Sabbats

These Lesser Sabbats were probably not Celtic in origin as they were not part of the earliest Celtic calendars. These feast days were more than likely brought to the Celts and the British isles by invading Angles and Saxons.

The Lesser Sabbats are Solar Festivals marking the turning of the earth round the Sun. They come at more or less the same day each year and can be predicted. It is speculated that early cultures as diverse as the Mayans in South America and the Druids in Britain built great edifices to better be able to predict when the Solstices and Equinoxes would fall each year.

While the Lesser Sabbats had more or less set days on the calendar each year, the Greater Sabbats did not.

The days for these Sabbats were determined not by the position of the earth in relation to the Sun, but by the changing of the seasons, the ripening of the fruits and grains, and the fertility cycles of the animals.

Today, they are celebrated by most Pagans at a static point on the calendar, this was not always the case. These are the celebrations of a fully pastoral-agricultural society, dependent upon the successful propagation of crops in the fields and animals in the meadows for their own survival. The focus of the Greater Sabbats is that of fertililty, sex, birth, life, and death.

In this age when we can go to a grocery store and buy food year round, this dependence that people once had on Mother Earth is not fully appreciated.

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