Lughnasadh- Celtic EventEvent

Tailtiu

According to the Metrical Dindsenchas and the Lebor Gabála Érenn, Tailtiu was a queen of the Fir Bolg, the people who held Ireland before the Tuátha Dé Danann. After the Tuátha Dé Danann defeated the Fir Bolg at the First Battle of Mag Tuired, Tailtiu was taken into their household and became Lugh's foster-mother. She cleared the great forests and plains of Brega to create arable land. The labor killed her. Lugh instituted games and an assembly at her burial place, the site now identified with Teltown in County Meath. The festival took his name: Lughnasadh, from Lugh and the Old Irish násad, meaning "assembly" or "funeral games."

The Fair at Tailtiu

The Óenach Tailten lasted a fortnight, a week before and a week after August 1. It was one of the four quarter-day celebrations that structured the Celtic year, alongside Samhain, Imbolc, and Beltane. During the fortnight, normal life was suspended.

Horse racing was the most prestigious event. A king's presence at the games validated his sovereignty, and a king who failed to host them risked the fertility of his territory. Marriages contracted at the fair were trial unions lasting a year and a day, after which either party could dissolve the bond by returning to Tailtiu and walking away from each other. A truce of the fair, the cairde óenaig, protected all who attended.

First Fruits and Hilltops

Until the festival rites had been performed, harvesting was considered forbidden. The first sheaf was cut with ritual solemnity, and the grain was baked into a loaf that was offered or consumed communally.

Bilberry picking was a widespread Lughnasadh custom that survived into the modern era. The abundance of the berry harvest was taken as an omen for the grain to come. The Sunday nearest August 1 was known in many areas as Bilberry Sunday or Fraughan Sunday. Communities ascended local hills and peaks for the picking and gathered for games and courtship. Croagh Patrick in County Mayo drew pilgrims on the last Sunday of July in a practice that almost certainly continues a pre-Christian Lughnasadh observance.

Máire Mac Néill recorded traditions in which Lugh fought and defeated Crom Dubh, a chthonic figure associated with blight, freeing the harvest from his grip.

Brón Trogain

An alternative name for the festival, Brón Trogain, appears in the early Irish glossaries. Sanas Cormaic, one of the oldest, explains it as "the sorrow of the earth," the land's travail in bringing forth the harvest. The earth labored like Tailtiu, and the grain was the fruit of that labor.