Celtic cross-quarter days follow a reliable climatic cycle that made sense to early agrarians in which the seasons begin six weeks earlier to solstice. Celts (including in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France’s Brittany, England’s Cornwall, and perhaps in certain parts of northern Spain), celebrated spring on February 1 (Candlemas), summer on May 1 (Beltane), fall on August 1 (Lammas), and winter on Samhain or Martinmas (November 1) with folk music and dance, and other traditions.
Candlemas time appears in Bianca’s Cure (pp 72-73):
Bianca looked up at the drab building before them. No alchemy could be found within those walls. No team of scientists waited within. “I should,” Francesco continued, “but I don’t want to. I intend, Bianca, to see you again. I’m holding a ball soon. It’s Candlemas season now, the beginning of spring. If you do not attend, I’ll be devastated, and shall have to swallow arsenic to end my sorrow.” He held both her hands.“So, you’ll come to my ball. Do I need to invite your husband, too?”
In spite of herself, Bianca smiled. Candlemas season—spring? There was a bit of the mysterious in these Medici.”
Now we are in the fall season of Lammas, which was even in the Renaissance (if not today) a time of legal and fiscal deadlines (like, establishing rents, beginning school terms, harvest sharing).*
Days are getting shorter, annual plants are giving up their leaves and fruit while perennials mature their life-yielding seeds. A cooler air prevails—preparing us for the darkness of winter. We might not like this earlier schedule—we’re not quite ready for summer months to end—but how happy we’ll be when spring rolls around, early in February.
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*see “Quarter Days, Cross-Quarter Days & the Origins of Modern Holidays” at www.almanac.com. Uncredited images also taken from this source.