Gathering Day is a Welsh festival of the summer solstice, so called because it was the time when druids gathered mistletoe and other plants for use in winter. The energy of plants harvested at Midsummer was believed to be very potent, hence herbs were collected then for medicinal use; these herbs included mugwort and vervain.
This festival marks the first of the three harvests of the year and the time for collecting young tender vegetables such as peas, beans and early fruits. It is also the time for the collection of honey.
Read more about Gathering Day: Historical References
Famous quotes containing the words gathering and/or day:
“The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn’t do if your life depended on it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“As a fond mother, when the day is o’er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)