Harvest Festival

The Harvest Festival, held on the 12th Sun of the 10th Moon, 10 / 12, is a celebration dedicated to the bountiful harvests of the Autumnal season, just before the Wintral weather sets in. It is a time of thanks-giving and feasts, and of reverence to the Goddess Thivae.

Harvest Festival celebrations began with farmers in small agriculture villages, who came together with the townsfolk to share in the bounty of the year's harvests. Town halls would host large, town-wide feasts, inviting all to partake in the fruits of the town's labours. Common dishes involved foods such as pumpkin pies, spiced teas and ales, mashed, fried, boiled, and baked, potatoes, sauteed and baked vegetables, hearty meat dinners, and apple ciders. Ale was as common a sight during the festivities as a vegatable in a farmer's field. During this moon, villagers would also give thanks to the Goddess Thivae for the bountiful harvests, and the villagers would give gifts to the farmers for their hard work.

As villages grew into towns and trade brought news far and wide, the festivities began to spread to cities, and more people started giving thanks during the 10th moon. Small shrines dedicated to Thivae were common in smaller cities and in most towns, and many families now hosted large family dinners on 10 / 12, often featuring many of the same foods as the traditional village festivities did. Over time, this moon also became a time when farmers could travel to large cities and set up stalls to sell their produce. Eventually this became known as the Harvest Market or Farmer's Market, and many other things began to be sold there, such as handicrafts, homemade clothes, and even baked goods. Children in cities across the continents await the moon of the Harvest Festival, so they can peruse the stalls of the harvest markets for goodies of all kinds.