The year
Wheel of the year
Eight festivals, with history, food, and a rite for the table.
The eightfold Wheel taught in Wicca is a twentieth-century weaving. Quarter days and solstices are older than that weaving, and they are not all the same age or the same culture. Each festival page says which is which.
If you live south of the equator, read Both hemispheres before you copy a British February.
FestivalSamhain
Samhain is an Irish quarter day at the start of winter. The eightfold Wiccan wheel around it is a twentieth-century calendar. Keep the history honest, and keep the supper kind.
FestivalYule
Yule is a Germanic midwinter feast. Christmas is the Christian feast of the Nativity, set near the solstice and braided with northern custom for a thousand years. Keep both histories, and keep the night small enough to survive.
FestivalImbolc
Imbolc is an Irish quarter day at the start of February, tied to Brigid. The saint's day and the goddess are historically tangled. Do not erase either. In the southern hemisphere, February may be high summer; let the land correct you.
FestivalOstara
Ostara, as a spring-equinox sabbat, is a modern revival name. Bede mentions a goddess Eostre once. The evidence is thin. Eggs and hares are not a command to reproduce, and the equinox is astronomy before it is a mood.
FestivalBeltane
Beltane is the Irish and Scottish May quarter day, a pastoral and protective fire feast. It is not a heterosexual fertility assignment. Desire, creativity, labor, friendship, and the land are enough.
FestivalLitha
Litha is Bede's word for a span of summer, later a modern sabbat name for the solstice. Midsummer fires belong to particular regions and centuries. Name the region. Do not say 'the Celts' and wave a hand.
FestivalLughnasadh
Lughnasadh is an Irish harvest feast tied to Lugh and to Tailtiu's games. Lammas is the Anglo-Saxon loaf-mass. Related themes, different names. First fruits means whatever is actually first where you live.
FestivalMabon
Mabon, as a name for the autumn equinox, was given by Aidan Kelly in the 1970s. Mabon ap Modron is a Welsh mythic figure and was not historically the equinox god. Keep the equinox. Do not conscript the myth.
FestivalHemispheres
The Wheel of the Year is a northern temperate sketch. You may swap it, keep it, or set it beside a wet and dry season. Local land outranks a British weather script. None of these choices is a moral rank.