The gate of the year

Beltane Feast (May 1)

Celebrated on May 1, Beltane was essentially an agrarian festival, which marked the beginning of summer, and was situated in the middle between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. This feast was also regarded as one of the moments of the year in which a communication was possible between the visible and the invisible world, and in which the dead could come into contact with the living. In the name of the feast, the prefix bel referred to the “light” (it can be found in the name of the Gaulish divinities Belisama, “the Bright One”, and Belenus, “the Shining”, perhaps a solar god), while the suffix tene means “fire”. On the eve of the feast, the fires in the houses were extinguished, and were relit on the day of Beltane, when a bonfire appeared on the nearest signal hill. In Ireland, it was believed that the first bonfire was lit on the hill of Uisneach, which was regarded as the “navel” of the island, where the earth goddess Ériu, who had given her name to Ireland, had been buried. The fire lit on the central hill was the signal for the lighting of all the fires in the country. It was of good luck for the cattle to pass near or through the fires. If, among the cattle, there was a white heifer, it was a sign of plenty, probably because it was regarded as an incarnation of the goddess Bóand, the “Bright Cow”, from whom the river Boyne took its name.
At this time the holy wells were visited, and people left offerings, coins or strips of cloth hung to the trees near the well, after having made a ritual circumambulation going clockwise around the well, praying for health and wellbeing, and then departed without turning back. Once the sacred water from the wells was used to sprinkle over trees and fields, assuring thus an abundant harvest. The feast implied also a reference to women’s fertility and comprised, in Britain, the election of a May Queen, who was ritually married to a May King, whose union was propitiatory of fertility. To the same symbolism belongs the Maypole, a tree cut in the woods and erected in the town square, decorated with flowers and ribbons, around which dances were woven. During the XVII century, the Puritans outlawed the May feasts, because they complained that they were occasions, in the countryside, of unrestrained sexual behaviours.
Beltane was also a time in which the malevolent beings could operate, and take advantage to hit cattle, sending illness and death. The assault of witches, believed to be able to turn themselves into animals, especially hares, showed how the agricultural products were particularly vulnerable in this season of the year.

[Image: http://musingsfrommarsh.blogspot.it/2011/04/spring-has-sprung.html]




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Beltane Feast (May 1) Celebrated on May 1, Beltane was essentially an agrarian festival, which marked the beginning of summer, and was situated in the middle between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. This feast was also regarded as one of the moments of the year in which a communication was possible between the visible and the invisible world, and in which the dead could come into contact with the living. In the name of the feast, the prefix bel referred to the “light” (it can be found in the name of the Gaulish divinities Belisama, “the Bright One”, and Belenus, “the Shining”, perhaps a solar god), while the suffix tene means “fire”. On the eve of the feast, the fires in the houses were extinguished, and were relit on the day of Beltane, when a bonfire appeared on the nearest signal hill. In Ireland, it was believed that the first bonfire was lit on the hill of Uisneach, which was regarded as the “navel” of the island, where the earth goddess Ériu, who had given her name to Ireland, had been buried. The fire lit on the central hill was the signal for the lighting of all the fires in the country. It was of good luck for the cattle to pass near or through the fires. If, among the cattle, there was a white heifer, it was a sign of plenty, probably because it was regarded as an incarnation of the goddess Bóand, the “Bright Cow”, from whom the river Boyne took its name. At this time the holy wells were visited, and people left offerings, coins or strips of cloth hung to the trees near the well, after having made a ritual circumambulation going clockwise around the well, praying for health and wellbeing, and then departed without turning back. Once the sacred water from the wells was used to sprinkle over trees and fields, assuring thus an abundant harvest. The feast implied also a reference to women’s fertility and comprised, in Britain, the election of a May Queen, who was ritually married to a May King, whose union was propitiatory of fertility. To the same symbolism belongs the Maypole, a tree cut in the woods and erected in the town square, decorated with flowers and ribbons, around which dances were woven. During the XVII century, the Puritans outlawed the May feasts, because they complained that they were occasions, in the countryside, of unrestrained sexual behaviours. Beltane was also a time in which the malevolent beings could operate, and take advantage to hit cattle, sending illness and death. The assault of witches, believed to be able to turn themselves into animals, especially hares, showed how the agricultural products were particularly vulnerable in this season of the year. [Image: http://musingsfrommarsh.blogspot.it/2011/04/spring-has-sprung.html]