We are in the middle of the harvest season and the celebration of prosperity is the main theme, (and behind all that - it has strong connection with Death, as the Grim Ripper, of course).
Lammas is one of the eight Wiccan High Holidays, and it is one of the main, eight festivals of the Pagan Wheel of the Year. Yet it is the least known of the four seasonal cross-quarter days, including Samhain (Halloween), Imbolc (Groundhog Day) and Beltane (May Day). Obviously, in the Southern Hemisphere Neopagans call this time Imbolc, as the seasons are directly opposite on The Wheel.
The patron deity seems to have a lot in common in many European cultures. For the Celtic world it is Lugh, Romans associated him with Mercury, but their religion was a bit blunt. As it goes for the ancient Greeks, Apollo comes in mind, of course. In the North it would be Frey, and in the Slavic demonology there is plenty of harvest spiritis called Płanetniki, Płanetnicy.
And last but not least, it is the month of Leo which nicely corresponds to the Irish name Llew.
Both Apollo and Lugh were mature youths, full of vitality and healthy commons sense, and greatly skilled in every possible part of life. They were the custodians of some martial arts with the spear as the main weapon and lovers of fine art. Both are quite distinct and distant, as they do not much involve themeselves in human affairs.
They are the personification of the Sun in the middle of Summer, when it is still high in the sky, when nature and humans are buzzing with work requiring many skills. And for all that, people like to celebrate the first harvest, so in many villages across Europe the harvest festivals are still taking place. Well, let's not forget that Apollo was an addressee to the pledges againts plague, a dreadful occurrence causing famine in the agricultural communities.
The name Lammas comes from the Old English 'hlaf maesse', meaning ‘loaf mass’, at which bread was baked from the freshly gathered grain of the season and blessed in a special celebration. When Lughnasadh was imbued by the Church the loaves of bread were consecrated on the church altar on the first Sunday of August, and this tradition is still enacted in many places. The Celtic word 'nasadh' meant ‘commemoration’ so it is Lugh's deeds memory day. The name may be also related to the Latin lux - ‘light’.
So the hallmarks of archetype of The Shining One is the high-sun, the air which brings goodness (harvest) and evil (bad weather, flying bugs and plague) and enforcement of the many skills required in the season. The key-words would be: clairvoyance, craftiness, cleverness, flair, gumption, knack, shrewdness, smartness.
