Caer Australis - The Celtic Fire Feasts: Beltaine

BELTAINE, or Calan Mai, is held on May Eve and is the festival that heralds in the summer half of the Celtic year.

May in Ireland was originally called cét-Samhin 'first of the Summer', and in Gaul before the introduction of Roman calendar systems, the ancient Celtic calendar began with the month Samon 'Summer', and from this cultural continuity both across Celtic Europe and throughout time, it can be justly understood that Beltaine or Calan Mai marked the beginning of not only the summer but of the Celtic year itself.

Beltaine is a joyous festival that marks the time of beginnings in Celtic myth and legend: the arrival of the Tuatha de Danaan was marked with the Song of Amergin on this day, so too were the first fires lit at Uisnech; it is at Beltaine that Mabon, the divine son, is born to the divine mother, Modron: the births of Gwri (later Pryderi), Setanta (later Cú Chulaind) and the Mac Óc (Oengus) all testify to this (1), and symbolically this represents the birth of the new solar year.

As the festival that celebrates the triumph of summer over winter, Beltaine is also the time when the victory of the new solar god is achieved over his rival the old year god, whose power had waned over the winter (2): every May Day, for instance, Gwythur ap Greidyawl and Gwynn ap Nudd fight for the hand of Creiddylad. The perpetual victory of summer each year ensures the continuation of life itself, and at Beltaine the solar god wins the hand of the Goddess, exemplified in the Mabinogi of Pwyll from Wales and in the Tochmarc Étaíne from Ireland, where the handsome yellow-haired solar hero wins the hand of the most beautiful woman in the world at the beginning of Summer.

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1325-c.1380) marked the Welsh tradition of praise at Calan Mai in his poem To May and January (3) with these uplifting words,

"Welcome, with your lovely greenwood choir, summery month of May for which I long!
The battle with the frost is over.
The paths of May will be green.
There will come on the highest crest of oak-trees the songs of young birds."

This fourteenth century poem celebrating the joyful return of summer with the cold of winter defeated and life reborn at May is a true continuation of the celebration of this season recorded in Ireland in the ninth century, found in the words of Finn (4) at the instant he ate of the Salmon of Knowledge,

"May-day, fair aspect, perfect season!
Welcome to noble summer,
The ocean flows a smooth course,
Blossom covers the world!"

Beltaine opens the first light summer half of the Celtic year, shown in the structure of the Celtic year recorded in the 16th Century in the Fennian tale 'Tóraigheacht an Ghiolla Dheacair: The pursuit of the Giolla Dacker and his horse', where a beltaine beginning and a samhain middle is explicitly recorded: "One day in the beginning of summer, Finn mac Cumhail feasted the chief people of Erin and when the feast was over, the Fena reminded him that it was time to begin the chase through the plains and the glens and the wilderness of Erin. For this was the manner in which the Fena used to spend their time. They divided the year into two parts. During the first half, namely, from Bealtaine to Samhain, they hunted each day with their dogs; and during the second half, namely from Samhain to Bealtaine, they lived in the mansions and hostels of Erin such that there was not a lord or innkeeper in the whole country that had not nine of the Fena quartered on him during the winter half of the year' - P.W.Joyce recorded this in 1907 and is is widely available today through publication of 'Old Celtic Romances' by the Folkloric Society (now published on-line).

As the beginning of the Celtic year and as the beginning of the time of warmth afforded by Summer, the fire-feast at the start of Summer celebrates the power of healing and rebirth. Throughout the Celtic world great fires are lit. Indeed, a commonly given explanation (5) of the name 'Beltaine' is that it is derived from the name for these fires, Bel-tene (Bel's fire) in honour of the sun god Bel or Belinos.

In the Southern Hemisphere the passage of the seasons is offset by half a year to those of the north, and the summer season associated with Beltaine is met at the Eve of November. In May the Southern Lands enter the winter half of the year and the Fire Feast of May is best named there for the southern season, therefore Teine Geimhreadh Deas, the 'Southern Winter Fire', and the Fire Feast of November when summer begins is best likewise named Teine Samhradh Deas, the 'Southern Summer Fire'.

New fires are created (6) from the power of fire within wood, such as a well-seasoned oak: The fire, termed tein-eigan: a forced- or need-fire, is elicited by means of turning a wimble in a socket or an axle-tree in a hole, creating fire through friction, and the first sparks are caught in kindling and the new fire, like that of the new summer, would be born: The old year fires are extinguished as a preamble and embers of the new fire would be brought into the homes to rekindle the hearth.

In 1890, John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre, recorded that "the most considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day". The Beltaine cake am bonnach bealtine, in its many variants, is an essential part of the fire-feast: The piece randomly or fortuitously gained that was specially marked (a piece of charcoal within, blackened on the outside, consisting of brown-meal, etc) indicated the recipient was reckoned as dead: here is an echo of the death of the old year god defeated by the coming of Summer. Thrice would the 'dead' jump through or around the Beltaine fire, as an act of sacrifice "rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast".

At this time, cattle are newly moved to pasture from the confines of their over-wintering in pens and enclosures - as Finn sings, "the mountain, supplying rich sufficiency carries off the cattle". Cattle are known to have been enjoined in the festival by being driven around or between the Beltaine fires so that they too enjoy the healing bestowed by the renewing powers at Beltaine and the start of the pasturing season.

Competition from the Easter fires as a time of renewal, not the least the challenging fires of St Patrick (7), has been a major reason for the role of Beltaine diminishing in the Celtic world of Christian times. In recent times, another important influence on the meaning of Beltaine has been the adoption by the 20th century neo-pagan and wiccan movements of winter as the beginning of the year (8). Ross Nichols, of the Ancient Order of Druids, discovered in his researches the Celtic fire festivals and proposed for them to be incorporated into the AOD but this was rejected. Nichols advised his friend Gerald Gardner, who was establishing the Wiccan system about these feasts and he immediately incorporated them into an eight-fold year divided by the solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarters, and these were in practice in the early 1950s; When Nichols established his breakaway Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, he too utilised the eight-fold year and this was practiced from 1964. see: Orr, E.R. (1998) Introduction to Druidry, Thorsons/HarperCollins, London. Confusion has also be made by the neo-pagan groups of Caesar's DisPater statement (Gallic Wars, VI.18) in which Caesar accurately records the Celts as beginning their days at sunset. Sir John Rhys mistakenly took this to indicate that the Celts began their year in the dark part of the year, and this misinterpretation was very early incorporated into Celticism by Sir John Rhys in 1886 when he presented the Hibbert Lectures, published in 1892 by Williams and Norgate, London, as 'Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom". It was in these lectures that he advanced the concept of Samhain being the Celtic New Year. He states, on p. 360 the following: "The Celts reckoned Dis the father of all, and regarded darkness and death as taking precedence over light and life ; so in their computation of time they began with night and winter, and not with daylight and summer." Sir James Frazer in his The Golden Bough of 1890 states the self-same concept in "The Hallowe'en Fires. Frazer does not directly quote Sir John Rhys; however, Frazer had clearly read Rhys, for he makes mention of the Hibbert Lecture material in relation to Samhain fire feasts in Wales.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

(1) The birth of Gwri Golden Hair: The sun-god's birth is occasioned by the birth of a fabulous colt on May eve. see, for example, Gantz, J. (1976) 'The Mabinogion' Penguin. London: the Mabinogi of Pwyll Lord of Dyved. The birth of Setanta: The birth of the Irish hero Cú Chulaind in the now lost Book of Druimm Snechti, like Gwri, is occasioned by the birth of a fabulous colt, pointing to May eve by similarity with Gwri. see, for example, Gantz, J. (1981) 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas' Penguin. London. The birth of Oengus, the Mac Óc: His father Echu (the Dagda) is like Gwri's mother Rhiannon, a Horse deity. see the , for example, Gantz, J. (1981) 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas' Penguin. London: Tochmarc Étaín (The Wooing of Étaín).

(2) The Fight for the hand of Creiddylad see, for example, Gantz, J. (1976) 'The Mabinogion' Penguin. London: How Culhwch won Olwen p.148 and p.168. Rhiannon is 'a wonder', 'dressed in shining gold brocade', the 'choice of every girl and woman in the world': she appears before Pwyll on the Gorsedd Arberth, the hill above his court at Arberth: just as Beltaine fires are lit on hill tops. see, for example, Gantz, J. (1976) 'The Mabinogion' Penguin. London: the mabinogi of Pwyll Lord of Dyved, p.52 and p.54. Étaíne is called Bé Find, 'fair woman', 'her hands were as white as the snow of a single night, and her eyes as blue as any blue flower, and her lips as red as the berries of the rowan-tree, and her body as white as the foam of a wave' see: "Midhir and Etain" In: Lady Gregory (1904) 'Gods and Fighting Men' Colin Smythe, Gerrards Cross, (1970). p.90; and "The Wooing of Étaíne" In: Jeffrey Gantz (1981) 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas' Penguin, London. pp.39-59. (p.48 and p.52.) Mider is described as he approached Etain: 'fair yellow hair covered his forehead with a band of gold to restrain it from covering his face: "The Wooing of Étaíne" In: Jeffrey Gantz (1981) 'Early Irish Myths and Sagas' Penguin, London. pp.47-48.; Likewise, Gwri Golden Hair is described as the image of Pwyll in the Mabinogi of Pwyll.

(3) Daffyd ap Gwilym (1325-c.1380) "To May and January", reproduced in Jackson, K.H (1951) 'A Celtic Miscellany', Penguin, London. Nature poetry.

(4) "May Day" In: Murphy, G. (1956:1970 reprint) 'Early Irish Lyrics. Eighth to Twelfth Century. Edited with translation, notes and glossary' Clarendon Press, Oxford. pp. 156-157

(5) Ross, A.(1974) Pagan Celtic Britain, Cardinal, London, p.83; Dillon, M. and Chadwick, N.K. The Celtic Realms, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, p.108. Another reference to Beltaine ceremony affecting the entire new year is found in Ireland, ref 6, p.621, quoting Cormac: "May-day was so called from the 'lucky fire' or the 'two fires' which the druids of Erin used to make on that day with great incantations; and cattle, he adds, used to be brought to those fires, or be driven between them, as a safeguard against the diseases of the year."

(6) Sir James Frazer (1890 and 1922) The Golden Bough , 1994 reprint, Chancellor Press/Octopus, London. "The Beltane Fires", provides much lore of the activities during the Beltane festival.

(7) MuirchÚ Moccu Machteni of Armagh 'Life of St Patrick': written in the seventh century and surviving in the Book of Armagh: "...on the same night as the holy Patrick was celebrating Easter, there was an idolatrous ceremony...with manifold incantations and magical contrivances...when the Druids, singers, prophets...had been summoned to Laoghaire...at Tara": see: Ellis, P.B. (1994) The Druids, Constable, London, p. 76. Christianity would also very likely to be understandably intolerant of the celebration of the birth of Mabon at this festival as it would conflict with the birth of Christ.

(8) Orr, E.R. (1998) Introduction to Druidry, Thorsons/HarperCollins, London.