Each year on the first of May, in towns and villages across Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and increasingly across the wider Celtic diaspora and the English-speaking world, the ancient fire festival of Beltane is celebrated in forms that range from carefully reconstructed pre-Christian rites to community bonfires, maypole dances, and the washing of the face in the morning dew. To explore Beltane, the Celtic fire festival is to enter one of the most vivid and most enduring of all the older Celtic festivals and calendar customs, and to follow the long history of a festival that marked the beginning of the pastoral season, the driving of cattle to the summer pastures, the lighting of sacred fires, and the celebration of fertility in all its forms. As part of the wider world of Celtic culture and daily life, Beltane was a central event in the religious and agricultural year, and its surviving forms are among the most striking examples of the persistence of older Celtic traditions into the present.
The Festival and Its Name
Beltane, in its older form Bealtaine or Bealtuinn, was one of the four great quarter-day festivals of the Celtic year, the others being Imbolc at the beginning of February, Samhain at the end of October, and Lughnasa at the beginning of August. The festival marked the beginning of the warm half of the year, the start of the pastoral season, and the moment when the cattle that had been kept in their winter shelters could be driven out to the summer pastures. The name, in its older Irish form, may mean “the fire of Bel” or “the bright fire,” and the reference is to the great bonfires that were the central feature of the festival, and possibly to the god Belenus, the bright god of continental Celtic tradition whose name is preserved in place names like Boulogne (from Bononia, “the town of Belenus”) and in many personal names from Gaul.
The festival was, by the testimony of the medieval Irish and Welsh sources, one of the most important of the Celtic year, and it was the occasion for a wide range of religious, social, and agricultural observances. The great assemblies of the early Irish kingdoms, including the assembly of Uisnech in County Westmeath, met at Beltane, and the festival was a time for the gathering of the people, the lighting of the sacred fires, the driving of the cattle between the fires for protection and fertility, and the performance of various rites intended to ensure the prosperity of the community for the coming year. The continental Celtic world, as the classical sources attest, observed similar customs at the beginning of May, and the description by Pliny the Elder of the gathering of mistletoe from the oak on the sixth day of the moon, possibly at Beltane, famous of all classical accounts of Celtic ritual practice.
The Sacred Fires
The central feature of the Beltane festival, in both the continental and the insular Celtic traditions, was the lighting of great bonfires. The fires were kindled on the prominent hills of the community, and the people gathered around them for the celebration of the festival. The cattle, the most important form of wealth in Celtic society, were driven between the fires, or sometimes between two fires lit on adjacent hills, in order to be blessed and protected for the coming pastoral season. The practice, often called beal-tinneas in the Scottish Gaelic tradition, was believed to ensure the fertility of the animals and to protect them from disease and from the dangers of the summer pastures.
The materials used to kindle the fires were carefully chosen. The wood of particular trees, especially oak, rowan, and birch, was preferred, and the use of the need-fire, a fire kindled by friction rather than by spark, was prescribed in many traditions. The need-fire of the Scottish Highlands, kindled by rubbing two pieces of wood together, was believed to have particular power, and the practice of passing cattle through the smoke of the need-fire, and of fumigating the byres and the people with the smoke, was widely attested in the late medieval and early modern Scottish sources. The need-fire was used to light the household fires, which had been carefully extinguished before the festival, and the rekindling of the fire at Beltane was a symbol of the renewal of the community and of the beginning of the new pastoral season.
Beltane and the Cattle
The driving of the cattle to the summer pastures important practical activities of the Celtic year, and the Beltane festival marked the formal beginning of this process. The cattle, which had been kept in their winter shelters, often in the same building as the family, were brought out for the first time at the festival, and the ritual of driving them between the Beltane fires was the formal start of the pastoral season. The practice is well documented in the medieval Irish sources, in the early Irish law texts, and in the folklore of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. The custom of bleasdaleing in the Outer Hebrides, in which cattle were bled at Beltane and a small portion of the blood was offered to the household spirit, is a striking example of the persistence of older ritual practices today.
The cairn of Beltane, sometimes called the càrn Bealltainn in Scottish Gaelic, was a heap of stones or of turf that was built on the hilltop where the fire was lit, and the practice of adding a stone to the cairn at each Beltane was a way of marking the passage of the years. The Beltane cairns of Ireland and Scotland, many of which are still visible in the modern landscape, were important features of the older sacred geography, and they were often associated with stories and legends that preserved the memory of the older festival. The practice of adding a stone to the cairn, of going around the cairn sunwise three times, and of leaving an offering on the cairn, was widely attested in the older sources.
Beltane and Fertility
The association of Beltane with fertility distinctive features of the festival, and the medieval Irish and Welsh sources preserve a rich picture of the various rites that were performed to ensure the fertility of the community, of the animals, and of the land. The May Day customs of the medieval and early modern Celtic-speaking regions, including the dancing around the maypole, the crowning of the May queen, the gathering of May dew, and the performance of various rites of love and marriage, are all descendants of the older Beltane fertility customs. The maypole, decorated with ribbons and flowers and danced around by the young people of the community, is a particularly clear survival of the older tradition, and the dance itself, with its circular pattern and its symbolic union of male and female dancers, is widely interpreted as a survival of the older fertility rites.
The gathering of May dew, in the early morning of May Day, was believed to have particular power to ensure the beauty, the health, and the fertility of the person who washed in it. The medieval Irish sources preserve a rich tradition of the magical and medicinal properties of May dew, and the early modern Scottish and Irish folklore is full of references to the washing of the face in May dew as a way of preserving the youth and beauty of the person. The May babies of the early Irish and Welsh tales, children conceived at the Beltane festival and believed to have special gifts, are another expression of the older association of the festival with fertility and with the renewal of life.
Beltane in the Medieval Irish Sources
The medieval Irish sources provide some of the most detailed accounts of the older Beltane festival, particularly in the tales of the Mythological cycle and the Fenian cycle. The Baile in Scáil (The Phantom’s Vision), a tale of the High Kingship of Ireland, describes the ritual of the Lia Fáil at Tara, the great stone that roared under the rightful king of Ireland, and the festival at which the king was formally recognized. The Tochmarc Étaíne (The Wooing of Étaíne) describes a great feast at Beltane at which the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann held court. The Serglige Con Culainn (The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn) describes a festival at which the heroes of Ulster were struck down by a magical illness caused by an Otherworld woman.
The most famous description of Beltane in the medieval Irish sources is in the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the great tale of the cattle raid of Cooley, in which the men of Ulster, struck down by a magical curse, are unable to defend their province against the armies of Medb and Ailill, and the young hero Cú Chulainn must defend Ulster single-handed. The festival of Beltane, in the tale, is a moment of crisis, a time when the normal order of things is suspended and the heroic figure must take on the burden of defending the community. The association of the festival with crisis, with the testing of heroes, and with the intervention of the Otherworld in the affairs of the living distinctive features of the medieval Irish literary tradition.
Beltane in Wales and the Continental Celtic World
The Welsh tradition preserves a particularly rich set of associations with Beltane. The Calan Mai, the first of May, was an important festival in medieval Wales, and the references in the Mabinogion and in the medieval Welsh poetry to the customs of May Day, including the lighting of fires, the gathering of flowers, and the performance of various rites of love and fertility, are clear evidence of the survival of the older tradition. The Beltane of the Welsh tradition is less well documented than its Irish counterpart, but the survival of many of the older customs in the rural Welsh communities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the lighting of bonfires on the hills, the dancing around the maypole, and the gathering of May dew, attests to the persistence of the older festival.
The continental Celtic tradition is less well documented, but the classical sources, particularly Pliny the Elder, several times mention May Day customs of the continental Celts, and the description of the ritual cutting of the mistletoe from the oak at the beginning of May famous of all classical accounts of Celtic religion. The continental May Day customs, like their insular counterparts, included the lighting of bonfires, the driving of cattle between the fires, and the performance of various rites intended to ensure the fertility of the community, the animals, and the land. The survival of many of these customs in the rural communities of France, Germany, and the Low Countries, often in forms that preserve recognizable features of the older Celtic tradition, is a striking example of the persistence of the older festival today.
The Modern Revival of Beltane
The modern revival of Beltane as a consciously reconstructed pre-Christian festival is a relatively recent phenomenon, dating from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The modern Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh, organized by the Beltane Fire Society, has since 1988 reconstructed a large-scale version of the older festival on the slopes of Calton Hill, with a procession, the lighting of a great bonfire, and the performance of various dramatic and symbolic acts intended to evoke the older Celtic festival. The Edinburgh Beltane, like the various May Day celebrations in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, draws on the medieval and early modern folklore of the festival, on the descriptions of the older festival in the classical and medieval sources, and on the broader revival of interest in Celtic identity and Celtic spirituality that has characterized the modern Celtic-speaking regions.
The revival of Beltane, like the revival of interest in other aspects of the older Celtic tradition, has been studied as considerable scholarly and popular debate. Some critics have argued that the modern reconstructions of the festival are anachronistic, drawing on romantic and idealized images of the older Celtic past rather than on the actual historical record. Others have welcomed the revival as a way of preserving and celebrating an important part of the cultural heritage of the Celtic-speaking regions. Whatever the merits of the modern revival, the persistence of the older Beltane customs in the folk traditions of the Celtic-speaking regions, in the surviving May Day celebrations of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Man, and in the broader popular culture of the modern Celtic diaspora, is a striking example of the endurance of one of the most distinctive festivals of the older Celtic year.