Lugh
of the Longhand weeps into the fields
last touched by your living hand.
Hush and silence has fallen
Across the whole of Eiriu
In awe of your deed,
In awe of your death.
After the first Battle of Mag Tuired,
the Tuatha de Dannan recognized, Fir Bolg Queen,
Your strength, your valor and your loyalty to your tribe,
Yet still they stand
In awe of your deed,
In awe of your death.
For one long day and one long night
You labored with a mother’s love,
Clearing the land to unite your people
Who shall remain from this day forward
In awe of your deed,
In awe of your death.
Lady
Tailtiu, Queen of the Fir Bolg,
You paved the way for your children to sustain themselves.
You sacrificed yourself for them and shall henceforth be honored
In Feast and with games at the Festival of Lugh
In awe of your deed,
In awe of your death.
~~
Source Unknown ~~

Lughnasadh
is named for Lugh, the Celtic deity who presides over the arts
and sciences. According to Celtic legend, Lugh decreed that
a commemorative feast be held each year at the beginning of
the harvest season to honour his foster mother, Tailtui.
Tailtui was the royal Lady of the Fir Bolg. After the defeat
of her people by the Tuatha De Danaan, she was obliged by them
to clear a vast forest for the purpose of planting grain. She
died of exhaustion in the attempt.
The
legend states that she was buried beneath a great mound named
for her, at the spot where the first feast of Lughnasadh was
held in Ireland, the hill of Tailte. At this gathering were
held games and contests of skill as well as a great feast made
up of the first fruits of the summer harvest....
...As years passed, traditions surrounding the feast at Tailte
began to solidify into events and ceremonial activities designed
to celebrate not only Tailtui and the bounty of the harvest
that her original sacrifice provided but also to honor the work
and sacrifice of human beings as they strove to provide sustenance
for their families and community....
...With the coming of Christianity to the Celtic lands, the
old festival of Lughnasadh took on Christian symbolism. Loaves
of bread were baked from the first of the harvested grain and
placed on the church altar on the first Sunday of August. The
Christianized name for the feast of Lughnasadh is Lammas which
means "loaf mass".... More at:
http://www.leyline.org/cra/articles/lughnasadh.html

More
on Tailtiu
Tailtiu was a noble Rígh-bhean,
or Queen, of the Fir Bolg, the race of peoples who inhabited
Ireland before the coming of the Tuatha De Dannan. Tailtiu was
Lugh's foster-mother. His fosterage with Tailtiu begins his
intimate experience with the energies of the Land, preparing
him as a future champion of the Tribe for a bountiful Harvest.
Tailtiu
shines as a goddess with the most supreme of virtues, self sacrifice.
Tailtiu gave her life in a most extraordinary way. One year
the Fir Bolg had a bad harvest and many were starving. Tailtiu
took up an axe and began to clear a forest with her own two
hands in the space of one year. Little did the Fir Bolg know
that this act would kill her. At the end of her labors it is
said: "Her heart burst in her body from the strain beneath
her royal vest."
Before
she died she told the Fir Bolg to celebrate her passing every
year on the anniversary of her death, the 1st of August:
Long
was the sorrow, long the weariness of Tailtiu, in sickness after
heavy toil; the men of the island of Erin to whom she was in
bondage came to receive her last behest. She told them in her
sickness (feeble she was but not speechless) that they should
hold funeral games to lament her . . . White-sided Tailtiu uttered
in her land a true prophecy: that so long as every prince should
accept her, Erin should not be without perfect song.
It
was Lugh who held the very first Óenach Tailtenn or "Tailtiu
Games" to remember and honor his foster-mother. The Fair
of Tailtiu was a time of peace, first held by the Fir Bolg in
their time, by the Tuatha De Dannan after them, and then by
the Sons of Míl until the coming of the Adzehead:
A fair with gold, with silver, with games, with music of chariots,
with adornment of body and of soul by means of knowledge and
eloquence. A fair without wounding or robbing of any man, without
trouble, without dispute, without raping, without challenge
of property, without suing, without law-sessions, without evasion,
without arrest.
A
fair green with three marvels it possessed: a man without a
head walking about it, the son of a boy of seven years, held
on a finger, the fall of the priest from the air.
Tailtiu
is a reminder of how much the Land gives to us, and the Óenach
Tailtenn a time to remember her sacrifice for the fertility
of the Land, and how much she gave in return for that boon.

~~
Source Unknown ~~