lammas

Lammas 2026

~ Ashley ~ 24 Comments 


Full of vigour,
In garden and field,
Sweet ivy.

Sweet ivy,
Forever weaving,
Rarely enclosed.

Already it’s August and Lammas is upon us; a time when we celebrate the summer and the gathering in of the harvest.  There’s work to be done as the wheel of the year turns towards the Autumn Equinox and the darker days of winter.

Ivy, Gort in Irish, is the 12th letter (G) in the Ogham Tree Year.  As Yuri Leitch says in his book The Ogham Grove, Ivy is an evergreen and is seen symbolically, as immortal; of the spirit world.

Ivy, Hedera helix, is not actually a tree, but a climber belonging to the Aralia family, Araliaceae.  A slow grower it can live for hundreds of years.  Its fruits are nutritious to birds like blackbirds and thrushes but they are poisonous to humans if ingested: the berries contain Triterpenoid Saponins and Oxalate Crystals.  The leaves were collected as fodder for livestock from ancient times up until the 16th century.

In ancient Egypt, Ivy was dedicated to Osiris, the lord of vegetation.  Along with the vine, it was concocted to use in ceremonies to honour the Greek vegetation god Dionysos, called Bacchus by the Romans.

A tough wood, it has been used to make tool handles.

 

Ashley

Books I’ve used as references:

The Ogham Grove by Yuri Leitch ISBN 9781517653637

The Spirit of Trees by Fred Hageneder ISBN 0-86315-557-X

Lammas 2025

~ Ashley ~ 10 Comments
Red Admiral on Buddleia


Butterflies,
Flitting from flower to flower;
Peace.

 

The end of July and the beginning of August, is the traditional festival of Lammas, a time of abundance and in the pagan calendar, seen as the beginning of autumn.  There are so many flowers in our tiny garden but this Buddleia, a dwarf variety, is a favourite.  Known as the butterfly bush or shrub, we can see why it is so called. I didn’t manage to capture on camera the other butterflies in the garden but I am working on a further linked post with some artwork which I shall publish shortly. 🤞🤞

Ashley

Lammas

~ Ashley ~ 54 Comments

white-tail-bumblebee

Small Tortoiseshell - Aglais urticae on Verbena

On every flower,
A butterfly, a bee;
Summer's bounty.

Goodness!  It’s the beginning of August already and isn’t the cycle of life amazing?  All Earth’s creatures are aware of the changes in the season.

Lammas;
Gathering grain for winter,
Seeds for sowing next year.

Lammas, the Saxon name for this time of year, meaning “Loaf-mass”, or as it is called in Irish Gaelic Lughnasadh, is a celebration of the rich harvest that is beginning across these islands.  Whilst the harvest occurs people still make corn dollies or rattles and healing wands but for me I continue to whittle Ogham sticks when I find the right wood. Here are my latest: Hazel and Gorse.

hazel & gorse lammas

Hazel (Corylus avellana) is the ninth tree in the Celtic Tree Ogham.  Its straight coppiced poles have been used in many ways by humans for thousands of years.  It’s been a good companion to humanity and with that in mind I hope to make a walking stick with that extra long piece I was given.

Gorse (Ulex europaeus) is the seventeenth wood in the Ogham.  Not actually a tree, it is found mostly on moorland and rough ground where its flowers can be seen throughout the year.  It is also known as Whin or Furze.

Ashley