Wheat Weaving back in 2022
I'm obsessed with calendar customs and for me some years Lammas is a celebration of the last sheaf, or in my case tastefully woven floral grade wheat. I’m not feeling it this year, but boy was I in 2022.
Mell Doll
"You will not be surprised to read that the design of harvest tokens called a Mell varied around the county. It could be a simple sheat, the last one cut in the field, or the last sheaf could be decorated with flowers and wrapped in the reapers' clothes. In Cumbria the mell doll was very different. Made from the last cut straw it was plaited to enclose a large apple. When complete it was hung in the farmhouse kitchen until Christmas Day when the straw was presented to the best cow and the apple to the oldest servant on the farm."
Harvest Trophies or Corn Dollies — Hat Plait
In addition to being attracted to the lovely design, my nickname is Mel, so I kinda had to ...
l also made a simpler corn dolly to be ploughed back into the land on plough Monday:
"Planting" last 2021’s corn dolly at Plough Monday
earlier in 2022:
In 2022’s annual Lammas Procession around our property I presented both dollies to the four corners:
I think maybe I’m not feeling it this year because I don’t have a patch to do a land blessing on. We could drive to one of my favorite foraging locations, but that would involve a walk in a heat advisory, not just popping out the front door as in the previous decade . . .
Also, I think last year a lot of the feels I have, that used to belong to this date, have moved to the Assumption of Mary and Mezi Matičkama.
I’m planning on quietly working with my herbs (my “harvest,”) today, though I think I’ll wait to do a blessing until the Assumption, and possibly reaching out to the ancestors with my yarrow stalks, since I haven’t done a reading since Saint Margaret’s Day.
