[Sca-cooks] Spices and the Irish Common folk

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Adamantius wrote:
>The four big festivals on the Celtic calendar correspond roughly
>to the solstices and equinoxes: Imbolc in the winter, Beltane in the
>spring, Lughnasa in the late summer, and Samhain in the autumn.
>Lughnasa is the festival of the sun god, Lugh, more or less the
>Celtic Apollo, and it doubles as the harvest festival, Lammas in
>English. Eating colcannon at Lughnasa is allegedly an ancient
>tradition (before you guys jump in, there's apparently some evidence
>to suggest that colcannon once was made without potatoes).

I get the digest, so i suppose someone else has already answered this, but...

The Celtic solar holidays fall MID-WAY BETWEEN the Solstices and 
Equinoces. Since the Solstices and Equinoces "wobble" a bit on the 
calendar (falling somewhere between the 19 and the 22 of their 
month), the Celtic holidays wobble a little too, actually falling 
more or less on the 6th or 7th of their month.

Modern convention, however, places them on the last day of the 
previous month/first of the month (since i've heard the Celtic 
system, like the Ancient Middle Eastern, starts days with the sunset) 
for convenience, but since the holidays are astrologically based, 
that's not where they REALLY fall.

Samhain (more or less "sow-enn") early November
Imbolc early February
Beltaine early May
Lughnasa early August
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita