#Winter equinox trial

Two neopagan groups in Britain adopted an eight-fold festival calendar in the 1950s: the Bricket Wood coven, a Wiccan group led by Gerald Gardner, and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, a neo-Druidic group led by Ross Nichols. The Witches' Cottage, where the Bricket Wood coven celebrated their sabbats (2006) He said that, despite Christianization, the importance of agricultural and social cycles had preserved 'the ancient British festal system', which he believed consisted of eight holidays corresponding to Candlemas (2 February), Lady Day (25 March), May Day (1 May), Midsummer Day (24 June), Lammas (1 August), Michaelmas (29 September), Halloween (31 October), and Christmas (25 December). Robert Graves also promoted the discredited 'witch cult' theory in The White Goddess (1948).

#Winter equinox trial

Murray reports a 1661 trial record from Forfar, Scotland, where the accused witch (Issobell Smyth) is alleged to attend witches meetings ' every quarter' at Candlemas (2 February), Roodmas (3 May), Lammas (1 August), and Hallowmas (1 November).

She attempted to identify the festivals celebrated by this supposed 'witches cult'. Murray promoted the witch-cult hypothesis a now-rejected theory that European witch trials were an attempt to suppress a pagan religion that had survived into the early modern era. Another influence was The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) by Margaret Murray. The festival cycle known as the 'Wheel of the Year' was influenced by works such as The Golden Bough by James George Frazer (1890), which explored various European seasonal festivals and their possible pagan roots. The four Celtic festivals were known to the Gaels as Beltane (1 May), Lughnasadh (1 August), Samhain (1 November) and Imbolc (1 February). In the British Isles, the Anglo-Saxons primarily celebrated the four solstices and equinoxes, while Insular Celtic peoples primarily celebrated the four midpoints between these. The ancient pagan peoples of Europe differed in the festivals they celebrated. Some Wiccans use the term sabbat ( / ˈ s æ b ə t/) to refer to each festival. Modern pagan festivals that rely on the Wheel are based to varying degrees on folk traditions, regardless of actual historical pagan practices. Observing the cycle of the seasons has been important to many people, both ancient and modern. Different paths of modern paganism may vary regarding the precise timing of each celebration, based on such distinctions as the lunar phase and geographic hemisphere.

British neopagans crafted the Wheel of the Year in the mid-20th century, combining the four solar events (' quarter days') marked by many European peoples, with the four seasonal festivals ('cross-quarter days') celebrated by Insular Celtic peoples. The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by a range of modern pagans, marking the year's chief solar events ( solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them. Some Pagans in the Southern Hemisphere advance these dates six months to coincide with their own seasons. The Wheel of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere.

For Wheel of time, see Wheel of time (disambiguation). For other uses of Sabbat, see Sabbat (disambiguation).