There were many different kinds of bread in the Middle Ages. The feudal lord had his white bread rolls made of wheat while the poorer folk had their bread made from corn, adding just enough wheat to make it palatable. This type of bread was kneaded into large round loaves or small flattish rolls depending on the maker and the oven used. The lowest of all the breads was a hard flat cake made with oats and corn. In times of scarcity, beans, bran or even acorns were added to the bread dough. There is no historical evidence that yeast was used before the 18th century, however, it is thought that fungus moulds and yeast residues left over in wooden bowls used for brewing helped the dough to rise. The increased size of St Brigid's bread when baked was seen as a miracle!
In Scotland, a Lammas bannock made from the first corn was either given to the local clergy or was an offering to the Virgin Mary whose feast day (La Feill Moire) is 15th of August. The following incantation from the Carmina Gadelica (a collection of charms, incantations, prayers, poems, blessings and lore that had been passed down orally for generations in Gaelic speaking Scotland and curated by folklorist Alexander Carmichael in the late 1800’s) explains a ritual that took place:
On the feast of Mary the fragrant,
Mother of the Shepherd of the flocks,
I cut me a handful of the new corn,
I dried in gently in the sun,
I rubbed it sharply from the husk,
With mine own palms.
I ground it in a quern of Friday,
I baked it on a fan of sheep-skin,
I toasted it to a fire of rowan,
And I shared it round my people.
I went sunways round my dwelling,
In the name of the Mary Mother,
Who promised to preserve me,
Who did preserve me,
And who will preserve me.
In peace, in flocks,
In righteousness of heart,
In labour, in love,
In wisdom, in mercy,
For the sake of Thy Passion,
Thou Christ of grace,
Who till the day of my death,
Wilt never forsake me.
The head of the household shared the bannock with his family and while singing the above ‘Paen of Mary’ led his family sunwise around a bonfire. Mary’s protection was also called upon during the ritual. Afterwards, he placed the embers of the fire and pieces of old iron into a pot which he carried sunwise around their home, outbuildings and fields. His wife and children followed behind him while they continued singing.
One of the earliest types of cereal was called ‘Brose’ by the Scots. After threshing, the corn husks were soaked in water and stirred well. After about a day the husks floated to the top and the heavier grains stayed on the bottom of the bowl. The water when boiled would thicken and the sediment from it could be eaten as a porridge and served with honey, milk or salt. This is Brose. The water was also made into a fermented drink which the Welsh call ‘Shiot’. Frumenty (frumentum in Latin means ‘grain’) was another very old dish which was a popular Medieval treat. A type of thick porridge, it was made by boiling cracked wheat in either milk or broth. For those who could afford it, eggs, almonds, currants, sugar and spices were also added.
‘For fear of destroying, with cattle or rain, the sooner ye load it, more profit ye gain.’
A legitimate fear when it came to Medieval farming was not having enough livestock feed for the winter. Every type of straw was valuable: wheat, corn and rye. After the harvest, the stalks (but not from barley) were quickly cut for fodder because the threat of rain or hungry cattle getting into the fields would be a disaster. Any straw that was not used for fodder was repurposed in several different ways on the homestead; for thatching roofs, crafting rope and weaving baskets and beehives. For centuries, the ‘Lady in the Straw’ was the name given to a woman about to give birth. Giving birth on straw allowed it to be easily removed and burnt after the mother and baby had bathed and were in a clean bed. Straw retains heat very well and even right up to the Victorian Age, people had a thick layer of straw underneath their feather bed. Chair seats were made with straw coils and were often called ‘beehive chairs’. These were older folk’s special chairs! Usually the seat pads were covered in fabric or leather.
With the harvest season over and the weeks between Lughnasadh and Michaelmas being a quiet time in the agricultural calendar, harvest workers could finally relax and enjoy the popular rural fairs. In Wessex, these fairs took place on hill tops such as St Giles Hill in Winchester. Archaeological evidence shows that the area has been in use since the Palaeolithic for shearing, branding and slaughtering livestock. Farmers paraded and sold their geese, horses, sheep and cattle at the fairs and stalls would be overflowing with hand crafted toys, breads, cakes and autumn fruits. There were fig fairs and cheese fairs too.
Mop Fairs that took place a little later in the season, allowed people to find employment for the next 12 months. All those eager to find work carried or wore the symbol of their trade. Maids carried mops, cowherds tied locks of cow hair to their own hair and shepherds had their crooks. Once they were hired and had negotiated their wages they received a shilling from their new employer. With money in hand there was plenty to buy at the stalls: sweets, toys, new clothes and ribbons. A popular cake that people bought at this time was Clementy Cake which was made with butter, currants, citrus peels, sugar and spices. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution there were less and less people working in the countryside and hiring fairs eventually disappeared.
A tradition that still survives today across Britain and Ireland is the Wake Fair. Its original meaning of mourning the death of the sun has been long forgotten. The most well known of these fairs is the Puck Fair which is held annually in early August in Killorglin, County Kerry. The fair’s origins can be traced back to the 16th century, but they are likely much older. At the start of the three day festival a goat is brought into the town and is crowned the 'King', while a local girl is crowned the 'Queen'. The celebrations include traditional music and dancing, a parade, arts and crafts workshops, a horse and cattle fair and a market. Young men and women from Irish traveller families also get a chance to meet.
Lammastide was a time of handfasting. A handfasting was a trial marriage that lasted a year and a day and if the couple were still on good terms at the end of the 366 days they became man and wife. If things did not work out they were free to go their separate ways with no harm done. The most common way of meeting a potential partner would have been at an autumn fair where families met and arranged marriages. The Stone of Odin is a standing stone in the Stennis Circle on the island of Orkney where couples pledged their fidelity by grasping the other’s hand through the hole of the stone as a sixpenny piece lay between them. This ritual was seen as binding, so ‘newlyweds’ felt no need for a Christian wedding. Unlike a Christian marriage they could return to the Stone of Odin and ritually part ways if the partnership had come to a natural end. If a baby was born during the handfasting and the couple then separated, the child went to live with the father's family. The child was recognised by the father even if he married anew and had more children. The child’s mother was not badly viewed by the community.
Another annual festival that took place in early autumn was the Rush-Bearing festival. Before the use of wooden floors, homes and churches had flagstones or compact earth covered with rushes, reeds or sweet smelling grasses. Rushes not only helped with cleanliness but also served as insulation. Floor rushes were replaced once a year and in some villages graves were decorated with rushes too. Being an ecclesiastical festival, the procession’s destination was the village church led by the clergy, a piper and the Rush-bearing Queen or Rose Queen. They were followed by dancers (sometimes Morris dancers) and a two wheeled rush cart with one or two ‘jockeys’ on top. The cart was pulled by up to six horses due to the fact that the stack of rushes could be four metres high and weigh two tonnes, especially if it had rained before the festival. ‘Walking the Bounds’ as part of the procession was also common. The rush-Bearing festivals of Whitworth, Sowerby Bridge, Littleborough and Saddleworth all still have rush carts. Other Rush-Bearing processions carry rushes covered in flowers called ‘Bearings’ and can be different shapes and sizes or simply just rush crosses. St Oswald’s church in Grasmere had a procession with a maypole and today still has six Rush Maidens that carry a white sheet covered with rushes.
Fishermen on the isles of Orkney and Shetland gathered to celebrate the end of the white-fishing season. This celebration was called the Fishermen’s Foy or the Lammas Foy (a ‘foy’ is a farewell feast). Their wives or sweethearts came along as well which gave them the chance to share their hardships and experiences of being the partner of a fisherman while the men discussed their dangerous north sea adventures. It was a celebration of gratitude for the protection they had been blessed with and for the fish that had sustained their livelihoods. A feast of scones, oatcakes, burstin bronies, butter, eggs, smoked ham and unsalted wind-dried meat was enjoyed. Glasses were raised, songs were sung and fortunes told. However, people were very cautious about dancing as this was a liminal time when the Trows were out and everyone knew that these ugly mischievous creatures were attracted to dancing.
‘When the thick ears come, then the demons fly.’
There are many stories about harvest festivals being a time of otherworldly activity. Fairies were regular visitors to fairs with the sole purpose of replacing a human baby with a changeling. Lammas Eve was the one night of the year when humans could attempt to reverse a fairy kidnapping. This could be achieved by placing a suspected changeling child in a hole overnight. In the morning either the original baby that had been stolen was returned or the same child was still there. This drastic transaction was only attempted if the potent anti-changeling charms had failed. One such charm required the new born baby to be placed inside a basket filled with bread and cheese, walking round a fire three times and then eating the contents of the basket. Obviously not the baby!
In the 19th century, Irish people were still leaving offerings on top of hills and mounds for the ‘Little People’ during the season of Lughnasadh. These offerings were meant to appease the otherworldly creatures who were more than capable of meddling with crops and livestock. The Quarter Days of Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain bring the Otherworld closer to ours and are days when the ‘Good Folk’ are said to move from one home to another. Folk certainly did not want to be swept up with the moving party! Iron, elder and rowan (both the berries and twigs) were worn as protective charms. Rowan trees bloom at Bealtaine and their berries ripen at Lughnasadh. Dried rowan berries were threaded onto red wool and tied to the tails of cattle as well as rowan twigs.
In Scotland, ‘saining’ rituals were performed on Lammas Eve by the older women of the community. The word ‘sain’ means to charm, bless or protect and ‘saining’ rituals were commonly done as a way to protect livestock from illness and . Lammas was a time when protection charms needed to be renewed as the last time these rituals were performed would have been during the month of Bealtaine. Specific herbs were burned, Holy Water was sprinkled and an incantation was spoken, such as a prayer or a verse of poetry. A protective sign such as the sign of the cross might also have been used.
Women tarred the tails and ears of the cows and tied red or blue threads to their tails. Charms were spoken over the cows’ udders to ensure the good health of the cows and an abundance of milk. A ball of cow’s hair called a ‘Ronag’ was also placed inside the milk pail on Lammas Day or if not, on the following Thursday. This was to protect the milk from being stolen by witches. Another charm was to keep a small bag of certain herbs in the cream jug during the coming year to keep the cows’ milk flowing and to light a fire around the earthenware vessels that held the butter and milk called the ‘Crogain’.
In Ireland there was once a tradition where horses and cattle were driven into a river or lake at Lughnasadh. The Irish believed that an animal would not survive the year if it had not been drenched in water. In some places young boys would race horses across a river and in Scotland people drove their horses into the sea. Horse tack was thrown into rivers as was a slab of butter, with the hope that the cows would produce sufficient milk throughout the year. The butter had to weigh no more than a quarter of a pound. At the feast, the season’s bounty of new bacon, new cabbage and new potatoes was eaten.
Domhnach Crom Dubh was traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday of July or the first Sunday of August and was also known as Lammas Sunday, Garlic or Reek Sunday, Hill Sunday and Garland Sunday. Pilgrims gathered on this day at Croagh Patrick, also known as Cruachan Aille (the Eagle’s Peak) a hill with spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean in County Mayo. It was said that while keeping vigil here, St Patrick was tormented by demons disguised as blackbirds. He chased them away by singing bible verses and throwing his bell at them. The 24th August is St Bartholomew's Day and depending on where you stand you can see the sun ‘rolling’ down the side of the hill as it sets on this day.
Crom Dubh or Crom Cruaich was the dark lord of the harvest associated with fertility, death and high places. He was honoured in ancient times by leaving flowers on the ‘Altar of the Sun’. A festival called Buaile na Greine was held at Mount Callan in County Clare for several days around Crom Dubh Sunday with feasting, racing, hurling, singing and dancing. People wore garlands made from corn stalks with the ears still attached. The festival was later replaced by a Christian feast day which included prayers at the holy well. The ‘Altar of the Sun’ was destroyed in the 1800s by a farmer who reused the stones to build a wall. The Dindsenchas, a collection of sagas which explain the lore of place-names, describes how Crom Cruaich’s golden idol was worshipped on Magh Slecht, an ancient plain in County Cavan. The idol was surrounded by twelve stone statues. Tigernmas, a high king of Ireland along with many of his soldiers mysteriously died there on a night of Samhain while worshipping Crom Cruaich. St Patrick is said to have destroyed the idol and sent Crom Cruaich to hell with the help of his staff. The twelve stone statues were swallowed by the earth up to their heads and left there as a physical reminder of this miracle. Downpatrick Head in County Mayo used to be an important site for rituals and pilgrimages during Lughnasadh. Crom Dubh is also said to have been banished to Dun Briste (Broken Fort) near Downpatrick Head by St Patrick. St Brandon converted Crom Dubh, the pagan chieftain, to Christianity on Mount Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry. A stone head depicting Crom Dubh was stolen from the ruins of Cloghane Church (built in the early 19th century) at the foot of Mount Brandon in 1993. I talk about the Celtic Head Cult, which is tied to this time of year, in my post about Lughnasadh.
Another name for this day was Fraughan Sunday (fraughan means bilberry). Bilberries were picked on top of hills and if there were plenty it meant that the crop harvest would be good. A basket made out of rushes was weaved especially for bilberry collecting and was called the ‘Fruog’ basket. Boys made bilberry bracelets for their sweethearts which the girls left behind at the end of the day. At Knockfeerina in County Limerick, young people placed bilberries and flowers on the top of a small cairn called the ‘Strickeen’ which was believed to hide the entrance of the underground domain of Donn Firinne, the king of the fairies that lived in that area. Bilberries were eaten or made into Fraughan Cake and mashed together with fresh cream and sugar. The berries were strung onto long blades of grass and taken to the elderly and sick who were unable to join the gathering. The berries were seen as lucky unless you fell on them on the way back home! It was best to eat the berries before the 1st of August because the ‘Good Folk’ were known to spit and curse on them after this date.
Heather was also picked on Irish hill tops and tied into bunches and hung around the doors of outbuildings for good luck. Sprigs of heather were worn throughout the festivities and just like the bilberry bracelets were discarded before going back down the hill. It is said that heather is the favourite flower of the ‘Good Folk’. The Scottish fairies loved to eat the top of the heather and the Welsh fairies simply played on them.
Harvest festivals fell out of favour in the late Middle Ages and disappeared completely after the Reformation. Our modern day harvest festival only dates back to 1843 when a Cornish cleric called R.S. Hawker revived the festival for his parishioners. The date that was chosen was October 1st. The festival spread to other churches all over Britain with the offerings of corn, bread, fruit, vegetables and flowers decorating church interiors before being distributed to the poor. He loved nature so much that he would scatter herbs such as wormwood, thyme and sweet marjoram on the church floor. Wild animals followed him wherever he went.
Traditions are alive, ever evolving and ever reflecting the current beliefs, needs and worldview of the people they serve. It is not easy for those of us who wish to preserve our ancestral traditions to accept this truth because we want traditions to remain unchanged forever, passing them down to our children to help them connect to their heritage. Ronald Hutton says that traditions only stay the same for three generations. As heartbreaking as it sounds, if traditions are not relevant then they will die out. The best we can do is to make our traditions as meaningful to us as we can.
How easy is it to start a new tradition? It is easier than you think. Despite scarecrows being thousands of years old, the tradition of the Scarecrow Festival is barely thirty and has rapidly spread all over Britain, having begun as a fundraising event in Kettlewell, Yorkshire. Scarecrows of today come in all shapes and sizes and mainly depict well known figures from modern culture. I have seen scarecrows climbing up telephone poles which certainly makes you look twice!
In Britain, farmers used to hire young boys to scare birds away from their crops. Known as ‘bird shooers’ or ‘bird scarers’, they threw stones or waved their arms about. After the plague of 1348 had wiped out half of the population, farmers had to resort to stuffing sacks with straw and carving turnip faces. Bird scarers continued until the early 1800s when people began moving away from the countryside to work in factories or mines. Some old scarecrow names are Jack-Of-Straw, Tattybogle (Scotland) Mommet (Somerset) Hodmedod (Berkshire and the Isle of Wight) and Bootzafrau (Germany).
My harvest series has come to an end. If you are on Instagram and want more harvest nuggets then please check out my Lammas Highlights.
Wishing you a harvest of good health, joy and abundance.
Brightest blessings,
Elissa
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Calendar of Country Customs, Ralph Whitlock (1978)
In Search of Lost Gods, Ralph Whitlock (1979)
Looking for the Lost Gods of England, Kathleen Herbert (2010)
British Calendar Customs by A.R Wright (1940)
Folklore and Customs of Rural England by Margaret Baker (1975)
A Year of Festivals by Geoffrey Palmer & Noel Lloyd (1972)
The Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton (1997)
Celtic Pilgrimages: Sites, Seasons and Saints by Elaine Gill (1997)
The Chronicle of Folk Customs by Brian Day (1998)
The Land of England by Dorothy Hartley (1979)
English Traditional Customs by Christina Hole (1975)
A Dictionary of British Folk Customs by Christina Hole (1976)
A Year of Festivals by Geoffrey Palmer (1972)
Maypoles, Martyrs & Mayhem by Quentin Cooper/Paul Sullivan (1994)
A Calendar of Scottish Festivals Vol 2 by F. Marian McNeill (1959)
Discovering Corn Dollies by M. Lambeth (1994)
A Golden Dolly by M. Lambeth (1969)
The Magical Properties of Plants by Tylluan Penry (2018)
Winters in the World by Eleanor Parker (2022)
The Year in Ireland by Kevin Danaher (1972)
Saining for Gaelic Polytheists by Marissa Hegarty (2022)
Ireland’s Wild Plants by Niall Mac Coitir (2008)
Fantastic essay! Really loved the information on hand fasting and fairy changelings 😊 Thank you!