Historic Beltaine
Beltaine is one of the Celtic Fire Festivals. It is held on the first day of May (also known as May Day).
The fire festivals, Imbolc, Beltaine, Lammas and Samhain, also called the "Cross Quarter Days" are roughly mid-way between the solar holidays of the Solstices and Equinoxes and mark the highlights of the Celtic year. The god who was born at Yule and a child at Imbolc is a youth at Beltaine with all that implys.
Beltaine may have been named after the Celtic god of the sun, Belenos. In ancient times all fires were extinguished and ritually relighted. Bonfires were lighted by three times three men using the nine sacred woods. Sheep and cattle were driven between two fires as an act of purification and fertility. Young women would leap across the fire in hopes of gaining a good husband.
Probably the best known symbol of May Day is the May pole, which in olden times
would be raised with great ceremony on the village green. The Pole would be made
of a stripped tree, the tallest that could be found, which would be planted in the
earth and crowned with
a wreath of ivy or flowers. Long ribbons would be attached to the top of the pole
and couples would weave the ribbons round and round around the pole, in
an intricate dance.
May Day was also the day that our ancestors would re-enact the Great Marriage of the God and Goddess. The May Queen and May King would be crowned with flowers and a day of feasting and celebration would be followed by a night of lovemaking. "May weddings" would occur which might last "a year and a day" or which might last only from sundown to sunrise.
In some English Villages, the May queen was called Maid Marian and May Day was considered Robin Hood's holiday. It was said that Robin Hood, Little John, and Will Scarlet went abroad on May Eve. Children resulting from these temporary liasons would bear the names "Robinson", "Johnson" and "Wilson", perhaps explaining the proliferation of those surnames.
Bishop Latimer (1549) describes how his services were disdained during the Robin Hood May Games:
I came once myself to a place, riding a journey homeward from London, and sent word overnight to the town that I would preach there in the morning, because it was an Holy-day. I thought I should have found a great company in the church, but when I came there, the church door was fast locked. I tarried there half an hour and more; at last the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me and says: "This is a busy day with us, we cannot hear you; this is Robin Hood's day, the parish is gone abroad to gather for Robin Hood." I thought my bishop's rochet should have been regarded, though I were not: but it would not serve, and I was fain to give place to Robin Hood's men.
Beltaine is directly opposite Samhain on the wheel of the year. Like Samhain and Midsummer's Eve, it is one of the times of the year when the doors between the worlds are opened. It is not uncommon for faeries to be seen on May Day.
Though you may not be able to celebrate with a May pole in the center of town or bonfires on the highest hills, commemorate this important day by spending it outdoors if possible.
"The fair maid who, the first of May,
According to the Mother Goose rhyme:
Goes to the fields at break of day,
And washes in dew from the hawthorn-tree,
Will ever after handsome be."