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• Wiccan holidays calendar and meanings mac#

Murray used records from early modern witch trials, as well as the folklore surrounding European witchcraft, in an attempt to identify the festivals celebrated by a supposedly widespread underground pagan religion that had survived into the early modern period. Frazer claimed that Beltane (the beginning of summer) and Samhain (the beginning of winter) were the most important of the four Gaelic festivals mentioned by Cormac. The contemporary Neopagan festival cycle, prior to being known as the Wheel of the Year, was influenced by works such as The Golden Bough by James George Frazer (1890) and The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) by Margaret Murray.

Wiccan holidays calendar and meanings mac#

In the 10th century Cormac Mac Cárthaigh wrote about "four great fires.lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids.in February, May, August, and November." Historical and archaeological evidence suggests ancient pagan and polytheist peoples varied in their cultural observations Anglo-Saxons celebrated the solstices and equinoxes, while Celts celebrated the seasonal divisions with various fire festivals. Illustration of a Witches' Sabbath, "Darstellung des Hexensabbats" from the Wickiana, circa 1570.

Contemporary conceptions of the Wheel of the Year calendar were largely influenced by mid-20th century British Paganism. Among Wiccans, each festival is also referred to as a sabbat ( / ˈ s æ b ə t/), based on Gerald Gardner's claim that the term was passed down from the Middle Ages, when the terminology for Jewish Shabbat was commingled with that of other heretical celebrations. Contemporary Pagan festivals that rely on the Wheel are based to varying degrees on folk traditions, regardless of actual historical pagan practices. Observing the cycle of the seasons has been important to many people, both ancient and modern. Differing sects of modern Paganism also vary regarding the precise timing of each celebration, based on distinctions such as lunar phase and geographic hemisphere. While names for each festival vary among diverse pagan traditions, syncretic treatments often refer to the four solar events as "quarter days", with the four midpoint events as "cross-quarter days". The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern Pagans, consisting of the year's chief solar events ( solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them. Some Pagans in the Southern Hemisphere advance these dates six months to coincide with their own seasons. The Wheel of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere.