So - we have eight festivals scattered throughout the year. Where did they originate? Why do we celebrate them?

I recall reading that Beltaine was the time (in Scotland) when the beasts were put through fire/smoke to rid them of 'little friends' and then put to the hills for the summer. Other than that I have come across no other references to it being an ancient Pagan festival or indeed being celebrated anywhere else. Doesn't mean to say there isn't of course!

Hutton's 'Stations of the Sun' would be a good book on this topic, and it's where I read about Beltaine (haven't got any further yet), but what about other opinions?

I always assumed festivals like Lughnasa would have regularly occured purely as celebrations of a given change in the seasons. Almost like marker posts for the year, giving people a good reason to get together etc, as well as marking the time of year.

As for other festivals, i wonder if we will ever really find out, I can only imagine they evolved over a very long period of time.

I thought you guys would maybe find this article interesting. unfortunately, I couldn't tell you where it came from originaly as it was sent to me by someone (I can't remember who) who thought I might like it. Anyway, here it is (if it would go better elsewhere, please feel free to move it):

Wheel of the Year - a revision
It never made sense to me that pagans, following nature-based spiritual paths, would fix major festivals to an artificial calendar. The minor sabbats are fixed to specific moments in the turning of the Sun – the solstices and equinoxes - why would the major sabbats not also be fixed to natural events? There is little, if any,
evidence that our ancestors followed a year divided into eight. The assumptions appear to have sprung from Fraser and adopted by modern pagans, but it still doesn't feel right to my logical mind.

I had once thought, like many others, that the major sabbats were probably more lunar orientated, but this is not correct either. They are clearly part of the solar cycle. The lunar cycle is marked in another way during the esbats. A pagan surely has no problem following two cycles, lunar and solar, simultaneously. We worship the Goddess and God and their interaction, so why try to unify them when they are clearly two interdependent intertwining threads?

We should remember that the Gregorian Calendar that we use in our modern diaries is basically an artificial affair. We should also remember that back in the 17th Century adjustments were made to correct perceived anomalies. The change from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian shifted dates by around 11 days (to correct anomalies already clear). If we take the Julian Calendar, that was in use for many centuries, the Sun would have moved into Scorpio around the 1st November rather than the 23rd October as it does today. The Sun would have moved into Taurus around 1st May instead of the 22nd April. In fact the Zodiac 'months' would have matched the Julian Calendar much more closely. A tenth century reference (Cormac's glossary – there are many others) records Druids marking Beltane on the 1st May in honour of the god Bel. (Cattle were driven through the fires – perhaps a symbol of Taurus.) The 1st of May in the tenth century would have coincided with the Sun moving into Taurus (six hundred years before Gregorian calendar came into play). The 1st May in the 21st century is simply an artificial date on the Gregorian Calendar that has no actual correspondence with a natural event.

The figure below (erm... can't put it on here!) shows the pagan festivals set against the Zodiac Wheel of the Year with the months adjusted to correspond with the signs. With these adjustments, we can see that the major sabbats now match the dates that have been used for hundreds of years. When we changed to the
Gregorian Calendar the dates would have remained the same, as the actual date had been used for many centuries, but the fact that they matched up with a major event in the solar astrological movement would have been lost. The major sabbats, I believe, should mark the entrance of the sun into the signs of Scorpio
(Samhain), Aquarius (Imbolg), Taurus (Beltane), and Leo (Lughnasadh).

These signs are the fixed signs in the Zodiac. So the occasions would mark the times the sun moved into this fixed energy. These four signs are also associated with the four elements. So the occasion marked the sun moving into signs representing fixed elemental energies. The fact that it is the sun moving into those signs is why they are known as fire festivals – of course! Many people use Samhain to mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next (even though a circle doesn't have a beginning or end). If we celebrate it as the sun enter Scorpio we find it is represented by an animal that represents death (through its sting) and rebirth (as it sheds its skin) – exactly the sort of symbolism Samhain tends to bear.

The minor sabbats – the equinoxes and solstices – would not have moved with the change from the Julian to Gregorian calendars as the fact that the Sun is at its height or the day and night are equal would have been obvious even to the illiterate. They mark, and always have, the movement of the Sun from one sign to the next. This does mean, however, that they no longer fall as cross-quarter dates. It also clearly suggests that four festivals (marking the Sun's movement into Gemini, Virgo, Pisces and Sagittarius) are missing. There are plenty of references to festivals at these dates. The most readily available refer to christianised Celtic saints, though the stories associated with them suggest earlier pagan roots as so many do.

It makes far more sense to me for those following a path so closely connected to nature to fix them in this way than to an artificial calendar imposed by the religious leaders of a path that had lost touch with its nature-based roots. I suspect most pagans will continue using the eight-fold wheel. Whilst the major sabbats (if applied to the Gregorian Calendar) are not tapping into the energies as originally intended, the fact that so many people are involving themselves in a festival creates considerable energy in itself. As with all things, it is a matter for personal choice, though being Wiccan (an occult path rather than a mystical) surely it is important to apply oneself to the activities of the goddess and god rather than a calendar perverted by papal decree.

Cool! that's a really interesting post Mabon. It makes the Zodiac make more sense if the first day of the month was when the moon moved into a new celestial house.

Still I think that the eight principle divisions of the year date from prehistory. The winter solstice is the shortest day but not the coldest part of winter. Passing the solstice meant that the days get longer as the Sun is reborn but the year does not get warmer for some time. The time of Imbolc, at the beginning of Feburary is the coldest time of year, and this would be celebrated as this would mean on average the weather is warming up and the days are noticably longer.
The Equinox is a time of balance in day and night but for spring, the day length is at its fastest rate of change. The signs of spring are usually well establised by then.
Beltane is when spring is in earnest and the trees are in blossom and everything has woken up as it were. It would also mean that salad greens are also available which would have certainly been worth celebrating.
Midsummer is when the days are longest. As well as celebrating this, there would also have been the knowlege that the days are getting shorter although initially not by much.
Lammas is the hottest time of year and the days are shorter than at midsummer. It would have also been a time for the first harvests of grain and fruit.
The Equinox would have been the harvest festival as most things are ripe by then. By now the days are getting noticably shorter and the weather is cooling towards winter. Equinoctal storms are a taste of things to come.
Samhain would have marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of slaughtering the animals for winter. At this time the nights are long and the weather is colder so possibly some of the elders would die. This would be a time when those who have died and moved to the next world are remembered as the year turns back towards Yule.

And 'of course' Samhain was the start of the Celtic year. Because they reckoned a day started at sundown.

Does anyone know where these come from?

Possibly the year thing is from the Coligny calendar (I haven't researched that properly yet), but I've not found anything that specifies where the Celtic day starting at twilight comes from.

Maybe this is a bit off-topic, but it sprang to mind as I was reading the other posts.

Cheers
ht