Neptunalia
Today (or tomorrow, or both) is the ancient Roman (or Phoenician) holiday of Neptunalia, one of three obscure Roman festivals that honored watery deities in the last days of July.
Neptune was the Roman god of both freshwater and the seas, but this festival, which shares many similarities with the Jewish Sukkot, is focused on Neptune’s ties to the water that feeds agriculture. Most of the celebration, such as was left in the days of the late Republic, took place in the recently harvested grain fields. People of all classes would go out to the farmlands and build huts out of leafy branches. Then they would feast and amuse themselves in the verdant shade for one or two days, often spending the night in the hut. There were ludi (games) during Neptunalia, and 23 July was one of the citizen voting days in Rome.
Oddly enough, the holiday is still celebrated in the city of Sousse, Tunisia as the Carnival of Awussu. In its contemporary guise, the day marks the onset of ‘Awussu, the Berber appellation for the “heat-wave” month of August. This Carnival is celebrated with beach parties and a parade featuring watery chariots and fanfares blown on conch shells. There are no huts and there is no reference to agriculture, but the holiday is still clearly an appeal to Neptune to bring his quenching waters.
This time of year around the Mediterranean, and even as far North as Ireland, many celebrations tie the harvest to cooling waters. Most of them are like Neptunalia in that they don’t necessarily ask their gods for rain, though that is welcome, but they’d rather the springs and streams bring cold water up from the deep places. They want soil moisture without the humidity that can bring blight to trees and vines in this critical time right before the fruit harvest. The grain may be gathered in before Neptunalia, but the apples are still green and the grapes are only now swelling on the vine. Both need moisture, but both also need plenty of sunshine to turn their fruits sweet. Blue skies with plentiful groundwater is the compromise.
But another harvest that used to be celebrated at this time is more in the domain we usually assign to Neptune. In Victorian England the last week of July was the opening of oyster season.
In times past, oysters were so ubiquitous they were the food of commoners — though the aristocracy weren’t above ordering them by the pound. Oysters featured in stews as a substitution for expensive beef. They were served with eggs and stuffed in turkey and game birds. A favorite Victorian meal for the lower classes was oyster pie, which is, as far as I can tell, just that: a pie crust filled with oyster meats.
I like oysters, but in moderation. I don’t think I could eat a whole pie of them, but then I’ve never had to go hungry in July. There isn’t much plant-based food to eat in July, and by the 19th century the lower classes had lost access to the eggs and milk that kept bellies filled when the gardens and fields were not yet productive. The rest of the year, they could eat oysters to stave off hunger, but not in the summer.
Oysters are available year-round; they don’t really have a growing season. But you sure don’t want to eat them in the summer. Oysters live in shallow waters in rivers or near the ocean’s shore where water is quickly warmed by air temperature. And warmer water makes for watery and thin oysters, more like mucous than meat. It also makes for increased growth of microbes which can cause food poisoning. There is an old rule of thumb: don’t eat oysters in a month without an “r”. This means no oysters from May through August. But during the Little Ice Age of the late 17th through the mid-19th centuries, the waters of the North Sea that wash the eastern shores of England turned cold earlier. By late July, oysters were firm enough to eat again.
The opening of oyster season was celebrated with particular joy in the poorer quarters of 18th and 19th century London, where a handful of oysters might be the only food available. Oysters likely saved many from starvation, though I imagine many of the water-borne diseases contracted by the lower classes came as much from eating Thames oysters as from washing with and drinking Thames water. But still, the end of the oyster dearth was a relief.
There are still festivals that pay homage to the oyster. At Whitstable Bay in Kent on the southeast shore of the North Sea, there is still an oyster festival known as the Whitstable Rocks Oyster Festival. However, in these warming years the festival has moved from late July to late September. So now, I guess, even in the North Sea, it’s a good idea to follow the Rule of “R” when it comes to oysters.
Today, you can go build a hut of cool green branches and toast the god of cool waters. You can hold a parade asking for rain to quench the fiery heat of August. You can hold games and races on the beach… but you probably don’t want to eat the oysters…
When I sold kids’ books in the desert, summer was given over to watery themes. We did mermaid books and beach blanket story times. But one of the favorites was Percy Jackson day, August 18th. (Look it up…)
Percy, the brilliant creation of Rick Riordan, is the son of Poseidon, the Greek version of Neptune. In the Percy Jackson books, when Poseidon comes ashore, he’s a beach bum, something of a cross between surfer god and Jimmy Buffett. When Percy goes to visit his dad at home at the bottom of the sea, then we see glimpses of Poseidon as he was to the Greeks, mercurial, cold, powerful and wealthy. But also largely alone.
Story time on Percy Jackson day featured Greek myths around Poseidon and his watery realm. There were Nereids and other water beings. Lots of fish and crustaceans and cephalopods. Dolphins and seals and seahorses, as well as Poseidon’s water horses (which are terrifying… nothing you ever want to get close to…). And my craft teacher came up with a fantastic tie-in activity. He made Poseidon crowns. Pretty much out of trash. But they were gorgeous!
If you have short people with a yen to be a son or daughter of Poseidon (it happens), here’s how you make a crown.
First, gather shiny things. Bits of shell and well-rounded stones. Broken costume jewelry, especially pearl and silver, and metallic ribbon leftover from Christmas wrapping. Add in some fish netting or knotted string. If you have them, add small fake flowers or coins. The tips of plastic knives make great shark’s teeth, and the swords that garnish tropical drinks add a note of piracy. Olive forks and other tiny silver pronged utensils are excellent stand-ins for Poseidon’s trident.
Next take a thin coat hanger, cut the hanger part off, and form it into a circle that will fit whatever head it will crown. Using silver craft wire or fishing line, tie the bits and bobs onto the circle, then add a bit of hot glue to keep the decorations from slumping, though a certain degree of fluidity is expected in a sea god’s crown. There should be dangling as well as a few solid projectiles pointing to the sky, announcing royalty in no uncertain terms.
If you are pro-glitter you can dab on glitter glue as well. Or use metallic and pearlized paints and markers on the drabber things. My craft guy had a way of making it all look like it was naturally dripped onto the crown, which is rather harder than it sounds.
After the glue cools and dries, everybody should don their crowns. Then sit down on sparkly cushions and read D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. (Note to grown-ups: Poseidon doesn’t often come across as a good guy. Because the sea is not always beneficent… so work with that…)
©Elizabeth Anker 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 