My First Beltane

Beltane! I’ve known about this holiday since I was ten years old. In 1999, I received a CD as a gift: The Golden Land by Ceredwen, a Welsh-language New Age band. The fourth track on the album is called “Beltain.” The CD’s detailed liner notes explain: “Each year on the eve of summer, the Beltane fires are lit to welcome back the sun god Bel. After the dancing and merry-making, the bannock bread is passed amongst the tribes. Whoever takes the burnt piece becomes the ‘chosen one’—to be sacrificed to the gods to ensure a bountiful harvest.” Beltane also features prominently in the fantasy novel The Mists of Avalon, which I read for the first time when I was fourteen or so. The novel tells of a different version of Beltane: it is a night of sexual revelry that honors the divine relationship between Goddess and God. Clearly, this is a holiday that sparks creativity and gives birth to artistic expression. But what is its true story?

Beltane is an ancient Gaelic festival that was traditionally celebrated on May 1. Like Imbolc, Beltane is a cross-quarter day: it occurs roughly halfway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice. It marked the beginning of summer and the time when cattle were driven out to their summer pastures. The Old Irish word Beltaine most likely comes from the Common Celtic *belo-te(p)niâ, meaning "bright fire." Beltane celebrations are recorded as early as the tenth century and as late as the mid-twentieth century, although sorting out which traditions actually date back to ancient times can be a bit tricky. If you’re interested in knowing what the earliest written records have to say about Beltane (and you can read Old/Middle Irish), both Sanas Cormaic (which you might remember from my Imbolc post) and Tochmarc Emire—the two tenth-century texts that mention the holiday—are available online.

Beltane isn’t the only May Day festival. The ancient Romans celebrated the Floralia, a week-long festival that ran from late April to early May and honored Flora, the goddess of flowers, plants, youth, and fertility. Germanic countries honor St. Walpurga, an 8th-century English missionary who converted the people of Germany to Christianity and who is said to protect against witchcraft. In Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary is the Queen of May and is celebrated with a “May crowning.” And in secular culture, May Day is International Workers’ Day, although the date was chosen to commemorate the Haymarket Affair and is not associated with religious spring festivals. Modern Pagans may draw on some or all of these traditional festivals for Beltane inspiration.

Traditionally, Beltane was celebrated with bonfires. Cattle were driven between the bonfires as part of a protection ritual, and people doused their household fires and relit them from the Beltane blazes. People often visited holy wells on Beltane. The first water drawn from a well on Beltane morning and the Beltane morning dew were both said to be potent; young women might wash their face with Beltane dew in order to preserve youthfulness and beauty. People decorated with a May Bush or May Bough, which was usually made of hawthorn, rowan, holly, or sycamore and decorated with flowers and ribbons. Some celebrations involved dancing around the May Bush and/or burning it in the bonfire. In the Gaelic diaspora, especially Newfoundland, the May Bush tradition is still practiced. Feasting, drinking, and general merrymaking are hallmarks of a Beltane celebration.

Beltane is celebrated today by Celtic Reconstructionists, Wiccans, and other Neopagans, as well as plenty of secular folk who see the appeal of dancing around a bonfire. Wicca and Wicca-influenced traditions often associate Beltane with fertility, celebrating birth and growth in the natural world, sexual union between human beings, and the divine connections between gods and goddesses. It’s a time to get a little wild, if you feel like it: dancing, feasting, sex, and other pleasurable sensory experiences are commonly included in Beltane celebrations. Oatmeal cakes are a traditional Beltane food, and other suggestions for Beltane sustenance include lamb, salads made of spring greens, and punch to drink. Maypole dancing is associated with modern Beltane celebrations. The maypole was a feature of European May Day or Pentecost celebrations in the medieval and early modern periods. Some scholars, including Sigmund Freud (of course), saw the maypole as a phallic symbol, but recent scholarly research does not support this claim. Whatever its origins, maypole dancing remains a fixture of many Pagan, Christian, and secular spring celebrations. Today, because Beltane is associated with love, sex, and commitment, it’s a traditional time for Pagan weddings or handfastings. It’s also a time when the veil between worlds is said to be thin. Contemporary Pagans who celebrate Beltane suggest a variety of holiday activities: light a bonfire, stay out all night, wash your face in morning dew, celebrate the fertility of nature, decorate with brightly-colored flowers, work on gardens, dance, feast, and generally have a good time.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t celebrate Beltane. On the evening of May 1, which was a Wednesday, my partner and I were driving to our hometown to meet up with his family and see Hamilton. Obviously, that was pretty great, but we didn’t have any say in the scheduling: my partner’s family already had tickets and wanted us to join them on that night. Now that I look back, I wonder whether it would have been more appropriate to celebrate Beltane on the evening of April 30, anyway; but in any case, I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t happy to let this important holiday go unacknowledged, though, so I scheduled a Beltane celebration for a weekend later in May when I would have time to prepare for and enjoy it. I made a special meal based on suggestions I’d read online: asparagus quiche, rolls with honey butter, spinach salad, strawberry punch, and oatmeal raisin cookies (I decided those were an acceptable version of the traditional Beltane oatmeal cakes). I picked a date when the weather was supposed to be warm because I wanted to spend the night sleeping outside, but it ended up being cold and rainy, so I couldn’t. And that was it.

I’m glad I found time to acknowledge the holiday, but it wasn’t enough: fancy cooking does not religious observance make. Since Beltane, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about how to deepen my Pagan practice. I hope that by the time Midsummer rolls around, I’ll be on track for a more spiritual, meaningful celebration.