Wheel of the Year

The eight-festival ritual calendar of Wiccan and broader modern pagan practice: four solar festivals (winter solstice / Yule, spring equinox / Ostara, summer solstice / Litha, autumn equinox / Mabon) and four cross-quarter festivals (Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain) at the midpoints. The framework was articulated by Gerald Gardner and Ross Nichols in the 1950s, drawing on Celtic and Germanic seasonal observances and the older agricultural calendar; the modern eight-festival form is itself a synthesis of the 1950s rather than a continuous tradition.