This is the beginning of the Sun's descent into winter's dark. This festival is celebrated with races and circular dances used to connect the land and the solar energies via sympathetic magic. This is the ceremony during which the Green Man is sacrificed. Both Danu, the earth mother and Lugh, master of all tools and magic, are honored. All violence, bickering and seeking of payments are forbidden on this day.
Traditionally this is the harvest of grains. The first grain to be harvested is milled by hand and baked into a loaf that then is shared by all to assure a fertile harvest next year. This is the symbolic sacraifice of the "Green Man" or "John Barleycorn".
The last of the grain is made whole into a doll dressed either as a young maiden or old hag depending on whether the harvest was good or bad. The "doll" is then used to decorate the table. If the harvest is good, the doll is dried and hung over the grain to be used as seed next year. If the harvest was poor, the doll is burned and the ashes spread over fields.
This is also the festival of marriages. Brooms are made of the left over grain pieces and used to sweep the magical circles for the coming year, to beat potential husbands and then placed over the door of the house to signify a pagan dwelling. Thus, the end of the festivity often appeared to be a wild orgy when it was really just a mass "honeymoon".
Berry pies are baked this festival and consummed to represent the "Green Man" again and to assure coming fertility. Heather is gathered and infused into magical baths for protection or dried to hang over the door. (Scottish homes or lodges had a door but no windows.) Hollyhock flowers decorated every home and road to bring the "good luck" fairies to the village and home. Hollyhock flowers attract money. The Druid would cut mistletoe with its oak branch to be nurtured on the altar for magical energy until spring when it would be placed back in the oak tree.
Oat cakes were a traditional food for sharing with friends. The cook would bake one pretty stone into one cake and the young lady who received that cake by chance would marry well the following year or if married produce a fine baby. The cake is basically oatmeal and honey baked in an open oven fire. (It's actually tasty if you substitute dark brown sugar for honey.)