Beltane

The Feast of Beltane celebrates the coming of Summer. It is a time when we honour the Green Man, consort of the Goddess and ancient spirit of the Greenwood. Known as "Jack-in-the-Green" or "Robin," he joins with the Maiden, his May Queen.

This is the season of Herne, protector of the Greenwood and symbol of fertility, growth and change. Just as a buck deer sheds their antlers following mating in May, with the Goddess pregnant with the Star Child, Herne declares his readiness to forsake his wanderings and take his place beside her. On Beltane Eve, some witches take to the woods, to "bring in" the May-blossom at dawn. For your ancestors, this was a time of sexual license. Unsurprisingly, many pagan handfastings and marriages take place at this festival. 

In the Wheel of the Year, Beltane stands opposite Samhain; just as at Samhain when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is thin, at Beltane the world of mortals and that of faery are very close.

The faery otherworld was well-known by our ancestors, who left us stories of seers and poets who gained their gifts after falling asleep under a hawthorn, may-tree or faery-mound.

Our Celtic ancestors drove cattle between two sacred fires on the 1st of May (which is the equivalent of the 31st October in the Southern Hermisphere) to protect them before sending them out to pasture; this was the bel-tine, the "lucky" or "bright" fire. The feast may also be named for a Northern European God or Goddess named Bel/Belenos/Belissama. The Celtic preface "Bel" means "bright," indicating that this God or Goddess had solar connections.

Whatever the festival's origins, the sacred fire features strongly in Wiccan celebrations. If celebrating outdoors, we light a small bonfire which the sprightly can leap to obtain a Beltane blessing. Sometimes a broomstick is used instead, symbolising the sacred conjunction of male (handle) and female (brush), and marking the threshold between Spring and Summer. As we cross it, we make promises to keep in the coming year.

Beltane marks the emergence of the young God into manhood. Stirred by the energies at work in nature, he desires the Goddess. They fall in love, lie among the grasses and blossoms, and unite. The Goddess becomes pregnant with the God. The Wiccans celebrate the symbol of her fertility in ritual.

Beltane (also known as May Day) has long been marked with feasts and rituals. Maypoles, supremely phallic symbols, were the focal point of old English village rituals. Many people rose at dawn to gather flowers and green branches from the fields and gardens, using them to decorate the Maypole, their homes, and themselves.

The flowers and greenery symbolise the Goddess, and the Maypole, the God. Beltane markes the return of vitality, of passion and hopes consummated. Maypoles are sometimes used by Wiccans today during Beltane rituals, but thr cauldron is a more common focal point of ceremony. It represents, of course, the Goddess - the essence of womanhood, the end of all desire, the equal but opposite of the Maypole, symbolic of the God.