Festivals, Food and Farming

My original reasons for taking up the study of Proto-Indo-European religion had nothing to do with religion. I just had a few tiny questions related to gardening, such as what time of year to plant spelt, and which Goddess would be suitable as a garden ornament, since I was thinking of getting a statue to use as a focal point. And finally, I wondered why I didn’t know a single traditional harvest song, because I always feel like singing in the garden.

To my amazement, I was unable to find out this basic information. Local garden centers did not have any advice on when to plant spelt, a traditional grain that people don’t normally grow in their gardens. I then tried looking up the traditional time of fall grain planting in the Mediterranean climates, which should be incorporated into the Pagan festival calendars of Greece and Rome, but I couldn’t even find calendars of the traditional Pagan festivals for these countries. I found this absurd. See Pagan Saints for the reason.

This page links to a few of the Pagan festivals that I have been able to find so far, organized by month. Whenever possible, I provide a list of the myths and the beautiful music associated with these festivals, in the hope that you will also enjoy celebrating life in story and song. And here also will be information about pre-industrial traditions especially suitable for small-scale farming and gardening, including recipes for traditional foods and fun things to do.

Festival Calendar for the Indo-Europeans

January
Date	Festivals for Goddesses	Texts (myths, stories and songs)	Farming and Food
Jan. 7th	Charming the Plow and Blessing the Seed Ceres, a Roman Goddess	Plow Songs	sorting seed and planting
Dec. 21 to Jan. 17, day or evening	Wassailing the Apple Trees	Apple Tree Wassail Songs	welcome the return of the Sun
February
March
March 21 Spring Equinox	Easter for the Goddess Eostra or Ostara, and Easter Eggs	.	Nov Ruz (Persian New Year) Gahambar Traditions (recipes)
April
Date	Festivals for Goddesses	Texts (myths, stories and songs)	Farming and Food
April 15	Fordicalia festival to protect the winter grain
April 31	Walpurgis Night for the Goddess Freya (begins April 31, originally at the dark of the Moon)
May
May 1	May Day, continuation of festival for the Goddess Freya	May Day Revels, Part 1 May Day Songs and May Day Revels, Part 2	.
June
June 9-15	Vestalia for Vesta		.
July
Date	Festivals for Goddesses	Texts (myths, stories and songs)	Farming and Food
July 5-7	Bouphonia Festival and Poplifugia and the Festival of Romulus	Creation Myth of the Indo-Europeans	Jambalaya Recipe, especially for St. James’ feast day, July 25
August
8/1 to 8/15	Lammas, Lughnasadh and Harvest Festivals for the Grain Goddesses	Songs to Celebrate the Harvest	harvesting wheat and making bread
September
Sept. 23-25	Jumis and the Apjumibas festival		.
October
Date	Festivals for Goddesses	Texts (myths, stories and songs)	Farming and Food
Oct 31	Samhain (Celtic) and Halloween (Germanic), begins Oct 31st, originally at the dark of the moon.	Stories and Songs for Halloween and Samhain	in northern countries, the time of slaughter of livestock
November
Nov 1st	Continuation of Samhain (Celtic) and Halloween (Germanic)
December
Dec. 21, Winter Solstice	Yule	Yule Songs	keeping warm by the fire and feasting with friends New Yule Decorations
Dec. 22, or the day after the Winter Solstice	Hunting the Wren customs	Wren King Songs, Burying the Wren and How Lleu Llaw Gyffes Got His Name, (a Celtic myth)

© 2009, last updated 1/2/2013, piereligion.org/festivals.html