Many modern pagans choose to follow The Wheel of the Year, a cyclical calendar which marks eight distinct festivals as key times for celebration. If you’ve ever been searching for all things magical online, chances are you have come across this calendar, and it doesn’t take much searching online to find endless resources and cute infographics telling us what to do to celebrate these events, but as always, I am keen to probe a bit deeper and investigate.
Where do these celebrations come from, and are they worth sticking to in the modern age? Let’s discuss..
What is the wheel of the year?
The wheel of the year is a cycle of seasonal festivals, which marks major solar events and the midpoints between them. Some followers of the Wiccan religion may refer to these as the Greater or Lesser Sabbats. The calendar shows the solstices and equinoxes, as well as cross quarter celebrations.
Many of these holidays are historically evidenced in different ways throughout the world, but the wheel itself in this way is a new concept. Simply put, the wheel of the year is an attempt to combine the Anglo Saxon and Celtic celebrations.
It’s hard to try and conceptualise what was important to our ancestors or the beliefs they held about time, but we can try and consider what was most important to them. Many people throughout history relied on farming and growing food. They would be thinking of when to sow, plough or store food, so there’s a potential that many holidays revolved around this.
Psst… prefer to watch this as a video? Watch here.
The history of these celebrations is tough to find. For example, Ireland’s Newgrange Passage Tomb is built to align with the winter solstice, so that light floods the chamber on the sunrise at this time. This was built in around 3200 BC, so long ago that we can’t begin to understand what this meant to people.
Stonehenge in England was constructed in several phases from around 3100 BC to 1600 BC, and aligns with the sun on the solstices. Again, this was so long ago (and before the Celts), that we can barely conceptualise these people and why the solstices were so key to them. Perhaps it was to commemorative the return of the sun and mark the transition into a lighter half of the year, we shall never know for sure. But one thing is clear, these times of the year were so important that they were marked by these colossal monuments.
The Anglo Saxon Calendar
We get much of our information about Anglo Saxon months and celebrations from the monk Bede, who was writing in the 8th century in England. The Anglo Saxon calendar described by Bede was lunisolar, so although it often had twelve months, sometimes there was a need to add a thirteenth month to keep it in sync with the solar years. The months were marked by the moon. The word ‘month’ comes from the Old English, ‘monath’, referring to ‘mona’, the moon).
Bede tells us about the months of the year, with the last and first months in the calendar being named Foreyule and Afteryule, and the sixth and seventh months named Forelitha and Afterlitha. On the wheel of the year, we can see this turn into winter solstice as being around Yule, and Litha as the summer solstice.
In the Anglo Saxon calendar, the Autumn Equinox could occur in either two months, depending on the cycle of that year (though it’s important to note that the term ‘Autumn’ as a concept did not exist at this time). Bede called this month ‘Halegmonat’, or ‘Holy month’, so it’s reasonable to assume that this time of year was important to the people for some reason.
Bede didn’t tell us much about winter, other than that Modranecht/Modraniht was celebrated at this time. He writes that this was a celebration to mothers, but he doesn’t write much more than this.
An Old English poem Maxmins II tells us this about the seasons:
Winter byð cealdost,
lencten hrimigost (he byð lengest ceald),
sumor sunwlitegost (swegel byð hatost),
hærfest hreðeadegost, hæleðum bringeð
geres wæstmas, þa þe him god sendeð.
Winter is the coldest,
the spring most icy—it’s cold for the longest—
the summer the most sun-beautiful—the heaven is hottest—
the harvest is most blessed, it brings to men the produce which God sets aside for them
The Celtic Calendar
Exploring the history of the Celtic peoples is tough, as it was such a large area over a long period of time, and they did not choose to write things down. From what little evidence we have, we can assume that the Celts measured time in a different way.
Caesar wrote that they measure time by nights instead, possibly starting their days at dusk. This leads us to the notion that The Celtic peoples viewed the world, not in four seasons, but as the light and dark half, with the new year starting at Samhain when the dark half of the year began.
There were four mid points: Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. There’s evidence in a discovery made in France, where a calendar attributed to the Celts was found in Coligny, called Coligny Calendar, which provide more insight into this.
There is a passage from the 10th to 11th century collection of Irish heroic tales known as the Ulster Cycle, where during the wooing of Emer by the hero Cúchulainn, he is required to sleep for a year before she will agree to marry him. In describing the year Emer also provides the earliest reference to all four of the Irish pagan festivals, that marked the changing of the seasons.
‘No man will travel this country,' she said, 'who hasn't gone sleepless from Samain, when the summer goes to its rest, until Imbolc, when the ewes are milked at spring's beginning, from Imbolc to Beltane at the summer's beginning and from Beltane to Brón Trogain, earth's sorrowing autumn.’
Evolution
Evidence is scattered, but many of these traditions have been carried on all around Europe for thousands of years. Across the British Isles and Ireland, for example, there are many instances recorded of people following Beltane celebrations (read more on that here). Even in a 1661 trial record from Forfar, Scotland, the accused witch (Issobell Smyth) was alleged to attend witches meetings "every quarter" at Candlemas (2 February), Roodmas (3 May), Lammas (1 August), and Hallowmas (1 November).
But how did these celebrations become the wheel of the year? The story goes that Gerald Gardner (the founder of the Wiccan religion, which has had so much impact on our cultural perceptions of witchcraft, and many today associate directly with all forms of witchcraft and paganism), and Ross Nichols (the founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids) met at an event and came up with this concept.
They wanted a way to bring pagans together at key points in the year and celebrate, and thus, the wheel was born. This has led to many people being unsure whether to follow this wheel, as it was essentially just created by two men in the 1960s with a little bit of sparse history here and there. You could view it like this, or you could note that all things evolve and change throughout history, and maybe these men tapped into something special. In any case, it is a good excuse to get together with other pagans and connect to the seasons.
So let’s take a look at some of the celebrations…
Yule/Winter Solstice
Falling on or about 21 December, this date has been significant throughout history, as we can see from ancient megalithic sites like Newgrange and Stonehenge. Bede told us about the months of ‘before Yule’ and ‘after Yule’, and this time of year is also celebrated all across the world, including Jól in Scandinavian countries.
Typical themes of this time of year involve feasting and drinking, gift-giving, bringing evergreens inside, rituals, sacrifice, and swearing oaths.
Imbolc
Imbolc is a Celtic festival, and is the name for the 1st February when we begin to get the first stirrings of spring. The earliest mentions of Imbolc in Irish literature were found in the 10th century, and poetry from that time relates the holiday to ewe’s milk. Many people say that im bolg = in the belly, and this is where the word Imbolc comes from, referring to the lambing season.
Ireland was heavily Christianised, and the goddess Brigid developed into Saint Brigid, and is still honoured today by making Brigid’s Crosses and visiting holy wells. Imbolc is a festival of hearth and home, fire, the return of the warmth, baking, spring cleaning, and planting seeds.
Ostara
Ostara is a strange one, as we have barely any real evidence of historical celebrations for this time of year. It’s true there have been celebrations across Europe at this time, but for Ostara directly, this comes from the Old English ‘Ēostre’. Bede tells us that this was a pagan goddess for whom feasts were held at this time of the year - and that’s it! He does not tell us anything more than that.
This time of year could be celebrated by planting seeds, starting a garden, feasting and baking, creativity and fertility, and preparing for the year ahead.
Beltane
Beltane, or Bealtaine, is a Gaelic celebration which traditionally marks the start of summer in Ireland. The earliest reference that can be found about Bealtaine is in the Sanah Chormaic, an early Irish glossary. The glossary has been attributed to a man named Cormac of Cashel who lived in the 9th century, and under the entry ‘Beltane’, he referenced ‘lucky fires’ that the druids would make with ‘great incantations’, and drive the cattle between them. The text also referred to this marking the beginning of summer.
This celebration spread, leading to people still now celebrating ‘May Day’, with maypole dancing and crowning the queen of May. This time of year can be celebrated with flower crowns, bonfires, gathering with people, intimacy, fertility, creativity, sunbathing and foraging
Summer Solstice (Litha)
Bede tells us that the month of June and July were called ‘before Liða’ and ‘after Liða’, and that that liða means calm and navigable, referring to the seas and the easy weather at that time of year. Marked at around the 21st of June in the northern hemisphere, this is the time of the year when the sun reaches its peak and we see the longest day of the year.
At this time of year, you could watch the sunrise or sunset, bake with seasonal fruits, gather with friends, light a fire, and feel gratitude for the life-giving force of the sun.
Lughnasadh/Lammas
Lughnasadh is the Gaelic name for a harvest festival, with Lammas being the English Catholic version for the celebration held on the same date, referring to ‘Loaf Mass’.
This is the first harvest, which means that this a great time to bake and feast, begin to take stock of the year and what you have achieved so far, and forage or harvest from a garden.
Mabon
Mabon is a strange one, as although it is the Autumn Equinox, the name of this festival comes from a Welsh myth, not exactly in-keeping with the rest of the names. Ross Nichols explained that he couldn’t find an appropriate word in Anglo Saxon, Norse or Celtic Literature, so he took the word ‘Mabon’ from the Mabinogion.
This time of the year could be celebrated similarly, by harvesting, making or storing food from the harvest, and foraging the last fruits of the year.
Samhain
Samhain is a Gaelic festival held around the 1st of November, and has a lot of history in Ireland. You may recognise this around the time of the modern Halloween, which is not totally dissimilar.
Samhain is a time to celebrate the lives of those who have gone before us, pay respect to our ancestors, family and friends who have died. It marks the darker half of the year, and many believe it is the Celtic new year.
Issues + final thoughts
As you can see, the history of many of these celebrations is sparse, leading some to question how useful they are and whether they have place in a modern Neopagan practice. For example, the problems with the naming of Mabon without bringing Welsh culture into the holiday, as well as muddling Anglo Saxon and Celtic practices (which could be seen as problematic due to their turbulent history). Some also say that most of us are no longer farmers so it is not relevant.
For me, personally, I definitely resonate with some of these times of year more than others. I like to acknowledge the turning of the seasons and celebrate the light and dark in nature as it helps me feel more connected to the land. I still choose to follow some of these whilst acknowledging the challenges, and would encourage you to make up your own mind.