer, it makes sense for the theme of our festivities to be “Heat,” the phenomenon that does more than any other to preserve life. The sun’s heat warms the surface of Planet Earth, allowing lifeforms of every description to thrive. The heat of Earth’s core causes the convective circulation that generates the planet’s magnetic field, which in turn preserves its protective atmosphere. Even at the bottom of the ocean, cut off from the sun’s rays, extremophile organisms exist in vents of boiling water heated by subterranean magma. Where there is heat, life flourishes. We can’t imagine life without heat, and this concept infuses our language. We recognize the life-preserving power of heat when we speak of “warm feelings” among friends or of how “hot” an attractive person is. Heat allows us to function and keeps us going when we would otherwise start to shut down. Lughnasadh, then, is a time to celebrate our persistence in the face of adversity.
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