The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain

Ronald Hutton's survey applies the same source-critical method that made his Druids history the standard account: it works from the documented historical and folkloric record of the British ritual year era by era, naming where a later century added a claim the earlier record does not support rather than presenting the ritual year as an unbroken ancient survival. That willingness to state plainly what is and is not documented is why it functions as the reference point for Samhain, All Saints and the modern Wheel of the Year specifically. This record has not independently traced further scholarly disagreement with Hutton's specific claims since 1996. Use it for established historical facts about the British ritual year; a claim about modern Pagan practice as currently lived needs a source describing that movement on its own terms, such as Clifton's history of American Wicca.