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This is worth a read if you like Celtic stuff

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Beltaine is one of two Celtic fire festivals, a cross-quarter sabbat, and is sometimes referred to as Cetsamhain, meaning "opposite Samhain," because it falls opposite to Samhain in the Wheel of the Year.



Likewise, where Samhain is a festival recognizing and honoring the necessity of Death, Beltaine is a celebration of life and fertility returning to the world.In the Celtic countries the festival was known by other names, such as Beltaine in Ireland (which means in Irish Gaelic "May"), Bealtunn (which means in Scots-Gaelic "May Day") in Scotland, Shenn do Boaldyn on the Isle of Man, and Galan Mae in Wales.




The Saxons called this day Walpurgisnacht, the night of Walpurga, Goddess of May. Like Brigid, the Church changed this goddess into St. Walpurga and attached a similar legend to her origin. Also known as May Eve, this festival marks the beginning of Summer – the growing season.The word "Beltane" literally means "bright" or "brilliant fire," and refers to the bonfires lit by a presiding Druid in honor of the proto-Celtic god variously known as Bel, Beli, Balar, Balor or Belenus. Bel, the god of light, fire and healing, had Sun-like qualities, but was not purely a Sun god, as the Celts were not specifically Sun worshippers.They celebrated Beltaine with dancing, feasting, and "greenwood marriages."




Men and women would disappear into the woods throughout the night for their own personal celebrations; these being understood to be unions through which the Horned God impregnated the Goddess and brought fertility to the earth, through the physical forms of man and woman. These unions were a celebration of life and love, accomplished to ensure the fertility and fruitfulness of the land, animals, and of themselves. Further, any babies born of greenwood marriages were considered children of the Lord and Lady, specially blessed by Them, and were seen as children of the whole village, rather than of just two parents.For modern Pagans, Beltaine is the time of union and pleasure; of celebrating the returning warmth of the sun, and the greening of Earth. It is about the reconciliation of opposites through love, and the fruitfulness that arises from this reconciliation. It is a time of bonfires and feasting, drumming and dancing; a time of brightly colored ribbons woven around that ancient phallic symbol, the maypole. And it is a time to renew our commitments to the land, to love, and to each other.



On a hill overlooking the village, the men would prepare for the bonfire by first cutting the turf away in a circle or square, leaving a block of turf in place in the center. There they laid the wood in a cross-hatched pattern. Often the wood bundle was decorated with ribbons and hawthorn flowers. After all the hearth fires of the village were put out, the people would gather at the hill, bringing ingredients for a communal feast: milk, butter, eggs, oats and oatcakes, plus plenty of beer and whiskey (agricultural and pastoral bounties that would have gotten them through the winter). The bonfire was kindled in the old way, either by the friction of oak against oak or by the striking of flints.



This was called the "tein-eigin" or "need fire," and the subsequent bonfires called "coelcerth," bone-fire, or bale-fire. Livestock were driven between the fires or three times around the flames deosil, "to keep off the murrain all the year," James Frazer writes in The Golden Bough. There were dancers as well, who went three times round or leapt the flames. There is some controversy as to whether this practice was aimed to engender fertility in the participants or to act in a cathartic fashion, driving off bad luck or disease. Likely it was a combination of the two, though I lean to the standpoint that it had positive, quickening qualities, especially in the pre-Christian era.



Like the ashes from the burning of a wicker-man or the Lughnasadh Corn King, the Beltaine fire's ashes were considered to be powerfully fertile and spread from field to field. Frazer's The Golden Bough explores this issue in depth, although a little at the expense of "witches," as they were considered then to be. After the bale-fire was kindled, the village folk prepared and shared a feast of a large caudle of eggs, milk, oats and butter, with "am bonnach beal-tine," the bannock or oat cakes. These cakes also served magical and ritual purposes: They were marked for baking with nine raised nipples or nine squares, or with scalloped edges.



These cakes were a way of choosing a "cailleach beal-tine" (carline, victim or scapegoat) by lot, or by granting good luck or ill, or propitiating luck by tossing pieces over the shoulder in the names of specific causes (cattle, home, foxes, rain...). The lots were cast by breaking up a bannock cake, rubbing ashes into one piece to distinguish it and having each person draw a piece from a hat.Originally it was likely that the carline was actually sacrificed within the bale-fire.



This sentence was later reduced to the mock act of throwing the victim into the flames, after which the carline was considered "dead" by the participants. Alternatively the carline was required to jump the flames three times, lie near the flames or be pelted with eggs. A very interesting article by Helen Farias, "The Cailleach's Round," in Issue 1, 1992, of The Beltane Papers, opened my eyes to the original figure of the cailleach/carline and has me considering what the earlier meaning of the sacrificial practice might be.



According to Farias, the cailleach of Scotland is known as the Old Woman and is identified as the ruler of winter and its powerful storms, the keeper of the hearth fires and smithy fires in winter, protectoress of the forest and its creatures and generally concerned with prophecy, cunning and strength. She appears to be the Crone and the flip side of Brigid and Blodeuwedd. "Oh no," I thought, "not another instance of tossing the witch on the fire!




This has got to be another example of the degradation of the Goddess." It may be; certainly the medieval Christian church spared no love for the old gods, the figure of the Crone particularly, and may have influenced the opinion that she was a fit subject for the fire. Then again... Beltaine was the time of year when the gods of the elder year fully retired before the gods of the younger year. The Young God of new vegetation springs forth, and the Maiden Goddess twines her flowery fingers through his hair. There is not many instances of a goddess "dying," like the reaping of grain that "kills" John Barleycorn, but could this not be a case where the Cailleach is sacrificed at the accession of the Maiden, her other self, to the throne?




Certainly this idea deserves closer inspection. The practice also relates to the burning of giant wicker-work effigies. Originally filled with unfortunate live sacrifices of humans and animals, the wicker-men, or wicce-men, were later sacrifices to the fertility of the land of a purely vegetative sort.After much singing, drinking, feasting and dancing couples would remove to the forest for lovemaking and to gather green boughs, flowers and the Maypole for the morning's festivities. Others would retire to their homes, carrying with them an ember from the sacred fire from which to light their hearth fires anew (letting the hearth fire die out at any other time of the year besides Beltaine and Samhain was considered very ill luck, and every effort would have gone into avoiding it, as Rhiannon Ryall in her book West Country Wicca tells it).



This was a communal holiday, the powers of a strong community important to people who often shared the major tasks in early agricultural practices. The hearth fire has been considered the single most important symbol of family and the health and wealth of the land. According to G. Duby in A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World, Volume II, the practice dating before Horace was that the hearth constituted the unit of taxation and census. All homes whether rich or poor had a hearth, and the average number of people belonging to a hearth constituted a household. The Beltaine fire symbolized the central hearth-fire of a community and, because of its ritual nature, the divine fire at the heart of all things.



The themes surrounding the Maypole or May Tree are of three main types: the fertilizing spirit of vegetation in plant form, the tree spirit in human form (including the Attis myth and the Green Man) and the world tree axis. In truth, all of the themes overlay each other, and it is a matter of separating the vegetables from the stew. The earliest written accounts surrounding the May Tree practice in England date only from the fifteenth century onwards. The chief characters were called the May Queen and the May King or Summer Lord. Other names associated with the May King have been Jack-in-the-Green, St. George or Green George, Robin Hood or Wood, the Green Man and the Wild Man. Belenos and Cernunnos are strongly indicated as the earliest forms of these figures.



The source of the St. George mummer's plays is likely Celtic as well, this theory predating the theory they were Greek plays reintroduced by returning Crusaders, according to William Anderson in The Green Man.In general, the May Tree or Maypole represents the Young God, Spirit of Summer, and all the new growth of crops and trees. It is also the thyrsus, the priapus, proud and upright, the strong staff of Herne as he walks through the land and the scepter, symbol of a divine kingship. In its physical form, its variations included, of course, the Maypole brought from the forest with its bark removed up to a brash crown of greenery at the top and hung with decorations, flowers, eggs and ribbons; great swaths of green boughs; or the May Bush, a small tree.




The Maypole and the green boughs or bushes were paraded through town in the early morning, after the young couples had "gone a-maying" and the women had washed their faces in the morning dew to assure their loveliness. Each home was visited and the occupants roused with song, after which, if the parading troupe was paid in gifts of food, drink or money, the hosts were blessed by the spirit of the tree and given boughs to hang over their doorways and stables to assure much milk and the fertility of the wives and livestock, according to Frazer.



As representatives of the Maiden, the parading women would be crowned with hawthorn flowers and wear something white; they carried baskets of flowers from which to strew. The men were often crowned in greenery. The parade resolved at the village green or square, where the Maypole was sunk into the ground and a day of dancing and other serious fun ensued.

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ie. bealtaine is a festival that enables you to drink more

Pól. All this time I thought you didn't like this sort of thing

JSmith13 wrote:Pól. All this time I thought you didn't like this sort of thing

Look @ the markers between each paragraph - it explains his renewed interest

Conor wrote:

JSmith13 wrote:Pól. All this time I thought you didn't like this sort of thing

Look @ the markers between each paragraph - it explains his renewed interest

The SMUT angle. I KNEW Pól wouldn't let me down!!

SMUT?