After Lammas Day, / corn ripens as much by night as by day

August 1: Lammas

“August comes, and though the harvest-fields are nearly ripe and ready for the sickle, cheering the heart of man with the prospect of plenty that surrounds him, yet there are signs on every hand that summer is on the wane, and that the time is fast approaching when she will take her departure… But, far as summer has advanced, several of her beautiful flowers and curious plants may still be found in perfection in the water-courses, and beside the streams - pleasanter places to ramble along than the dusty and all but flowerless waysides in August.”

Robert Chambers, Chambers Book of Days (1864)

“‘The purpose of the Lammas Service is to offer the first of the crops to God: and to offer Him the first food made in the village from these early crops. It is not so much a thanksgiving, though obviously that element must be included. It is an offering, irrespective of what the results have been, or are to be. A sheaf of corn, and a loaf (made from the wheat that has just ripened) are brought to the church by members of the village and farming communities.’ Generally a farm labourer offers the sheaf, and a baker the loaf, and members of the Young Farmers’ Club take other parts in the service. Occassionally the service begins in a field, where the sheaf is cut, and afterwards taken to the church porch and then to the altar.”

Laurence Whistler, The English Festivals (quoting the Lammastide 1945 edition of The Plough, a West Sussex Church and Countryside Association periodical)