Wheel of the Year

"Sabbat" redirects here. For other uses of Sabbat, see Sabbat (disambiguation). For Wheel of time, see Wheel of time (disambiguation). For the song by GFriend, see Walpurgis Night (album).

The Wheel of the Year in the Northern Hemisphere. Some Pagans in the Southern Hemisphere advance these dates six months to coincide with their own seasons.

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. Modern pagan observances are based to varying degrees on folk traditions, regardless of the historical practices of world civilizations.[1] British neopagans popularized the Wheel of the Year in the mid-20th century,[2] combining the four solar events ("quarter days") marked by many European peoples, with the four midpoint festivals ("cross-quarter days") celebrated by Insular Celtic peoples.[3]

Different paths of modern Paganism may vary regarding the precise timing of each observance, based on such distinctions as the lunar phase and geographic hemisphere. Some Wiccans use the term sabbat (/ˈsæbət/) to refer to each festival, represented as a spoke in the Wheel.[4]

  1. ^ Harvey, Graham (1994). "The Roots of Pagan Ecology". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 9 (3): 38–41. doi:10.1080/13537909408580720.
  2. ^ "Druidcast Episode 1". druidcast.libsyn.com (Podcast). 1 June 2007. Retrieved 22 June 2024.
  3. ^ Williams, Liz (29 July 2013). "Paganism, part 3: the Wheel of the Year". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
  4. ^ Gardner, Gerald (1954). Witchcraft Today. p. 147.