Today at 10:35am the Hay Moon is full, so tonight’s moonrise is the closest to full. This ninth moon of the year is also called the Corn Moon or the Mead Moon, for the meadows that are cut for hay at this time of year. The Hay Moon brings the shift of Midsummer, the Dog Days, to Lughnasadh, fair season, gathering season, a time to bring the whole tribe together and show off. The Lughnasadh holiday began on Sunday, the last Sunday in July, Bilberry Sunday or Crom Dubh Sunday, a day to climb to the heights for a day of picnics and berry picking and good-natured competitions, races and games.
In Ireland, the Tailteann games (or Telltown, named for Lugh’s foster mother, Tailtiu) is a tradition that may go back as far as the Bronze Age. The ancient games included chariot and horse races, boxing and wrestling. Being Ireland, in the evening, musicians and storytellers entertained the crowds. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were several attempts to revive the games. But it wasn’t until the Irish Free State was formed and the end of the Great Depression freed up funding that the games began in earnest. Today, there are many games specifically tied to this time, but “Tailteann games” is also a generic label for year-round sports in Ireland.
The Rás Tailteann cycling race was founded in 1953, and Cycling Ireland still organizes the race annually, though now it is known as simply “the Rás”. Many cyclists name this competition the hardest race of their careers, in case you were thinking of riding. In 1963, the Irish Secondary Schools Athletic Association began organizing their annual national championships under the name “Junior Tailteann Games”, and Athletics Ireland continues to use the name “Tailteann Games” for its annual schools inter-provincial championships. The Gaelic Athletic Association’s Tailteann Cup (football, of course), established in 2022, also takes its name from the ancient games.
In addition to games, many market fairs take place throughout the season, with an especial focus on horse trading. As in the ancient games, horse racing is also a feature of the season, with several races taking place on beach sand. Maggie Steifvater’s, The Scorpio Races, is a superb fantasy twist to this tradition of autumn beach racing. Not only are the races cut-throat, but the “horses” are actually kelpies — with a taste for human blood.
In a more grounded tradition, the latter half of the Hay Moon is when the potato harvest swings into full gear. In the orchard there are still pit fruits ripening — peaches, in particular — and the earliest apples are ready for sauce-making. Berries of all kinds are ripe in fields and cultivated plots alike. And the waning Hay Moon garden is so productive there is hardly time to breathe between harvesting, cleaning, cooking, canning, freezing, and eating. Then, in the midst of all this harvest labor, it is also time to sow. Fall and over-wintering crops are planted in the garden and the fields are being prepared for winter grains.
But this is only the beginning of the in-gathering season. Midsummer’s lethargy still holds sway here in central Vermont. Most of the veg in my garden is just about ready, not ready right now. So it is a good time to celebrate the full moon and then let the games of Lughnasadh invigorate us, wake us from the Dog Days torpor, before the real work of harvest begins.
A Simple Rite for the Full Hay Moon
The Hay Moon and Lughnasadh are times of brutal sunshine. The benign light of Midsummer becomes a harsh blast on the backs of haymakers and gardeners. We know that this is the last lunation of summer and that the frenzied work of autumn is just days away. But for now, there is a pause for gathering the Tribe together to celebrate the incipient waning of the heat. And so we retreat to seashore or lakeside, escaping Balor’s baleful eye, and hail the shortening days and the cool light of the moon.
If you can, find a body of water where you can watch the moonrise. Even a garden fountain or pond is sufficient. For this moonrise, I love being on the shore of Lake Champlain or out on Plum Island in Massachusetts. But I haven’t got to do that in a while… As this is a weeknight, I’ll likely just sit near the birdbath tonight.
You can be elaborate and set up a small altar with shells and beach stones and driftwood. But the core of this ritual is candle magic, and the only necessary things are some basin or body of water and two taper candles in safe holders, one golden yellow, one white or silver, placed on whatever level space is available.
At sunset, I light the golden candle and watch the flames for a minute or so, remembering the glad sunshine of early summer. Then I thank the Sun for their sustaining benevolence. But also I recognize that the sunset is now much earlier than at Midsummer, and for that, too, I express gratitude, as this means a lessening of the heat and the coming of Harvest.
At the first light of the Moon over the eastern horizon, I will light the white or silver candle from the golden candle, as the Sun lights the Moon, and place the white candle in the middle of the altar. I then quench the golden candle in water, reflecting on the cooling rains of Lammastide that will bring relief as both the Summer Sun and the Hay Moon are waning.
I let the white candle burn as I watch the Moon rise. I also usually toast the Hay Moon with a glass of mead, another gift of the hay meadows.
When I feel that it is time to end, I will clear away whatever altar I’ve made. (If that has happened…) I will gently blow out the white candle and save both candles for later use. (I am not one of those people who believes in single-use… of anything…) Then I go find my bed and dream of autumn.
Here is a lovely soundtrack to the rising of the full Hay Moon from Calm Whale.
Some Full Moon Folklore
Moving to a new house on a full moon is lucky.
Touching silver while gazing at the full moon will bring wealth.
When the moon is full, look through a holey stone, or hag stone, to see into the Land of Faery.
A holey stone also serves as protection from faeries if hung over cradles and beds or in windows.
Here is my take on a Cornish folktale on mermaids and the lunacy they inspire.
The Siren Song
There once was a cathedral on the rocky coast of Cornwall that was adorned with mermaids, woven into its tapestries, carved into its walls and pillars, and painted over its deep blue ceiling. Here in this corner, they danced in the cove under the silver moon. There by the sacristy door, they languidly combed long tresses that snaked around stone. Strong fish tails propelled them in dizzying spirals above the congregation. Altar candles flickered above gleaming bodies brandishing golden tridents. And every eye stared with haughty menace from breathtakingly beautiful faces.
A bishop came to this church one day and was chagrined by what he thought were devilish designs in the house of his god. He asked the parishioners why their forebears had taken such pains to cover every surface with primitive pagan folktales. So they told him this story.
Many generations ago, a beautiful woman came to the cathedral. Her skin was gleaming bronze with nary a hint of age, though she carried herself with the confidence and grace of full maturity. She had long silken hair the color of midnight and bright eyes that gleamed like beams of moonlight shining through falling water. She wore pale blue silk embellished with beads of pearl and shell in intricate design. She was very tall, and her bare arms were strong.
She came into the cathedral and stood alone at the front, her back to the congregants. And when the choir raised their voices in praise, she joined them. Her voice rang high and clear above all the others. And in her voice could be heard tempered bells of finest silver sounding under water and flutes carved from the bones of ospreys trilling in the twilight. She conjured images of ice like dark crystal and warm sun on the sandy strand at low tide. She brought hard men to salt-streaming tears and invoked the untamed strength of ocean waves in the gentle hearts of women. Though the words of the mass flowed from her lips, she sang of innocence and lust and deep occluded secrets at the foundations of the world. And the whole congregation was spellbound.
But when the mass was ended, she slipped through the people and disappeared.
The villagers nervously shook themselves free of the enchantment, whispering that it was all a dream. They would not look into each other’s eyes for fear of finding confirmation there. And they buried what they heard in that voice deep in their hearts.
Weeks passed. Then months. And soon it was a year since the mysterious woman sang in their midst. But in spite of their efforts to forget, her voice still sang in their minds like seabird song echoing in a grotto, calling to their hearts. Young women daydreamed of following her into a life of wild reprieve. Young men longed to be allowed merely to worship at her feet. Elders heard regret for a life they never dared claim.
And on a Sunday morn close to the full Mead Moon, she reappeared, standing amongst them like she had never been gone. Once again, she held them enthralled by her voice, conjuring visions and desires and wonder. And once again she vanished as the last notes of mass hung like sun-sparkling motes in the air.
So the story repeated itself. So another year passed with joy and sorrow and mundane living. But in this year some began to express the impressions seared into their memories. All through the village, stoneworkers carved, weavers entwined, artists painted, smiths cast iron and silver and bronze. And though none of the portrayals was alike, nor even similar in form, people saw uncanny likeness to the strange woman in each image. And each image was impregnated with unfathomable yearning.
Not a few began to fear what they saw in those faces.
So then a third Mead Moon brought her back to the cathedral. And again it was the same, until the end of mass. But this time when the benediction was laid on the congregants, she paused under the arched entry to the nave and turned. There, silhouetted by the bright golden light of summer’s morning, she stood and silently raised one hand in invitation.
As one, every young person and those young at heart — man and woman, matron and maid, bachelor, betrothed and bewedded — all turned and followed her into the sunlight. And the whole body processed in eerie silence out of the village, past fields and farms and fishing huts, down the rocky cliffs, across the sands, and into the waiting arms of the sea, which swallowed them all without a ripple, as if they never had been.
Children cried after their mothers. Old women wailed for their sons. Old men stood rooted and wept. And sailors cursed the waves. But they were finally freed from enchantment.
And so, the villagers told the bishop, our ancestors took every likeness from the village and translated each to the cathedral, as warning to both mermaid and those mortals tempted to follow her voice in search of wild beauty and savage freedom.
She is not welcome here, they said. And these are the reminders, the countercharms against her voice, should she ever again dare to sing within these stone walls.
Because at times, we still hear the song of the sea, and then we must stopper our ears and close our eyes. We see them, the echoes of those she enraptured away, dancing with wanton abandon in the foamy shallows under the late summer moonlight. We see them and we hear her voice and sometimes we are filled with treacherous longing.
And still, after all the tears, all the tales of heartbreak and sundering, all the long years, still, some will follow to the Land Under Wave.
©Elizabeth Anker 2026
By My Solitary Hearth 