ON AUGUST 1 JUST A LITTLE ESSEX FOLKLORE WHILE CELEBRATING "LAMMAS" DAY

Harvesting in Billericay Essex

With all the hot weather, over the last few weeks, our farmers are working harder and earlier than usual at this time to harvest their crops. 

Many years ago, when I was researching people's memories and thoughts about their childhood in the fields surrounding our villages, especially in Essex, I was lucky enough to find many local folk who were kind enough to lend me family photos which illustrated my farming columns and eventually, my book Folklore of Essex.

Throughout much of Europe, Lammastide was also a traditional time of year for craft festivals and still is today in many British communities.  The medieval guilds would create elaborate displays of their wares, decorating their shops and themselves in bright colours and ribbons, marching in parades and performing ceremonial plays and dances for the entranced onlookers. In America, the small town or country fair echoes the Lammas tradition.  Their agricultural competitions and midway games resemble the ancient European festivals at which people gathered to pay homage to the land and the fruits of their labour. 

With the advent of Christianity in Britain, pagan rituals were officially replaced by church services or masses in which the first harvested grains were milled and baked into loaves of bread, taken to church, blessed and then offered as thanksgiving to God.  Lammas Day itself was a Christian holy day in Britain from Saxon until medieval times.  Bread from the first harvest was blessed in a church ceremony known as the “loaf mass”.  It was then shared among the congregation, as a symbol of communal thanks for a successful harvest.  “Lammas” derives from the Old English ‘half loaf’, and ‘maesse’ meaning a feast.