A Time to Celebrate
Feast days and festivals were very popular among the Anglo-Saxons, The Christian church was trying hard to convert the pagans, but it was a slow process. Someone, at some point thought it would be a good idea to change the meaning of their celebrations to a more Christian theme, they could have their yule celebrations except now they were celebrating Christ's birth, and not the winter solstice, so it went on. You might be surprised to see just how many of our festivals are actually Pagan.
Modranect or Mother's Night
This was held on the night of 24th December.
Arriving in the middle of Geola, this was a celebration of the birth of the sun at the winter solstice. The day following the Night of the
Mother was devoted to the Goddess as Sea-Mother. At this time an image of the Goddess was launched out to sea.
Geola or yule
From the Old English Geola, which could mean wheel. Yule was a twelve day festival which started around the winter solstice and for the Anglo-Saxons contained the start of the new year and the mothers night celebration. During the celebrations warriors sacrificed a wild boar while making vows for the coming year - the origin of New Year resolutions today.
Eostre
Held in April this holiday welcomed the new summer. Eostre was a goddess, but we only have the writings of Bede to tell us this, no other evidence has been found. Her name comes from the words for east and shining, so she has become known as the goddess of the dawn. The modern Easter symbolism of Easter eggs and the Easter bunny arise from this festival. The eggs symbolise fertility and rebirth and the rabbit (more properly the hare, which ancient folklore associates with laying eggs) was Eostre's sacred animal.
Lammas
Celebrated in August, this was the Anglo-Saxon harvest festival.
Lammas meant literally loaf-mass which was the first bread to be baked from
the first wheat harvested. The Goddess worshipped at this time was Nerthus, the Earth Mother, she was responsible for the fertility of the earth
and all that lives and grows on it.