Happy Lammas Day!

Why do we have a holiday at the beginning of August? When I was growing up in Saskatchewan I used to wonder why this holiday was called the ‘August Bank Holiday’. What did this holiday have to do with banks and banking? Today, in British Columbia, the holiday at the beginning of August is simply called ‘BC Day’.
 
But where does this holiday come from?
 
It has its origins in ancient harvest festivals, notably the Lammas Day festival of Anglo-Saxon England (5th to 11th centuries CE). Lammas Day celebrated the first bread made from the wheat harvested each summer season, usually around the beginning of August. The word Lammas comes from Old English hlafmaesse (loaf mass); that is, the mass or worship service at which these first loaves were brought to the local church and blessed in thanksgiving. Later this bread was broken into four parts and placed in the four corners of a granary as a protection for the garnered grain.
 
Lammas Day, like other Christian festivals, comes from a much earlier pre-Christian English harvest festival, the Gule of August, a similar dedication of the first fruits of the harvest.
 
Anyway, enjoy the BC Day (or Lammas Day) long weekend!
 
Image: Lammas loaf owl with salt eyes (Wikipedia)
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammas