Lughnasadh – Celebrating the First Harvest
Every year, as July tips into August, and the Sun slips into the constellation of Cancer (true sidereal astronomy) the Irish & UK fields have turned to gold, perhaps without you noticing and for some of us, something ancient stirs our Souls.
The field grain is heavy on the stalk. The hedgerows are thick with blackberries, some ready to pick. The sun is warm – gloriously, generously warm – and yet there is something in the quality of the early morning dew, on the now dry grass, that is somehow more perceptible and whispers: the year is turning.
(For the year of the Fire Horse 2026, a double fire element energy, we felt high summer for months.)
This is Lughnasadh time. The first harvest festival of the Celtic Wheel of the Year, celebrated on, or near, the 1st of August. Long before supermarkets and food miles, this was the moment communities across Britain and Ireland gave thanks – the grain was ready, the harvest had come, and there would be bread on the table through the winter ahead.
At Coralee's Emporium, we are beginning a journey through all eight festivals of the Wheel of the Year – celebrating the seasons, the land, and the wisdom traditions that have shaped life on these islands for thousands of years. Lughnasadh is where we begin.
In this article
Lughnasadh & Lammas – Two Names, One Celebration
The Tailteann Games
Corn Dollies – The Art of the Last Sheaf
Baking the First Loaf
Bilberry Picking & the Wild Harvest
The Full Abundance of the Season
The Names the Light Left Behind
Lughnasadh Crystals & Earth Gifts
Celebrating Lughnasadh at Home
Lughnasadh & Lammas – Two Names, One Celebration
The festival celebrated at the beginning of August has two names, and understanding both of them tells us something beautiful about the long, layered history of these islands.
The older name is Lughnasadh (pronounced LOO-nah-sah) – a Gaelic word meaning "the assembly of Lugh". Lugh was one of the most celebrated figures in Celtic tradition: a deity of the sun, of light, and above all of skill. He was said to be master of every craft – a smith, a poet, a musician, a healer, a warrior, a storyteller. He may have been a real live King. The festival held in his name was a great gathering: athletic games, craft competitions, music, markets, and communities coming together after the long, busy growing season. Think of it as the original summer fair – rooted in the earth, full of colour and noise and the smell of fresh bread, and deeply, joyfully communal.
The name Lammas came later, from the Old English hlāfmæsse – meaning simply "loaf feast". It marked the same moment in the agricultural year: the point when the first grain of the new harvest was cut, milled, and baked into bread. That first loaf was precious – it represented gratitude for survival, abundance, and the extraordinary alchemy of seed, soil, sun, and rain working together.
If you eat bread flour in any type of food, take a moment to celebrate what has grown, and to give thanks and honour the skill and effort to all those that make the grain harvests possible.
🌾 For Little Harvesters
Have you ever watched a field of wheat blowing in the wind? All those golden stalks, swaying together like a slow, sleepy dance.
Lughnasadh is the day we say "Thank you" to the fields. The farmers have been working all spring and summer to grow the grain – and now it's ready! The grain gets cut, ground into flour, and baked into bread. That's the magic of Lughnasadh: seeds become bread.
Can you think of something you worked hard on something important to you and finally finished? That feeling – that's what Lughnasadh is all about. 🌾
The Tailteann Games – A Celtic Celebration of Skill
One of the most remarkable aspects of the ancient Lughnasadh celebrations was the Tailteann Games – a great assembly held at Teltown in County Meath, Ireland, that some historians believe dates back over four thousand years. These were not just athletic competitions (though there was plenty of running, jumping, and throwing of spears). They were a celebration of all human skill and craft.
Poets competed. Musicians played. Craftspeople displayed their finest work. Storytellers gathered crowds. There were horse races and chariot races, wrestling and swimming. It was a festival that said: every person who makes something with their hands, or their mind, deserves to be celebrated.
This spirit of craft appreciation sits at the very heart of Lughnasadh – and it is one of the reasons we love it so much here at Coralee's Emporium.
The Wheel of the Year is not just about nature's cycles; it is about the human beings who live within nature, who grow things and make things and gather together to share what they have made.
🌾 For Little Harvesters
Long, long ago in Ireland, people held a huge festival at Lughnasadh time. There were races and games – but also something even more exciting: a competition for the best craft.
Potters brought their pots. Weavers brought their cloth. Storytellers told their best tales. Everyone had a chance to show what they were good at.
What would YOU bring to the Tailteann Games? Are you curious about drawing? Building? Baking? Making up stories? At Lughnasadh, every skill started as a curiosity in childhood. 🏆
Corn Dollies – The Art of the Last Sheaf
Of all the crafts associated with Lughnasadh and the harvest season, perhaps none is more naturally inspired than the making of Corn Dollies, or Corn Mothers.
It was once believed that the spirit of the harvest lived amongst the crop. Rather than letting that spirit disappear with the stubble, farmers and their families would weave the last sheaf of grain stalks into intricate shapes – spirals, crosses, lanterns, figures – to give the harvest spirit a home through the winter months. Come spring, the corn dolly would be ploughed back into the first furrow of the new season, returning the spirit to the earth to begin the cycle again.
The craft of corn dolly making is extraordinarily varied across Britain (and Europe). Every county had its own traditional forms: the Suffolk Horseshoe, the Cambridgeshire Bell, the Welsh Border Fan, the Northamptonshire Horns. These were not just decorations – they were living folk art, carrying the spirit of the harvest from one year to the next.
Today, corn dolly making is enjoying a quiet revival, taught in craft workshops and passed between generations who want to keep these beautiful traditions alive. It requires nothing more than dried wheat straw, a little patience, willing hands and a positive attitude.
Across the Celtic and British Isles, the last sheaf carried many names – each one a window into the folk memory of the region:
- Cailleach (Scottish Gaelic) – meaning both old woman and the last sheaf itself, as well as the corn dolly woven from it
- Gobhar bacach (Scottish Gaelic) – the lame goat, used in Harris, Skye, and Glenelg
- Caseg Fedi (Welsh) – the harvest mare
- Y Wrach (Welsh) – the hag
Sources: Old European Culture; Wikipedia – Corn Dolly
🌾 For Little Harvesters
When all the wheat in a field had been cut, the farmers would take the very last bundle of stalks and do something special with them. They would weave and twist the straw into a beautiful shape – sometimes a star, sometimes a spiral, sometimes a little figure.
This was called a Corn Dolly, and it was like a cosy home for the Spirit of the Harvest to rest in over winter.
But wait - why is it made of wheat 🌾 and not sweetcorn? 🌽
Great question! In old British English, the word 'corn' didn't mean the yellow cobs we nibble with our fingers. It meant wheat, oats, barley, and rye. Sweetcorn is actually from America and didn't arrive in Britain until much later. So when our ancestors said 'corn', they meant the golden wheat growing in the fields all around them. That's why corn dollies are made of wheat straw – it's the original British corn! 🌾
You can make your own harvest weaving! Try plaiting three long pieces of dried grass or straw together. It's trickier than it looks – but that's the fun of it. 🌾✨
Baking the First Loaf
At the heart of Lughnasadh is BREAD. Specifically, the first loaf baked from the new harvest grain – an act that transforms raw abundance into something nourishing, shareable, and deeply human.
Bread-making is one of the oldest crafts in the world. The process of taking grain, grinding it to flour, mixing it with water and a little wild yeast, and coaxing it into a risen, golden loaf is nothing short of miraculous – and our ancestors knew it. The smell of bread baking was the smell of safety, of enough, of home and family.
At Lughnasadh, baking bread is one of the most meaningful things you can do to mark the season. It doesn't need to be complicated. A simple soda bread, a plaited loaf, a tray of rolls to share with neighbours – the act of making and giving is the ritual itself.
🌾 For Little Harvesters
Did you know that bread is made from tiny seeds?
Farmers plant wheat seeds in the ground, the plants grow tall in the sunshine, and then the seeds at the top – called grain – are collected and ground into flour.
Flour + water + a little yeasty magic = bread! 🍞
At Lughnasadh, the very first bread of the new harvest was something to celebrate. Why not bake a loaf with a grown-up this week? You could even shape it into a sun, or a sheaf of wheat, to make it extra special.
Bilberry Picking & the Wild Harvest
The cultivated harvest of grain was not the only abundance celebrated at Lughnasadh. Across Ireland and upland Britain, the festival was also marked by the gathering of bilberries – small, intensely flavoured wild berries that ripen on the hillsides in late July and early August.
In Ireland, the nearest Sunday to Lughnasadh was known as Fraughan Sunday (fraughan being the Irish word for bilberry), and it was a tradition for young people to climb the hills together to pick the berries – a joyful, social, slightly competitive outing that combined the practical with the celebratory. The bilberries would be eaten fresh, made into pies, or pressed into juice.
Even if bilberries are not growing on your nearest hillside, the spirit of the wild harvest is easy to honour at this time of year.
The wild world has been quietly, generously preparing its own feast for you.
🌾 For Little Harvesters
At Lughnasadh time, children in Ireland would climb up into the hills with their families to pick tiny wild berries called bilberries. They're a bit like blueberries – small, dark, and delicious!
Can you go on a nature walk this week and see what's growing? Look out for berries in the hedgerows (always check with a grown-up before eating anything you find outside!). The countryside is full of wild food at this time of year – nature's own harvest. 🫐🌿If you would like to discover the season but can't get outside easily we can bring it you through this lovely book, called A Story of the Seasons (approx age 7 +)
The Full Abundance of the Season
Lughnasadh is so much more than wheat and bread – though both are glorious. The land in late July and early August, although looking dry & barren, offers up a whole larder of gifts to those who know where to look.
Fruits & Berries: Blackberries are beginning to ripen on the brambles in most places. Redcurrants still hang heavy on plants growing in the shade (well ours are at least - yummy and fresh for breakfast, or can be frozen). Wild strawberries hide in the hedgerows if any rains triggered a late flowering. Elder flowers have turned into berries, swelling to their deep purple, almost ready for cordial, and winter remedies. Sloes are blueing and Rose-hips are turning. Not ready for this harvest but you can also see the baby sweet chestnuts forming if you are out and foraging.
Grains & Seeds: Wheat is the festival grain, but oats, barley and rye are all harvesting now across Britain and Ireland – each with their own ancient story and their own bread. Poppy seed pods are drying around the fields, rattling softly in the high heat breeze. Sunflower heads are heavy and golden, their seeds a harvest in themselves, for those whose blood types benefit from them.
Flowers & Herbs of the Season: Meadowsweet – creamy, honey-scented and deeply sacred in Celtic tradition – is in full bloom now, beloved of the goddess Blodeuwedd and used in ancient ceremony. St John's Wort, harvested at midsummer but still golden in the hedgerows, has long been a herb of light and protection. Yarrow – the healer's herb – is ready to gather and dry. Heather is just beginning to purple the moorland. Chamomile, calendula and cornflower are all in their glory. And lavender – our own beloved motif here at Coralee's Emporium - is at its absolute peak harvest moment. Cut it just after the flowers are turning, bundle it, hang it to dry, and it will scent your home all winter long.
If you only have the standard herbs in your garden - they should now be at their very best. Sage, Rosemary, Thyme & Mint can all be picked for drying, smudging or as tisanes and it’s a great time to tidy the plants that have finished flowering & seeding.
Sacred Herbs: Vervain was one of the most sacred plants in the Celtic world – gathered at Lughnasadh with great ceremony, never touched by iron. Mugwort, the dreamer's herb, is traditionally harvested now and hung in bundles to dry. Both carry the deep magic of the turning season.
🌾 For Little Harvesters
End of July / August nature spotting! Here are some things to look out for on your next walk:
Blackberries – just starting to turn! They'll be ready to pick in a few weeks.
Sunflowers – can you count the seeds in the middle? What patterns can you see in the seed head.
Lavender – rub a flower between your fingers and smell the magic.
Meadowsweet – tiny creamy flowers that smell like honey and almonds.
Poppy pods – shake one gently. Can you hear the seeds rattling inside? Have you ever eaten poppy seeds?
How many can you find? 🔍
The Names the Light Left Behind
As this ancient Solar Festival travels forward through time – It leave us other gifts not just traditions, but names we still give our children today.
Lugh, the great Celtic deity of light and skill at the heart of Lughnasadh, belongs to a vast and ancient family of words all rooted in the Proto-Indo-European *leuk - meaning light. That root has been travelling through languages for thousands of years, and it is still with us.
Lugh – the original. Still given as a name in Ireland today, carrying all the warmth and skill of the harvest sun. 🌟
Lleu – the Welsh form of Lugh, as he appears in the Mabinogion as Lleu Llaw Gyffes – Lleu of the Skilful Hand. A name that carries the same light across the Celtic west.
Lucas, Luca & Luke – from the Latin lux (light), itself from that same ancient *leuk- root. If you know a Lucas or a Luca, they are carrying a very old light indeed.
Lucy & Lucia – the feminine form of the same root. Lucia means she who carries the light – and St Lucia's festival in December is itself a festival of light in the darkest part of the year, the same light-energy cycling through the seasons.
August & Augusta – the month of Lughnasadh carries its own name-gift. Children born in August wear the harvest season in their very name.
[I have been writing this article to the sounds of August Green - coincidently (or not) Feels like Summer, Windows Down, Where I found myself 🎵]
Following the festival of Lugh – celebrated for thousands of years - allows us to keep the season’s light in our hearts 🌾
🌾 For Little Harvesters
Did you know that some names are thousands of years old?
The name Lugh means light – and names like Lucas, Luca, Luke and Lucy all come from the very same ancient word for light!
Do you know anyone with one of those names? They're carrying a little piece of the harvest sun with them every single day. ☀️
What does your name mean? Ask a grown-up to help you find out – you might be surprised! 🌟
Lughnasadh Crystals & Earth Gifts
For those who work with crystals and earth energies, Lughnasadh has its own favourites. The correspondences of the season – warmth, abundance, golden light, the turning of the year, appreciation, and the fire energy of the many seeds and fruits of the first harvest – are reflected in some beautiful stones of the mineral world.
- Citrine clear stones, have a yang, outward, dynamic energy which support the activities of a festival environment. Its warm golden glow, is perhaps the most natural Lughnasadh crystal – a stone of abundance, joy, and prosperity. Work with citrine to invite optimism and to amplify the themes of gratitude and the fun of the fare - supporting a positive expression of who we truly are, makes it easier for luck to find us.
- Yellow Jade is a rare variety of Nephrite with a yin receptive inward energy. Jade is said to be strong earth element stone and has a very deep connection with Mother Earth. Call on Yellow Jade for help with living heart centred in the present moment by using your will power consciously. Like green jade it will transmute the negative energies surrounding you and release it into positive vibrations of love and joy that will benefit everyone in your environment.
- Carnelian, in its deep amber and burnt orange tones, carries the fire of the harvest sun and the vitality of the season. A remarkable energy stone supporting the root and sacral chakra energies to allow the fire elements circulation of power & passion states.
- Tiger's Eye's golden browns, beiges or tans, bring the grounded, earthy confidence of a good harvest well earned. But first will power and solar plexus energies are needed to get out there and Do and Make. Tiger's eye can support accessing your inner strength to use towards your personal needs.
- Jasper by holding the root energies, this energy supports the elimination of distractions and procrastinations from the mental level - helping us focus on our body's inner needs and grounding us into our bodies, if we are flighty.
Working with these stones at Lughnasadh – holding them in meditation, placing them in the feng shui fire or earth bagua zone, or simply keeping one in your pocket as a reminder of the season's gifts – is a gentle, beautiful way to attune to the energy of the turning year.
✨ Explore our High Summer crystal collection in: Lughnasadh & Lammas Seasonal Treasury and filter by dept 'Coralee's Crystals'.
N.B. If all the heat and fire of the high summer is too much - you might find some helpful tips in our article When the Sun Won't Set
Celebrating Lughnasadh at Home
You don't need a field or a bonfire to mark Lughnasadh meaningfully. The festival is, at its heart, about noticing – noticing what has grown, what has been made, what has been given, and what is enough. Here are some simple ways to bring Lughnasadh into your home this August:
- Bake bread together – any bread, any recipe. The making is the ritual.
- Make a nature table – gather wheat stalks, sunflowers, blackberries, autumn leaves beginning to turn, and arrange them somewhere you'll see them each day.
- Try corn dolly weaving – dried wheat straw is available from craft suppliers; there are wonderful beginner tutorials online.
- Go on a wild harvest walk – identify what's ripening in your local hedgerows and green spaces.
- Sit with a Lughnasadh crystal – citrine, carnelian, or tiger's eye – and take a moment to reflect on what has grown in your own life this year.
- Colour together – you can download our Lughnasadh, or other black line colouring pages HERE (or just type printable in the search bar anytime) and spend a quiet afternoon with pencils or pens, colouring, in the shade. 🎨
🍃 Hosting a Lughnasadh Gathering?
Whether you're holding a festival on the farm, have a stall or truck at one, heading out for a family harvest picnic, or sharing the first loaf with friends around a fire - our beautifully natural, Tapari Sal Leaf plates are made for exactly this kind of celebration.
Entirely plastic-free, compostable, and crafted from fallen leaves 🌿 they feel as good as they look.
The Wheel Turns On
You don't have to celebrate all in one day, or become mournful & melancholy, if you missed it. Enjoy the SEASON that is here, by leaning in, allowing yourself some time to appreciate, and perhaps build some yearly traditions that suit you.
Here at Coralee's Emporium, we will be walking the Wheel with you – one festival at a time. We hope this Lughnasadh brings golden gentle light, good bread, and the quiet satisfaction of a season well lived.
Happy Lughnasadh, from the Coralee Girls 🌾
🌾 Shop from the full Seasonal Treasury 👀
Do you want to up the appreciation of this season?
Browse our Lughnasadh & Lammas Seasonal Treasury – a collection of pantry, published items, crystals, artisan treasures & more, curated specifically for this season. Make a note to revisit each year as we are sure we will be finding more interesting seasonal treasures.
Find out how our ordering Works:
Browse & shop by SUPPLIER COLLECTION to keep your delivery costs down.
📦 SHIPS2GETHER 🚚 DETAILS (find anytime on our home page)
This article is part of Coralee's Emporium's Wheel of the Year series – a growing collection of seasonal celebrations, craft traditions, and earth wisdom. New festivals will be added throughout the year.