"The" Wiccan Festivals (was Re: Determining Holiday Dates)

[Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik]

Janis Maria Cortese writes:
>Okay, I want it settled once and for all (on this newsgroup? I must be
>delirious!).

Must be the euphoria of returning... ;)

Glad you're back!

>WHAT are the Wiccan festivals and when do most people put them? I
>like the solstices and the equinoxes, with favorite holidays like
>Halloween (which I've loved since I was a kid) between.

"The" Wiccan festivals are Samhain (31 October), Yule (winter
solstice), Imbolg (2 February), Ostara (spring equinox), Bealtaine (30
April, and I'm sorry but I can't spell it "Beltane"), Litha (summer
solstice), Lughnasadh (2 August), and Mabon (fall equinox). You might
find slightly different names from book to book, but those are the
holidays of the Wiccan canon.

Please notice that I did not say pagan, or Druid, or witch, or
anything other than Wiccan.

>WHAT ARE THE FESTIVALS?!?!?!?! Every book says something different, or
>they say the same GENERAL thing and then make up their own stuff without
>telling the reader that they've made up some on their own, leaving you to
>wonder what's commonly accepted and what's peculiar to the author.

Well, that's because they'll either change the name (for instance, if
you're a radical feminist type you may want to call Lughnasadh
something else instead of the name of a god), or try to impose
features of many different celebrations onto one. The Wiccan calendar
is a combination, mish-mash, amalgamation, what-have-you, of festivals
from more than one part of Europe and the British Isles. It is
doubtful that all those pagans all over the place celebrated exactly
the same holidays at the same time with the same seasonal changes
occuring. Most likely there are similarities, of course. But the
seasonal cyclical festivals (which these are supposed to be, after
all) *WILL NOT* be the same from region to region, civilzation to
civilization. The resulting confusion we experience now is due, in my
opinion, to this combination that we've perpretrated over the last
50-100 years.

If you stick with the eight I listed above, then you should have "the"
Wiccan holidays.

>Thanks!
>Janis

--
-----Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik-------------------------------*<:-)-------------
"Queens never make bargains." -- The Red Queen, _Through the Looking Glass_
-----a...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu--------------The University of Texas @Austin---