Echoes of Lughnassadh
(A Cosmological Treatise)

To the Celtic peoples the realms of the Sun were feminine and our physical solar orb was the bright spirit of her progeny the Solar God, the Son of the Sun, a pale mirror reflection of the great white light that is the source of All. It should also be understood that in the Celtic systems the feminine principle is that of immortality while the masculine principle can only be sustained through the cycle of Birth, Life, Death and Rebirth. The Goddess herself only undergoes the metamorphosis of Maiden, Mother and Crone by her maternal desire to procreate and sustain the cycle of life.

In Celtic mythology she sustains the God by never allowing him to achieve old age. In the ancient cycle she is the Mother who gives him Birth, the crone who gives him Tutelage, and then she transforms into the Maiden who becomes his lover. From this union he sires his Tanist or other self. She then betrays him at Lughnassadh by giving herself to his son, the god of the dark half of the year, who under her influence will not only bring him to his eventual death but will also sow the seed of his rebirth.

It is perhaps at this point in the cycle that confusion sets in. At Lunasdal, the God of the Light half of the year is not killed. In referring to the legends we discover that it is the force of growth that is taken from the God of the Light half of the year. One way this maiming took place was for the king to be tied by his hair to an oak tree with one foot on the cauldron (representing the west) and his other on the back of a horse or in some cases a sow (both these animals are representative of the southern quarter and totem animals of the Goddess). The horse or the sow was then sent from under him causing him to be maimed in such a way to destroy his fertility but not his life. His life was not taken until the period before Samhain when his Tanist, the Lord of Misrule, began his reign.

This seeming betrayal by the Goddess is in itself an act of love. Through the seeds of his Tanist, whom he himself sired, he is reborn and grows to become in turn the slayer of his rival at the time of Bealltainn, so the wheel turns. Through this eternal cosmic battle between the forces of light and dark the seasons are kept in harmony, for all life dances in rhythmic concord to this oldest tune of all.

In Bronze Age times it was the tradition that the God King (the predecessor of the High Kings) was elected to serve for a year and a day where after the allotted time span he gave his life in sacrifice and in honour of the great goddess as well as for the welfare of his people. He represented the fertility of the land which had to be stopped to allow ripening to take place. This theme is encoded within all the Celtic legends. In later times these practises were discontinued and the feast of Lughnassadh was instituted, as is said by Lugh himself, in honour of his foster mother, Tailltiu. Within this festival are myriad echoes of these older times.