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It is celebrated as an early
agricultural festival accompanying the first turning of the
herds out to wild pasture. The rituals were held to promote
fertility. The cattle were driven between the Belfires to
protect them from ills and to ensure fertility. Contact with
the fire was interpreted as symbolic contact with the sun.
People also jumped the fire for fertility and prosperity.
It was a time of fun and games. The time of planting is finished
and a time of waiting begins. The Beltane Games were a time
to test the young warriors against each other in friendly
matches, archery contests, feasting, dancing, story telling
and a chance for people to get together.
It is also considered as the coming together
of the God and Goddess in fertile union to add new life to
the crops and hasten their growth. "Beltane" means
"~Fire of Bel", the Sun God who's accession feast
we now celebrate. Bel or Belinos, being associated with the
Apollo and Baal. As a side note; Bel, Belinos, Balor or Belenus
are traced back to Baal, they all mean Lord. They are more
of a Fire God than a solar god. Also the Irish and Scottish
word for the sun is "grian", another is "Mor",
they are both feminine. So the Irish and Scots both thought
of the Sun as female, a giver of life.
As summer begins, weather becomes warmer,
and the plant world blossoms, an exuberant mood prevails.
It is a time of unabashed sexuality and passion. Young people
spend the entire night in the woods "a-maying",
and dance around the phallic Maypole the next morning. Older
married couples may remove their wedding rings (and the restrictions
they imply) for this one night. May morning is a magical time
for "wild" water (dew, flowing streams, and springs)
which is collected and used to bathe in for beauty, or to
drink for health.
Some Beltane traditions are: Make a rope
out of the tail hair of Cattle and drag it in the dew chanting
"Milk of this one down, milk of that one up, into my
own big pail" to ensure a good milk supply. Bannocks
cakes made with milk, eggs and oatmeal by hand and not suppose
to come into contact with steel were made up until the end
of the 19th century. To stop enchantments from fairies, rowan
crosses were hung and people and animals sprinkled with water
from sacred wells. The rowan branch is hung over the house
fire on May Day to preserve the fire itself from bewitchment
(the house fire being symbolic of the luck of the house.
The May Queen (and often King) is chosen
from among the young people, and they go singing from door
to door throughout the town carrying flowers or the May tree,
soliciting donations for a merrymaking in return for the "blessing
of May". In some rituals, a King and Queen May symbolize
the male and female principles of productivity This is symbolic
of bestowing and sharing of the new creative power that is
stirring in the world. As the kids go from door to door, the
May Bride often sings to the effect that those who give wilt
get of nature's bounty through the year.
In parts of France, some jilted youth will
lie in a field on May Day and pretend to sleep. If any village
girl is willing to marry him, she goes and wakes him with
a kiss; the pair then go to the village inn together and lead
the dance which announces their engagement. The boy is called
"the betrothed of May."
Branches and flowers were brought back and
woven into garlands of intersecting hoops with two balls dangling
within the circle. It was supposedly made out of rowan and
marsh marigolds. This is still done in some Irish villages
today. Also staying up all night and dancing among the crops
was traditional. Some say that is were the tradition that
witches fly on broomstick came from. That the old pagans use
to dance with phallic staffs and jump as high as they could
because that was as high as the crops would grow.
The last known public Beltane festival was
held on Arran was as late as 1895. The Beltane fires and festivals
went on all over the Scottish Highlands until the mid-nineteenth
century. Beltane rites still are carried over at several places
today. The famous Cloutie Well (the Blue Well or Well of youth)
on Culloden moor in Inverness-shire is still visited on the
first Sunday of May and strips of cloth are stilll left there
on the trees. Arthur seat in Edinburgh, people still climb
to the top of this summit to watch the May sunrise.
The Christian religion substitute for Beltane
was celebrated as "Roodmas". In Germany, it was
the feast of Saint Walpurga or "Walpurgisnacht".
Later when the Christian church took over the Beltane observances,
a service was held in the church, followed by a procession
to the fields or hills, where the priest kindled the fire
and blessed field and animals.
The astrological date for Beltane is around
May 5 when the sun reaches 15 degrees Taurus, this was the
original time of the Sabbat. It is believed that Beltane was
not adjusted when the calendar was recalculated and it should
be closer to that date. This is a "power point"
in astrology and is shown in the Tarot as the Bull in the
cards World and Wheel of fortune.
Hawthorn, Whitethorn or May is the Goddess
tree whose white flowers indicate the time of Beltane, the
Good Fires, which burn away the evils of winter and signal
the start of the Goddess' reign again. Thorns are protective
trees and Whitethorn, Quickthorn and Hawthorn are all sacred
to the Goddess. The Celtic letter name was Uath. There was
a strong taboo on breaking hawthorn branches or bringing them
into the house except on May Day. Then sprigs are cut for
the Goddess. This taboo is still strong for the Irish for
they loath to cut a lone hawthorn, a fairy tree.
Sycamore is a God tree and has a long magical
association, for its leaves are often those shown on foliated
heads of the God of Nature, Jack in the Green, found as a
pub sign and in old churches. The wood is used green for carving
and is often used for Welsh 'love spoons" given as tokens
of betrothal at around May Day. The phallic May Pole were
put up on many a village green as folk celebrated the marriage
of the White Goddess (Marian) to the Green Man or Robin Hood.
A few of Beltane's Historical/mythological
events are from the ancient Irish 'Book of Invasions'. The
first settler of Ireland, Partholan, arrived on May 1st; and
it was on May 1st that the plague came which destroyed his
people. The landing of the Tuatha De Danaan in Ireland and
years later, the Tuatha De Danann were conquered by the Milesians
on May Day. In Welsh myth, the perennial battle between Gwythur
and Gwyn for the love of Creudylad took place each May Day;
and it was on May Eve that Teirnyon lost his colts and found
Pryderi. And Queen Guinevere's 'abduction' by Meliagrance.
May is named in honor of the goddess Maia, originally a Greek
mountain nymph, later identified as the most beautiful of
the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. By Zeus, she is also the
mother of Hermes, god of magic. Maia's parents were Atlas
and Pleione, a sea nymph.
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