Lo, dawning o’er yon mountain grey
The rosy birth-day of May!
Glen-Shira knoweth well ‘tis Beltane’s blissful day.

— Evan MacColl

Summer is a-comin’ in! May 1 is the date of the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane, which marks the first day of Summer in the Celtic calendar (1).

The ancient Celtic and ancient Roman seasonal calendars were different from ours. To us, the Summer Solstice in late June marks the beginning of Summer, but to the Celts and Romans, that was the middle, the high-point, of Summer. To them, the real beginning of Summer occurred between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice, sometime in early May. To the ancient Celts, the festival of Beltane marked the beginning of Summer.

The name “Beltane” goes by various other spellings, but I’m going to use the version which is most commonly seen. Beltane is one of the four major holidays in the Celtic calendar, aside from Imbolc (February 1), Lughnasadh (August 1), and Samhain (October 31/November 1). Beltane, which literally means “Bel’s fire”, is the principal feast day of the Celtic sun god Bel (also spelled Belis, Belus, Bael, or Baal – no relation to the ancient Phoenician god of the same name). His day marks the banishment of the cold of Winter and the emergence of the warmth of Summer. Due to his status as a sun god, the ancient Roman authors equated the Celtic gods Bel and Grana with Apollo (2).

Sanctified enclosures referred to as Grianan or Greinham, “the sun’s house”, were set aside as places where peopled gathered to perform their rites of sun worship. These consisted sometimes of rings of irregularly-shaped stones, with a stone altar standing in the center. In the southern part of Britain, especially in Cornwall, these enclosures were square in shape, while in Scotland they were circular. The number of stones erected around the perimeter of these enclosures varied from location to location, but in Scotland the most common number was nine. Upon these altars, libations of milk were poured as offerings to the Celtic sun god. In those places were there were no stones, the people dug out a trench (either circular or square in shape), and heaped the excavated dirt in the center to form a mound – atop which they kindled a bonfire. Also, within Scotland there was a tradition of preparing a sacrificial cake which was round in shape with nine raised bumps, in emulation of the shape of the shrine. Each person present would break off a piece of this cake and cast it into the bonfire, accompanied with prayers or requests for the sun god to perform this or that favor for them. They would also conduct similar sacrifices and prayers to the spirits of various animals who were believed to cause harm to ether their crops or their livestock – the crow, the fox, the eagle, and others – asking them to spare their farms (3).

The day began with the people rising at dawn and going into the countryside to collect flowers, tree branches, and other greenery to hang above their doors and decorate their buildings. As they ventured into the forests and fields, they made all kinds of clamor by blasting horns and trumpets (4). This sounds a lot like the tradition of “wassailing”, and thus it was possibly intended to drive away evil spirits, as the day before, “May Eve”, was believed by many to be a date when the powers of evil held sway over the land (5). Or perhaps, in a similar way, the noise was meant to drive away the spirit of Winter.

The outsides of people’s houses were decorated with flowers and tree branches. Yellow flowers including the Marsh Marigold were especially associated with Beltane due to the color’s connection to the sun god (6). Rowan branches and leaves were believed to ward off evil spirits. Rowan branches were carried three times around the Beltane bonfire, and were afterwards either hung over the door of a house or placed within the house to protect the people dwelling within from all manner of dark entities. These rowan branches would remain within the house until the next Beltane festival, when they were replaced (7). Rowan branches were not only fastened above the doors of houses, but also above the doors of barns and stables. Sometimes, to make extra sure that their livestock would not be hexed, pieces of rowan would be tied onto the animals’ tails! (8).

With the belief that witches would steal milk straight out of the cows’ udders, small offerings of milk were often left on the side for the witches to take without draining the entire cow. This has been connected to the milk libations which were practiced by the Celtic druids in previous centuries (9).

One local custom consisted of the village folk engaging in a mock battle between Winter and Summer – Summer, of course, won (10). As part of the May Day celebrations in Wales, known as Calan Mai, a mock duel would be staged between two fighters representing the two seasons. The man representing Winter was armed with a staff made of blackthorn, carried a white shield, and dressed in white. The man representing Summer was armed with a staff made of willow wood decorated with flowers and colored ribbons, and wore brightly-colored and patterned clothes. In the end, Winter was defeated (11).

Now that Summer had emerged triumphant, it was imperative that he exert his power over the land. Summer’s power to bring renewed life and growth back to a dead Winter landscape was embodied in the person of “the Green Man”. Some modern-day Celtic neo-pagans have incorporated aspects of Green Man personas in performing a ritualistic “re-greening” of the landscape (12). However, I have not seen any similar rituals described in Beltane rituals in the past.

The principal event which took place on Beltane was the lighting of the Beltane bonfire. On this day, large bonfires were set ablaze in honor of Bel the sun god. These bonfires were often erected upon hilltops and other prominent places where they could be easily seen, or else within the center of the village. Depending on which area and which time period you’re talking about, either one or a pair of bonfires would be erected. The druid priests would annunciate their prayers and incantations over the fires, asking the gods and spirits to protect crops, livestock, and the people, and to encourage growth and fertility. Afterwards the cattle were driven either around a single bonfire in a circle, or were driven between the two bonfires in there being pairs. In either case, the sources are unanimous in that this was done as a measure to grant them divine protection against disease. This seems very similar to the ancient Roman religious festival of the Palilia, held on April 21, in which a series of bonfires were erected and the Roman shepherds and their sheep ran through them (13).

It has been suggested that animal sacrifices were offered on the Beltane bonfire, offering up a single sheep or cow as a way to safeguard the remainder of the herd from sickness or death. There is also a hint that human sacrifices were conducted on May 1 by the Celts – the 1973 movie The Wicker Man partially takes its inspiration from this. A curious record is preserved from the year 1794 written by Reverend James Robertson of the parish of Callander, which reads as follows: On May 1, all of the boys in a community meet in the moor, where they excavate a round entrenchment. In the center of this circular trench, they erect a fire. Against this fire, they bake a cake of oats, and then divide it up into equal-sized portions – one of which they cover all over with black charcoal dust. Then, all of the pieces are put into a bonnet, and each person, blindfolded, takes his lucky dip. Whoever is unlucky enough to draw the black piece of cake “is the devoted person who must be sacrificed to Baal” (14). However, the person was not killed, but rather compelled by his peers to jump through the fire three times. We can infer from this anecdote that, in the past, the selected person might be seen as being “chosen by the god” and was truly sacrificed by being burned alive…Poor Sergeant Howie (15).

In addition to safeguarding the health and lives of their flocks and herds, the Celts were understandably eager to have such divine blessing granted to themselves as well. For this reason, there exists a tradition of jumping over the Beltane bonfire, likely as a way to be granted the same divine favor which was bestowed upon their animals (16).

It is stated that the main purpose of these bonfires was to ward off diseases or evil spirits, but they might have held alternative uses as well. Within Brittany, known in ancient times as Armorica, bonfires were kindled as a way to ask the gods to bless their apple orchards so that they would have a good harvest (here, the reference to The Wicker Man is blatantly obvious) (17).

Within both Ireland and Scotland, the tradition was that on May 1, all of the fires in the village would be put out, and then re-lit using the fire from the Beltane bonfire (18). However, during one Irish Beltane, after the local chief had decreed that there would be no fires except the bonfire which would be erected atop the Hill of Tara, Ireland’s most sacred site, he and his entourage were surprised to see on a hill in the distance a second large bonfire burning atop the summit. One of the chief’s holy men turned to him and said “If this fire is not put out tonight, then it will never be put out”. The man who had lit this fire was named Patrick, and this fire represented a new “light in the darkness”, and it would signal the demise of the ancient Celtic druids and Celtic polytheism (19).

Today, we see a vestige of this in “the Paschal Fire”. In Catholic and Protestant Christianity, this is a fire which is lit at the time of Easter. The ritualism which takes place here is uncannily similar to that of the Celtic Beltane festival, and it’s possible that the medieval Catholic Church may have co-opted ancient pagan rituals into their own services as a way to encourage conversion amongst the natives. On Holy Thursday, all of the candles within the church are put out – an action referred to as Tenebrae, meaning “darkness” in Latin. Then at the beginning of the Easter vigil, a new fire is set alight and blessed by the priest. This holy fire is then used to light the other candles within the church, beginning with the so-called “Paschal candle” – a beeswax candle of unusually large size. The lighting of this particular candle represents the light of Jesus Christ banishing the darkness from the minds and hearts of people. This candle is kept perpetually alight from Easter Sunday until either Pentecost Sunday or Ascension Thursday. The original Christian missionaries who came to Ireland and Scotland, like Saint Patrick, may well have seen the Paschal fire as the light of the Christian faith in a dark ignorant heathen world (20).

Despite the conversion of the inhabitants to Christianity during the Dark Ages, the old traditions still remained strong. Official Scottish government records from the 1420s make note of Beltane celebrations still being held, even if they were no longer held as a way to honor the pagan Celtic gods. Even after the Protestant Reformation, when both the Scottish Parliament and the Church imposed very stern punishments upon anyone caught practicing pagan rites (including one law passed in 1555), they still continued. In fact, one attempt to suppress the celebration of the May Day games in Edinburgh in 1561 resulted in a public riot! (21). Even as far as the 1860s, the ancient feast of Beltane was still being celebrated in Scotland, although it was becoming scarcer and scarcer with every passing year. By the time that Charles Dickens was composing his verses, he commented “Slender traces of the observance of Beltane-day only now remain in any part of Scotland. In this respect, the change has been very rapid within the past fifty years” (22).

By the middle of the 20th Century, the ancient Beltane rituals had almost completely died out. For the most part, isolated pockets within Ireland and Scotland continued to practice a sanitized watered-down rendition of the old festival, largely consisting of lighting a ceremonial bonfire, and that was all. But then, Beltane experienced a resurgence in the 1970s and 1980s as part of the “New Age” movement. These celebrations which were initiated by neo-pagans gradually caught on with the general population as an excuse to party, and nowadays bonfires and raucous celebrations are seen throughout Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and elsewhere on May 1.

Please read the other two articles within this set:

• May 1 – Part 1: The Month of Maia, the Ancient Roman Goddess of Motherhood
• May 1 – Part 3: “May Day” in Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Europe

Source Citations

1. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Page 120.
2. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 120-121.
3. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 121-124.
4. Sir Gilbert Elliot, Border Sketches. 1870. Page 74.
5. Reverend W. S. Lach-Szyrma, “May Day”. The Antiquary (May 1882). Page 185; FelinFach. “Calan Mai – May Day” (April 13, 2022).
6. F. White Buchanan, “Address by F. White Buchanan, President of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, at the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting, 14th March 1890”. Proceedings of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. Volume 1 – 1886 to 1893. Perth: Perthshire Society of Natural Science, 1893. Page lxxiv.
7. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 180-181.
8. Robert R. MacGregor, “Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Page 429.
9. Robert R. MacGregor, “Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Page 429.
10. Sir Gilbert Elliot, Border Sketches. 1870. Page 74.
11. FelinFach. “Calan Mai – May Day” (April 13, 2022).
12. The Haunted History of Halloween. The History Channel, 1997; In Search of Ancient Ireland, episode 2 – “Saints”. PBS, 2002.
13. Ovid, Fasti, book 4, “April 21”; William Smith, ed., Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Second Edition. London: Walton and Maberly, 1859. Pages 849-850; Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 120-121, 128, 133-134; Robert R. MacGregor, “Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Pages 426-427.
14. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Page 123.
15. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 122-123; FelinFach. “Calan Mai – May Day” (April 13, 2022).
16. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Page 130; Sir Gilbert Elliot, Border Sketches. 1870. Page 78.
17. Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 133-134; Robert R. MacGregor, “Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Pages 426-427; James Bonwick, Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions. London: Griffith, Farran, & Co., 1894. Page 209.
18. Charles Dickens, “Beltane, or May-Day”. Household Words: A Weekly Journal, No. 477 (Saturday, May 14, 1859). Page 557; Robert R. MacGregor, “Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Page 426.
19. The Celts, episode 2 – “The Birth of Nations”. BBC, 1987.
20. In Search of Ancient Ireland, episode 2 – “Saints”. PBS, 2002; Jesuit Institute. “The Liturgy of Tenebrae”; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Questions on the Sacred Paschal Triduum”; Saint Patrick’s Guild. “Extinguishing the Paschal Candle” (March 7, 2019).
21. Robert R. MacGregor, “Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Page 431.
22. Charles Dickens, “Beltane, or May-Day”. Household Words: A Weekly Journal, No. 477 (Saturday, May 14, 1859). Page 558; Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Pages 120-121, 126.

Bibliography

Books

• Bonwick,James. Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions. London: Griffith, Farran, & Co., 1894.
• Elliot, Sir Gilbert. Border Sketches. 1870.
• Leslie, Lieutenant-Colonel Forbes. The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments, Volume I. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1866.
• Smith, William, ed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Second Edition. London: Walton and Maberly, 1859.

Articles

• Buchanan, F. White. “Address by F. White Buchanan, President of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, at the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting, 14th March 1890”. Proceedings of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science. Volume 1 – 1886 to 1893. Perth: Perthshire Society of Natural Science, 1893. Pages lxv-lxxxi.
• Dickens, Charles. “Beltane, or May-Day”. Household Words: A Weekly Journal, No. 477 (Saturday, May 14, 1859). In Household Words: A Weekly Journal, Volume XIX. London: Ward, Lock, and Tyler. Pages 557-561.
• Lach-Szyrma, Reverend W. S. (1882). “May Day”. The Antiquary (May 1882). Pages 185-188.
• MacGregor, “Robert R. Beltane”. Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine (June 1878). In Belgravia: An Illustrated London Magazine. Volume XXXV – March to June 1878. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878. Pages 426-431.
• Ovid. Fasti, book 4, “April 21”. Translated by A. S. Kline (2004). https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidFastiBkFour.php.

Websites

• FelinFach. “Calan Mai – May Day” (April 13, 2022). https://www.felinfach.com/blogs/blog/calan-mai-may-day. Accessed on April 28, 2022.
• Jesuit Institute. “The Liturgy of Tenebrae”. http://jesuitinstitute.org/Pages/Liturgy/Tenebrae.htm. Accessed on April 28, 2022.
• Saint Patrick’s Guild. “Extinguishing the Paschal Candle” (March 7, 2019). https://stpatricksguild.com/blog/extinguishing-the-paschal-candle/. Accessed on April 28, 2022.
• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Questions on the Sacred Paschal Triduum”. https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year-and-calendar/triduum/questions-and-answers#easter-vigil. Accessed on April 28, 2022.

Videos

• In Search of Ancient Ireland. Episode 2 – “Saints”. PBS, 2002.
• The Celts. Episode 2 – “The Birth of Nations”. Hosted by Frank Delaney. BBC, 1987.
• The Haunted History of Halloween. Narrated by Harry Smith. The History Channel, 1997.

Categories: History, Uncategorized

Tags: ancient, Beltane, Britannia, Briton, Britonic, Britons, calendar, Celt, Celtic, Celts, Europe, festival, Floralia, Gaul, Gauls, history, Ireland, May, Palilia, religion, Spring, Summer