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Lammas

Historical Festival
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Anglo-Saxon and Celtic harvest festival on August 1, marking the first grain harvest with bread and blessings

Detailed Definition
Lammas (“loaf-mass”) involved offering the first bread from new wheat. In poetry, it appears in folk songs and agricultural verse as a moment of thanksgiving and anxiety—will the harvest last? Poets use it to explore themes of abundance, labor, and the sacredness of bread—making it a symbol of human dependence on earth’s bounty and the cyclical rhythm of sowing and reaping.
Example
Example in poetry:
Anglo-Saxon poems reference Lammas with first loaf offerings and harvest rites; Poets use Lammas to explore gratitude, abundance, and seasonal transition; In modern verse, Lammas symbolizes reaping what was sown; The festival appears in August poetry as summer’s first harvest; Poets contrast Lammas’ bread with later autumn scarcity; Eco-poets reference Lammas as sustainable harvest model.
Additional Notes
Lammas (August 1) is an Anglo-Saxon harvest festival (“loaf-mass”), marking first fruits; Christianized as Feast of St. Peter in Chains; in poetry, it evokes gratitude, abundance, and the sacredness of bread—ideal for agrarian, eucharistic, or seasonal verse exploring the link between labor, sustenance, and ritual thanksgiving.
Other Meanings of “Lammas”
Also Known As
Lughnasadh (in some regions) Loaf Mass Day Lughnasadh
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