Late August and early September in the Northern Hemisphere are packed with pagan harvest celebrations dating back several millennia: “First Fruits” festivals in valleys full of orchards; “Hops Hooding” shows where girls from brewing regions wear bowers of vines; competitions where ribbons are awarded for the biggest or least-blemished fruit; processions with hobby horses and elaborately-costumed dancers; rituals involving the last sheaf of grain and the alcohol made from the first of the harvest. In the early second millennium CE, among the city-dwelling early New Heathens of a pre-sea-swell late-capitalist society disconnected from the ancient agricultural calendar, a new harvest ritual spontaneously emerged that echoed prior lavish offerings of fruits and grains to the Elder Gods. It was called “Spongecake Day”. While its origins were lost with the drowning of the great digital libraries, in this essay, I shall discuss the
