In the northern hemisphere, the autumn equinox normally falls on September 22nd, 23rd or 24th. This year it’s on Sunday 22nd. Equinox means ‘equal night’ because day and night are of equal length at the spring and autumn equinoxes.
Equinoctial alignments at Neolithic sites in the British Isles are less common than those relating to midwinter or midsummer but some sites do have them. Near where I live is the West Kennett Long Barrow (below). When first constructed, the eastern end of its passageway was partially covered by large stone slabs that left only a narrow aperture just big enough for a person to crawl through. On the morning of the equinox, the Sun shining through this aperture would have illuminated the rear chamber of the tomb-shrine. It would have been quite a sight.
All five of its chambers and its central passageway contained the long bones and skulls of numerous ancestors, initially placed there in around 2650 BCE with a few more added centuries later.
The eastern entrance is now as it was reconstructed in the 1950s by a team of archaeologists led by Stuart Piggott, now best remembered for his book, The Druids, a large part of which is devoted to his strong antipathy towards modern Druid revivalists, whom he describes as “misleading and rather pathetic.” Thanks, Stuart, we love you too. Piggott’s team removed the slabs that had left the small crawl hole because the Ministry of Works wanted there to be easy access for tourists. They also rebuilt the collapsed sections of the central aisle and side chambers, although their reconstruction does follow the orientation of the original passageway. Unfortunately, they left in place the huge blocking stones erected when the barrow was taken out of use in around 2000 BCE. These completely block the rising equinoctial Sun from shining into the barrow.
There being two equinoxes each year, one in the spring on March 20th or 21st, the other in autumn, it is hard to judge which was most significant to our ancestors. In the case of the West Kennett Long Barrow, I tend towards the autumn equinox because of a vision I had there of what was clearly a harvest-related rite being carried out in a wheat field a little to the west of the barrow mound. That said, I feel that both dates were and are of ritual, mythical, practical and agricultural significance.
The Welsh name of this festival, Alban Elfed, aptly translates as ‘Birth of the Ripe Quarter,’ for this is a celebration of the safe gathering in of the harvest and the abundance of fruit on trees and bushes at this time of year. Many of its ancient customs have been transferred to the Christian festival of Michaelmas on September 29th. Being a celebration of harvest, many of these customs revolve around communal feasting and sharing food with less fortunate members of the community. Scotland is a rich source of folklore and folk customs associated with Michaelmas, dedicated to Saint Michael, an other-than-human saint who is an archangel.
In his Carmina Gadelica (vol. 1, pages 200-217), Scottish folklorist, Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912), describes the festivities as follows:
“To the young the Day is a day of promise, to the old a day of fulfilment, to the aged a day of retrospect. It is a day when Pagan cult and Christian doctrine meet and mingle like the lights and shadows on their own Highland hills.
“The Eve of St. Michael is the eve of bringing in the carrots, of baking the ‘struan,’ of killing the lamb, of stealing the horses. The Day of St. Michael is the day of the early mass, the day of the sacrificial lamb, the day of the oblation ‘struan,’ the day of the distribution of the lamb, the day of the distribution of the ‘struan,’ the day of the pilgrimage to the burial-ground of their fathers, the day of the burial-ground service, the day of the burial-ground circuiting, the day of giving and receiving of the carrots with their wishes and acknowledgments, and the day of the ‘oda’ - the athletics of the men and the racing of the horses. And the Night of Michael is the night of the dance and the song, of the merry-making, of the lovemaking, and of the love-gifts.”
This pleasing description makes it sound as though Michaelmas combines favourite elements from all the other calendar festivals, from the games, merriment and licentiousness of May Eve and Midsummer to Hallowe’en’s concern for the dead. Note also the decidedly pagan presence of animal sacrifice, in this case of a “male lamb, without spot or blemish.” The struan cake, Carmichael tells us
“… is made of all the cereals grown on the farm during the year. It represents the fruits of the field, as the lamb represents the fruits of the flocks. … The struan should contain a peck of meal, and should be baked on ‘uinicinn,’ a lamb-skin. The meal is moistened with sheep’s milk, the sheep being deemed the most sacred animal. For this purpose the ewes are retained in milk till St. Michael’s Eve, after which they are allowed to remain in the hill and to run dry. The struan is baked by the eldest daughter of the family, guided by her mother, and assisted by her eager sisters. As she moistens the meal with the milk the girl softly says -
“Ruth agus rath an treo. 'Progeny and prosperity of family,'
“Run Mhiclieil, dion an Teor. 'Mystery of Michael, protection of Trinity'.”
Many websites, Wiccan and Druid groups refer to the autumn equinox as ‘Mabon.’ Mabon (‘child’), son of Modron (‘mother’) features in the Mabinogi tale of ‘How Culhwch Won Olwen.’ His name derives from that of a youthful Roman-British hunter god, Maponos (left). The link between Mabon and the autumn equinox was made by an American Wiccan, Aidan Kelly, in the early 1970s (he explains his reasons here). There is no evidence for such a link prior to that date. The Coligny calendar ascribes Mapanos, who may or may not be the same god, to the date, 15 Rivros, usually reckoned to be in late July, so close to the usual date of Gwyl Awst/ Lammas/ Lughnasad, i.e. August 1st, rather than the autumn equinox six weeks later. The Mabinogi tales represent Mabon as a hunter, born at Midwinter, taken from his mother when three nights old, imprisoned until sought out by King Arthur and his allies with the aid of the world's five oldest animals. There is no hint of any link with the harvest, although the Stag hunting season in Britain traditionally ran from July 1st to October 20th, a period that encompasses both Gwyl Awst and Alban Elfed. In the story of Culhwch and Olwen, Mabon hunts a giant Wild Boar called Twrch Trwyth. I'm not sure what the Wild Boar hunting season was in medieval Britain and they had been hunted to extinction by the 14th century, but in modern Europe the season seems to run from early October through to late January, again suggesting Mabon may be associated with winter more than autumn and harvest.
Blessings of the Season,
Greywolf /|\