Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh — the funeral games of Lugh, the Irish god of skill and sun — marked the first harvest. Wheat and barley were brought in from the fields, and the first loaf baked from that year's flour was broken and shared. In Anglo-Saxon England the same day was Lammas, from hlāf-mæsse: 'loaf-mass'.

The god's name preserved a memory: Lugh's foster-mother Tailtiu had cleared the plains of Ireland for agriculture and died from the labour. The festival was, in one telling, her burial rite — a communal thanks for the exhausted body of the land.

Lughnasadh is the sabbat of first gratitude, when the harvest is not yet complete but its promise is undeniable. To break bread on this day is to acknowledge that something died so you could eat.