The Wheel of the Year

The Wheel of the Year is the calendar of the Craft. It is made of eight festivals called sabbats: the two solstices, the two equinoxes, and the four points that fall between them. Wiccans keep all eight, and so do many other witches and Pagans. Keeping them is the simplest way there is to stay in step with the natural world.

The eight sabbats and their dates

The seasons are reversed in the two hemispheres, so the festivals are too. The solstices and equinoxes are astronomical events, and their exact dates shift by a day or so from year to year.

Two kinds of sabbat

The solar festivals are Yule, Ostara, Litha, and Mabon. They fall on the solstices and equinoxes, the four turning points of the sun. They are sometimes called the quarter days or the lesser sabbats.

The cross-quarter festivals are Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh. They fall roughly halfway between the solar points, and they come from the four seasonal festivals of the Gaelic peoples of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. They are sometimes called the fire festivals or the greater sabbats.

The words lesser and greater are a matter of custom and not of importance. Every one of the eight has its place.

The story of the year

In Wicca, the Wheel tells one continuous story of the Goddess and the God. The God is born at Yule as the sun begins to return. He grows through Imbolc and Ostara, and at Beltane he and the Goddess are joined. At Litha he stands at the height of his strength. At Lughnasadh and Mabon he gives himself to the harvest, and at Samhain he passes into the Otherworld, to be born again at Yule. The Goddess, who is the earth itself, remains throughout, moving from Maiden to Mother to Crone and back again.

You do not need to take the story literally to find it useful. It is a way of saying that everything has its season: a time to begin, a time to flourish, a time to gather in, and a time to rest.

How old is the Wheel?

The parts are old, and the whole is modern. The four Gaelic festivals are recorded in Irish literature from the early medieval period. Midwinter and midsummer were marked across northern Europe, and prehistoric monuments aligned to the solstices show how long people have watched the sun.

No ancient culture is known to have kept all eight as one calendar. The eightfold Wheel came together in England in the 1950s and early 1960s, among the early Wiccans and the Druids of the same generation. The names Ostara, Litha, and Mabon were attached to the equinox and solstice festivals in the 1970s. Each of our sabbat guides explains which of its customs are historical and which are recent.

How to keep a sabbat

A sabbat can be as simple or as elaborate as you like. These five steps work for any of them.

1. Go outside. Notice what the season is actually doing where you live.
2. Dress the altar. Add something seasonal: flowers, leaves, fruit, grain, or evergreens.
3. Mark the moment. Light a candle, say a few words about what the season means to you, and sit quietly for a while. Each guide below includes a simple ritual.
4. Eat something seasonal. A shared meal is the oldest way of keeping a festival.
5. Write it down. A few lines each sabbat will give you a record of your whole year.

If you live where the seasons do not match the traditional pattern, adapt. A festival of first harvest belongs wherever and whenever your own harvest begins.

The sabbat guides