Jun 29, 202213 min read

Everything You Need to Know about the Wheel of the Year

Updated: Mar 16, 2023

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Ah, the Wheel of the Year: eight sabbats for celebrating and eight excuses for feasting; a way to honor and acknowledge the cycle of life, death, and rebirth in our lives and the natural world around us; and one of the most infuriatingly convoluted parts of being new to Paganism.

If you're a new practitioner, welcome. I bet you've scoured Google resources every sabbat so far and still walked away with questions. Where did the Wheel of the Year come from? Is it just a Wiccan thing? What parts are Wiccan and what parts are from other traditions? Who are the Holly and Oak Kings? What's the deal with the god and goddess and HOW does he impregnate her with... himself? (No offense to any Wiccans, I just... don't get it. Please make it make sense.)

Take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. I remember being right where you are now: a head full of questions and every answer I found just bringing about more questions. It took me a few years of studying and many stumbling attempts at celebrating the sabbats before I really got a full understanding of the Wheel. I'm here today to give you a broad overview so you have a solid foundation to start your own observation of the sabbats.

While I will have other articles outlining the history behind each individual sabbat, ways to celebrate, and correspondences for each one, this article is going to be broad. It will cover:

A Quick Overview of the Sabbats
The History of the Wheel of the Year
The Wiccan God and Goddess
The Holly and Oak Kings
Recommended Reading/Resources

Let's begin!

A Quick Overview of the Sabbats

This section is self-explanatory. I promise I will be back with an article for each sabbat so I can really delve into the nitty gritty, and I will link them below as I write them over the next year.

Please note that our calendar does not quite line up with the solar year. You will therefore see a range of dates for each sabbat as they land on different days every year. Also, as the traditional Wheel of the Year was conceived in Britain, the dates are set for the Northern Hemisphere. The Wheel is mirrored to find the dates for the Southern Hemisphere (e.g., when the Northern Hemisphere is observing the Winter Solstice, the Southern would be observing the Summer Solstice).

Yule - Solstice

Alternate name(s): Winter Solstice, Midwinter

Dates: December 20-23 or for those who celebrate the 12 Days of Yule, it is observed from December 21st to January 1st

Observation overview: Yule is the shortest day and longest night of the year, and this day is celebrated as the return/rebirth of light/the sun because after this point, the days will start getting longer until they peak at the Summer Solstice. This is viewed as a time of renewal, goodwill, and beginnings.

Imbolc - Cross-quarter day, halfway between winter solstice and spring equinox

Alternate name(s): Candlemas, Imulg, Brigid's Day, February Eve

Dates: February 1st or 2nd

Observation overview: This marks the coming end of winter and the first stirrings of spring are sprouting up. Days are continuing to get longer. Imbolc is viewed as a beacon of hope that the harshness of winter will soon be at an end. This is another day of renewal and beginnings as well as fertility, purification, and hope.

Ostara - Equinox

Alternate name(s): Spring Equinox, Easter

Dates: March 19-23

Observation overview: Night and day are of equal length. Ostara is a celebration of balance and duality between light and dark, day and night. The earth is fertile and nature is full of abundance.

Beltane - Cross-quarter day, halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice

Alternate name(s): May Day, Beltine, Beltaine, Belltaine

Dates: April 30th or May 1st

Observation overview: New plant and animal life are being born all around us, and this day is celebrated as a time of abundance, lust, fertility, passion (not just sexual), and romance.

Midsummer - Solstice

Alternate name(s): Summer Solstice, Litha

Dates: June 20-22

Observation overview: This is the longest day and shortest night of the year, the sun has reached its peak strength. After Midsummer, the days will begin shortening until they are of equal the length of night at the Autumnal Equinox. This is a time to celebrate the sun, but it's also a time to ready for welcoming the dark back into our lives.

Lughnasadh - Cross-quarter day between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox

Alternate name(s): Lammas, Lughnassa, The First Fruits

Dates: August 1st or 2nd

Observation overview: The days are now growing shorter and the nights longer, but this is the start of the harvest season and Lughnasadh is considered the first of three harvest festivals. This day is all about gratitude for the abundance of the previous months.

Mabon - Equinox

Alternate name(s): Autumnal Equinox, Fall Equinox, Harvest Home

Dates: September 21-24

Observation overview: As with the Spring Equinox, night and day are of equal length and is therefore another celebration of balance and duality. After this point, the length of the night will overcome the length of the day. This is the second harvest festival and is another time for appreciation and gratitude for balance. This is also when preparations for winter are started.

Samhain - Cross-quarter day, halfway between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice

Alternate name(s): All Hallow's Eve, All Hallows, Halloween, Witches' New Year

Dates: October 31st or November 1st

Observation overview: As the third harvest festival, the work before winter is almost done and this is a time to reflect and acknowledge your own efforts. Samhain marks the end of the annual natural, solar, and life cycle and the time when night is overtaking the day on the way to the longest night of the year at the winter solstice. This is not a negative association as death is known as a natural part of the life cycle that leads to rebirth.

Bonus: While not everyone celebrates the Witches' New Year on this date--and some don't observe it at all--this is the most common time for observing the new year for Pagans. The ancient Celts viewed the year as being split into two seasons--the light half and the dark half, or summer and winter. This is why what we now consider the beginning of summer is also called Midsummer--because for the Celts, it was the middle of summer.

Samhain--which some theorize translates to "Summer's End"--marks the start of the dark half of the year. Why kick the year off in the dark? Before we are born, we are formed in the dark womb. Before a seed sprouts, it is buried in the dark of the earth. The year? Same beautifully symbolic concept.

The History of the Wheel of the Year

The Wheel of the Year, as it is viewed and most popularly celebrated today, is what you could consider a collaborative effort. The concept was originally suggested in the 1835 work Teutonic Mytholoy by scholar and mythologist Jacob Grimm. Sure, 1835 seems like forever ago, but it certainly wasn't as long ago as the time of the ancient Pagans. The modern-day Wheel of the Year is a fairly contemporary concept.

It wasn't until the 1950s that neo-Pagan leaders Gerald Gardner--who we all know of as the founding father of neo-Paganism and Wicca--and Ross Nichols adopted the eight-spoke calendar. The two were influenced by the writings of Margaret Murray (whose work and claims have since turned out to be... false, but that's a topic for another time), Robert Graves, and James George Frazer.

The term "sabbat" was coined by Gerald Gardner who claimed that the word was passed down from the Middle Ages. We know now that a lot of what Gardner said and information he alleged was handed down in secret from some ancient coven was, well, not true and it's most commonly believed that he simply adopted and adapted the term "sabbath".

On a side note: I am in no way discounting Wicca itself as a religion, faith, or belief set. Gerald Gardner did give himself quite a bit of creative license, but that's not to say that everything Wicca is based on is just something one man cooked up in the past century. Besides, we owe him a lot of credit for springboarding the contemporary revival of nature-based spirituality.

Additionally, much of the authentic practices and beliefs of ancient Pagans from every culture have been lost to time and religious wars. Therefore, neo-Paganism and the Wheel of the Year had to be built from a mix of new concepts set to fit our present-day society and social standards, the little information we do have from the old ways (or what historians can at least infer), ideas and traditions that were shared between cultures and regions over time, and a few assumptions mixed in that just seem to work.

I say all that just to nip in the bud any argument along the lines of "If it's not from the ancient Pagans, it isn't valid."

I'd like to quote my friend Lisa from Beyond Authent1c:

Our modern recreation of sabbats is as valid as other book-based religions that have had their book translated and edited over the centuries.

And as I like to say, nothing has always existed--everything was new at some point in time.

But I digress. Moving along! As you may have noticed from the list above, almost every sabbat has at least two different names. They are all derived from various different sources, but the most commonly used ones were assigned by Aidan Kelly, Gerald Gardner, and Doreen Valiente and pulled from a mix of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon resources.

I break these down further in the individual articles on the sabbats (6/29/2022: These are not currently written yet, but the sabbat history videos with the same info can be found here), and it's far too much information to cover in what is meant to be a broad Wheel article. However, if you are debating whether to use Midsummer versus Litha versus Summer Solstice or Samhain versus All Hallow's Eve, just know that there's really no wrong name. You can use them interchangeably or call them whichever name jives best with you. Do a little research so you can make an informed decision, or just use the one that you think sounds the coolest. You do you, boo 😘

So what did we actually get from the ancient Pagans?

We know that the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Norse people celebrated the solstices and equinoxes, while the ancient Celts celebrated what we now refer to as the cross-quarter days with fire festivals. These were the main groups that inspired the contemporary Wheel, but various other cultures from around the world observed the seasonal changes as well. Some of those traditions have survived to modern times and practices and some have not.

As for how we celebrate and observe them today, each sabbat's customs come from a mix of what we know or have attempted to deduce from ancient traditions, some things that were either preserved through or added during Christianization, and modern observations that reflect the changes of each part of the year's cycle. As mentioned before, each of those come from various cultures, regions, and time periods.

Again, I cover this in more depth for each individual sabbat here.

The interpretations of the meanings of each sabbat can vary widely, but for the most part, the turning of the Wheel generally reflects the changes in nature and the solar cycle as the year progresses and seasons change and how that aligns with the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. In some traditions and customs, this was painted symbolically and personified in narrative form. You can see this in mythology from many cultures such as the battle between Lugh and Balor in Celtic lore as well as various tales of the sons of deities dying at the Winter Solstice. But it has also been done in a contemporary framing such as the annually-revolving story of the Wiccan God and Goddess.

It is also important to note that while the most commonly known and observed Wheel of the Year is the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, Wiccans are not the only Pagans to follow it and there are Pagan branches have their own versions, such as the Druids and Heathens. However, the dates and symbolism are relatively similar.

Although the eight-spoke Wheel of the Year marking the Neo-Pagan sabbats is a relatively new concept, the annual observations that it represents are quite old. Since it bears repeating, just because something is new, that doesn't mean it is any less legitimate than what we now consider old. All things were new at one point or another.

So much was lost to time that we're really just doing the best we can with the information we have, and we now lead such drastically different lives than the ancient Pagans did that things must be updated anyway so they can still hold relevance today. Fortunately, the concept of celebrating the natural life cycle is timeless.

The Wiccan God and Goddess

In the Wiccan tradition, the stories of the effect the changing of the seasons has on nature and the solar cycle are personified and told symbolically through the interactions of the Goddess and the God respectively. The God represents the planetary alignment of the sun through his cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth, while the Goddess represents the changes in nature as she passes through her Maiden, Mother, and Crone aspects. There exist a few versions of this story so I will try to sprinkle in bits of them all. I apologize if it gets a little confusing.

Here is a summary:

Yule - Being the shortest day and longest night of the year, days will lengthen after this point. This is represented by the God who is now reborn after (Spoiler Alert) he died. He is weak in his infancy and is slowly building strength just as the days are also growing longer. During the winter, the Goddess, having just given birth to the God also gives birth to herself in her Maiden form. In other stories, she births the God in her Mother form and is now resting from her labor, still as the Mother. In either version, this reflects the earth being cold and growing very little during the winter, either due to rest after labor or because the Maiden is too young yet to be the Mother.

Imbolc - The days are getting longer and the sunlight is growing in strength, so the God is growing and strengthening as well, although still young. The cold of winter is starting to recede and the first signs of the upcoming spring are starting to appear. This is represented by the Goddess officially returning to her Maiden form or in some versions, she is both Mother and Maiden as she breastfeeds her infant.

Ostara - As day and night are of equal length, the God is maturing. The Goddess, fully in her Maiden aspect, is as the earth: fertile, warm, and full of promise for abundance to come.

Beltane - As we see the birth in the flora and fauna of the natural world around us, the God and Goddess, now fully matured, have sex and the Goddess is impregnated with what will eventually be the God's new form come Yule. The Goddess begins to take on her Mother aspect and the God's power is almost at its prime as we approach the longest day and shortest night of the year at the summer solstice.

Midsummer - This longest day of the year is represented by the God being at his peak power and form. As the earth swells with new life and abundance, the Goddess in her Mother form is fruitful and her pregnancy progresses.

Lughnasadh - Days are now growing shorter and the God is considered to be weakening. But given that this is the start of the harvest season, the pregnant Mother Goddess is feeding her developing child from the earth. In some versions, the God sacrifices himself with the first cut of the grain and the Goddess turns to her Crone form to oversee the ceremony.

Mabon - After this day of balance between night and day, the days will be shorter than the nights, and the God is heading toward his death. Just as there are some versions where the God sacrificed himself during Lughnasadh, there are others where he sacrifices himself at Mabon. While the fruits of the earth are now being harvested, the Goddess passes into her Crone aspect. She is still pregnant but is ready for a rest and becomes quiet and reflective while she awaits the birth of the God.

Samhain - The God dies and passes into the Underworld as the night overtakes the day in length and will only continue growing until the winter solstice. The Goddess, wise with age, knows that she must let go in order to move on--rather, she must let the God die in order to rebirth him and we must accept the end of the harvest season and be realistic in order to prepare ourselves to survive through the oncoming winter. In some versions, the tired Goddess sleeps in order to prepare for labor.

The Holly and Oak Kings

Much like the yearlong tale of the Wiccan God and Goddess, the story of the feud between the Holly King and the Oak King has several different versions. It is a legend held by many Celtic Neo-Pagan traditions that reflects the shifting balance, feud, and necessary duality between light and dark, day and night, summer and winter.

As I mentioned earlier, for the ancient Celts, there were only two seasons, summer and winter, each ruled by a king. The two Kings fight for supremacy each year, and while the dates are different depending on which version of the story you observe, the Oak King dethrones the Holly King at either the Spring Equinox or the Summer Solstice in order to rule over summer, and the Holly King who rules over winter, seizes the throne at either the Autumnal Equinox or the Winter Solstice.

In some Wiccan traditions, the two Kings are considered to be the two aspects of the God. It has also been acknowledged that throughout much of world mythology, several legends of similar battles have been told about other deities and archetypes.

Overall, the story of the Oak and Holly Kings is a story of shifting balance. Without one, the other cannot exist, but they cannot rule together.

Final Note

Many Pagans, myself included, opt to adapt their own observation of the Wheel of the Year based on their personal belief set and the importance of the symbolism of any given sabbat. To be fair, winter is not the scary, crop-barren season it was in the time of the ancient Pagans, and thanks to modern agricultural developments, harvesting happens all year around. But we do still have seasonal changes, changes in hours of daylight, and celebrating can make us feel close to our ancient ancestors.

But that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't adapt the Wheel to suit your lifestyle and beliefs. As an eclectic Agnostic Pagan, for example, I don't observe the legend of the God and Goddess. I merely celebrate the Wheel of the Year as a shift in the seasons, a change in the solar cycle, and as a reflection of the life cycle in the natural world around me. In fact, cycles--specifically that of life, death, and rebirth--are critical parts of my spirituality and practice.

That said, I also live in the San Francisco Bay Area where the changing of the seasons isn't as dramatic as it might be someplace like the Midwest or much of Canada. Imbolc, therefore, is not a prominent sabbat for me. I like what it symbolizes and I do acknowledge the day with something simple, but I don't experience snow melting and signs of life fighting their way through the cold. Actually, it used to be the start of our heaviest rain season, but between California droughts and Global Warming, every year is a fun, surprise grab bag of what we're going to get.

My point is, there is no shame in observing the sabbats important to you and putting less or no effort into the ones that simply hold no meaning in your life. I recommend trying all of them out for a year--see what fits and what doesn't. My hope is that this article has given you enough information and resources to get you started on your journey.

Happy turning, witches!