August 1, in the traditional calendar of the Roman Rite the feast of St Peter in Chains, is also in the English agricultural calendar Lammas Day. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon for “Loaf-Mass”, commemorating the old custom of baking a loaf of bread from the first grain harvested at this time, and having it blessed at Mass. Similarly, “corn dollies” would be made of the first sheaves and blessed. The similar Irish observance was called Lughnasadh; in their zeal to de-baptise the old folk customs of the British Isles, modern neo-pagans love to seize upon these sorts of practices and annex them. Nevertheless, the judgement of folklorist Ronald Hutton remains: these sorts of customs do indeed represent survivals of the “Old Religion” – but that religion was pre-Reformation, not pre-Christian.