Harvest Festival

Harvest Festival, celebration of the end of the summer harvest, usually marked by lavish feasts. Among the oldest known festivals, harvest feasts have existed for thousands of years. Ancient peoples offered the year’s first ripe grains to the gods in thanks for the crops that would sustain their communities for the coming year. In Europe, the early Christian Church tried to replace many ancient pagan customs—including harvest feasts—with ceremonies to honor Christian beliefs. During the Middle Ages (from about the 5th to 15th centuries) the Church replaced the ritual of grain offerings to the gods with a Christian ritual of offering the Eucharist bread on August 1, a holiday known in Britain as Lammas Day (from the Old English hlaf-maesse, meaning “loaf mass”).

Despite the influence of the Church in Britain, elements of pagan harvest customs persisted for centuries during and even after the Middle Ages. In autumn, after farmers had gathered all of their harvest, they hosted a “harvest home” feast for members of their community. Customarily, participants in the feast would use the last sheaf of grain to make a corn dolly, a symbolic or decorative figure made of braided straw. They would hold the dolly aloft and carry it with great ceremony to the feast. People believed that the dolly contained the spirit of a successful harvest, so when the feasting had ended, they took the dolly to a farmhouse where they stored it until the next harvest supper.

Today in Britain, Australia, and other parts of the English-speaking world, people celebrate the Harvest Home festival or Harvest Thanksgiving as an unofficial religious holiday, usually observed on a Sunday in late September or early October. Since the mid-19th century it has become customary during the Harvest Home festival to decorate churches with fruit and vegetables. In some British churches, the corn dolly forms part of the decorations, although people no longer consider it to have divine powers. After the thanksgiving service, the churches distribute the produce to charitable organizations.

Most countries of the world celebrate the end of the harvest with a feast. In the United States, the ancient harvest festivals of Europe helped give rise to contemporary Thanksgiving Day celebrations. In parts of Germany, people still ceremoniously march to harvest festivals carrying a harvest crown similar to the corn dolly. In France and other wine-producing countries, some communities celebrate the end of the grape-picking season in autumn by holding joyous harvest feasts. See also Festivals and Feasts.