It’s Lammas Day today and that means plenty of baked bread and corn dollies.
The date, also known by the Old English and Gaelic names hlaefmass and lughnasadh, is all about celebrating the first harvest festival and the first grain crop of the season.
Lammas, which marks the start of Autumn, can be traced all the way back to Anglo Saxon and Pagan times.
‘Lammas’ itself means ‘loaf mass’ because of the tradition of baking bread and taking it to church to be blessed. The blessed loaf would then be taken home and broken into four pieces and used as protection for the newly harvested crop.
Artwork by Wendy Andrew at Painting Dreams
