The Wheel of the Year cont. - Beltane
Next in the chronology is Beltane or, more properly Lá Bealtaine for the Irish, Latha Bealltainn for the Scottish, and Laa Boaltinn/Boaldyn for the Manx. Wiccan traditions hold that Bealtaine is a time of fertility and sexuality, marking the return of vitality to the Earth. Love and commitment are considered important themes, with handfastings (a form of wedding) being traditionally held during the festival.
Contrarily, fertility is rarely placed as a central focus in actual Bealtaine festivities. Whilst there is an element of fertility, the festival was primarily a marker of driving livestock to the summer pastures and performing rituals to ensure the livestock was protected from harm, either natural or supernatural, with the symbolic use of fire. Additionally, there were rituals performed to ensure the protection of crops, dairy products, and people, and to encourage growth, with other rituals being performed to appease the aos sí, spirits or fairies that scholars understand to be remnant belief in the prior gods and nature spirits.
A common practice amongst Wiccans for the Sabbat is making a “wedding feast” for the God and Goddess of the religion, with breads, cereal grains, oatmeal cookies, and dairy foods all being considered “traditional Beltane treats.”
When examining the festival's ancient practices, and those that managed to persevere, we find that there is quite a difference. The earliest mentions of Bealtaine are from the texts “Sanas Cormaic” and “Tochmarc Emire”. Uncommonly, Wicca has the date of celebration correct, as both texts relay that the festival was held on May 1st. That, however, is where the correct aspects end. The same texts describe druids (notably a caste of a variety of roles, ranging from religious leaders to legal authorities to lorekeepers to medical professionals) lighting two fires with
“great incantations”
through which the cattle would be driven. The texts relate Bealtaine in relation to an Idol God, Bil Bial, in which
“a fire was kindled in his name at the beginning of summer always, and cattle were driven between the two fires.”
A similar line of tradition was written about by the 17th-century historian Geoffrey Keating, claiming there was a gathering at the hill of Uisneach each year in medieval Ireland, with sacrifices being made to a god he names Beil, known otherwise by the name Belenus, a god seemingly tied to healing and oracles, his worship stretching from the Carnic Alps of Austria and north-eastern Italy all the way to Ireland (the wide range of his cult pointing to a possible Proto-Celtic origin for the cult.) While there is no reference to a gathering such as Keating describes in the Irish annals, the onomastic text “Dindsenchas” includes a tale of a hero lighting a holy fire on Uisneach that burned for seven years. Ronald Hutton wrote that the tale may have been an attempt at preserving the tradition in literature but may just as likely have been Keating or the sources he used conflating the legend with facts and weaving it into a creation of pseudohistory. There is, however, evidence of large fires and charred bones from archaeological digs, as well as evidence indicating its importance as a place of ritual, with evidence indicating it may have been a sanctuary site, with fires burning either perpetually or being kindled in frequent intervals, as well as being a site where animal sacrifice occurred.
For other traditions, we look to John Jamieson and his work “Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language”, published in 1808, where he describes practices that had persisted to the 18th century, but were dying out as the 19th continued. Bonfires continued to play a key role, with hearth fires being doused before the bonfire would be lit, most commonly on a hill. On the fire, Hutton wrote that to
“increase the potency of the holy flames, in Britain at least they were often kindled by the most primitive of all means, of friction between wood.”
Known as a need-fire, or tein' èiginn in Gaelic, it was a sacred fire that could only be kindled using a wooden drill, and only by a group of chosen individuals, usually men, and usually numbering nine, and only after they had removed all metal and all other fires had been doused.
The light of the fire itself was believed to guard against sickness, supernatural harm, and witchcraft. Along with this, cattle were still driven over or between two fires, in some locales being made to jump over the fire or the embers, much the people did for protection and good luck, with the Isle of Man having a tradition of ensuring the smoke blew over them and their cattle.
Once the fire had died down, people would daub the ashes on themselves and sprinkle it over their crops and livestock, taking home torches lit from the bonfire, carrying it around the house or the boundary of the farmstead, and lighting the hearth with it. There were also food and drink traditions surrounding the bonfire, with Alexander Carmichael noting that, in the Highlands, a lamb was sacrificed and used for a feast, whereas Thomas Pennant wrote of a Perthshire tradition where a caudle (a type of hot drink) made from eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk was cooked, with some of the mixture poured on the ground as libation. All would then take an oatmeal cake, a bannoch Bealltainn, and face the fire, break off the nine knobs one by one, and throw them behind their shoulder, each knob being offered to the spirits for protection for their livestock and to the predators that might harm the livestock. Once done, they drink the caudle.
There was also the tradition of placing yellow and white flowers (such examples including primrose, rowan, hawthorn, gorse, hazel, and marsh marigold) at doorways and windows, with the tradition variously being flowers strewn about the locations, or being made into bouquets, garlands, and crosses. Along a similar line of practice was tying those same flowers to cows and the equipment used for their milking and the production of butter. Current scholarship points toward their use being caused by them being associated with fire.
Much along the lines of the flower tradition was the May Bush, alternately known as the May Bough. A small tree, or a branch, (typically hawthorn, rowan, holly, or sycamore) would be decorated with bright flowers, ribbons, painted shells, or eggshells from Easter Sunday onward. Decorated where it stood, or having branches decorated and brought inside the house (typically above the windows and doors, the roof, and on barns) it was most commonly the eldest person of the house’s responsibility to decorate the May Bush, with the Bush remaining until the 31st of May, and tending to have candles or rushlights decorating it alongside the other decorations. Some locales held a custom of singing and dancing around the bush, whereas other locales held that gold and silver hurling balls were to be hung on the Bush and given to children, or the winners of a hurling match.
When it comes to appeasing fairies, the May flowers tied to cattle, milking tools, and butter churning tools were to ensure that the cattle and the butter would be left alone, with some placing three black coals under the butter churn in place of the flowers. Food or milk was also commonly left in places associated with the aos sí as an offering, though milk was never to be given to a neighbor, as it was a fear that by doing so, the milk would be transferred to the neighbor’s cow. Ireland had the tradition of bringing cattle to fairy forts, collecting a small amount of blood, pouring it into the earth, and praying for the safety of the herd, with some places leaving the blood to dry before being burnt. To protect the produce and to encourage fertility, farmers would lead a procession around their farm, carrying
“seeds of grain, implements of husbandry, the first well water, and the herb vervain”
though rowan was a known substitute. The procession would traditionally stop at each of the cardinal points, where rites would be performed. There was also the tradition of making the sign of the cross with milk for good luck on Bealtaine, as well as doing the same on the backsides of cattle.
Miscellaneous traditions included the visiting of holy wells (much like other traditions) and the leaving of a clootie (a piece of a rag) causing the development of a clootie well. The first well water drawn was believed to be rather potent, with luck being granted to the one to draw it up, and one should not light a fire before seeing smoke rising from a neighbor’s house. Giving away coal or ash was believed to cause the giver difficulty lighting a fire for the next year. If the family owned a white horse, it was to remain in the barn, with any other horses having a red rag tied to their tails. A foal born on Bealtaine was one fated to kill a man, just as a cow that calved would be fated to die. A marriage or birth that happened during the day would be ill-fated. On the night of Bealtaine, a cake and jug were to be left out in Irish tradition, as the dead who had died abroad would return to their ancestral homes. Should a robin fly into the house, it would portend a death.
While the day would evolve to be called May Day in the English Language, it is rather different from the May Day that modern people think of, as well as being quite disconnected from the Sabbat variation. In point of fact, the large focus on fertility (as well as some Wiccan groups practicing maypole dancing) more closely aligns the Sabbat with the traditions of May Day, more specifically the May Day thought to have had Germanic roots, instead of Celtic roots, though the theory proposing said roots posited that elements such as the maypole were representative of the axis mundi, which is rather at odds with the cosmological formulation we have, where there is no axis, as the universe is a tree.
The maypole itself is also rather misused in Wicca, as it tends to be used as a symbol of the phallic nature of the God, who embraces the Goddess ensuring his rebirth. The idea of a phallic nature being attributed to the maypole originated from Thomas Hobbes, who erroneously believed it to have Roman roots, being rooted in the worship of Priapus, though we have no evidence that such was the case.