Tea at Trianon: Lughnasa and Lammas

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Lughnasa and Lammas

From Medievalists:

For centuries two holidays were celebrated by neighboring peoples on the same day. The people were the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons, and their holidays were Lughnasa and Lammas respectively. Usually the date fell on August 1st, but there could be variations. The Celtic Lughnasa, also spelled Lughnasadh, was thus named because it was originally associated with the god Lugh, but the festival had other names in Celtic regions outside of Ireland. The Anglo-Saxon word Lammas evolved from the Old English hlaf-mas, meaning “loaf-mass” in honor of bread baked from the first grain harvest. (Read more.)

Hans Georg Lundahl said...: However, like other holidays ending in “mas” (such as Christmas, Candlemas, St. Michaelmas, etc), a pre-Christian origin is strongly believed.

The Norse Yule or Midwinter Sacrifice cannot BOTH be Christmas AND Candlemas.

And it is also documented well after the documentation of Christian Christmas.

As to Sol Invictus, dec 25, it is certainly not an old Roman festival, it is same date as a very little later documented Christian one (if even that documentation is later) while Christians had been around well before it.

Any turning point of the seasonal year is likely to have attracted the attention of some Pagans, must the Church of God and God's providence in giving occasions for feasts, studiously therefore avoid them in order not to be "Pagan"?

That's one of the points against modern academia.; August 8, 2015 at 5:18:00 AM EDT