Lammas

Also called Lughnasadh, this is another pre-Christian high holiday which was taken over by the church. Lammas marks the end of summer and the beginning of the harvest season. Approximately half-way between the midsummer solstice and the autumn equinox, Lammas is also the time when the days are becoming perceptively shorter and the nights longer and darker. When I lived in Alaska, I noticed this was the time when the middle of the night was dark enough to see stars overhead once more. (For the curious, I lived in Juneau for five years - fairly southern as Alaska goes - and Juneau is about the same latitude as Brora in northern Scotland.)

That's all I have time for - I'm off at dawn for Pennsic War. While I'm gone, a guest blogger may be filling in for me from time to time.

But that's a story for another day.