Beltane arrives next week in all its Spring glory and I’m looking forward to putting up my stag skull, the fun of trick-or-treating and my own quiet Beltane celebrations. I’ll light a candle on Beltane Eve, after the excitement of trick-or-treating has died down, try my hand at some divination, and maybe even jump over the candle for good luck, echoing the traditions we explored in Episode 21 - Beltane (Fire): Lighting the Bale Fires. On Beltane Day, I’ll wake up early, before the sunrises, walk down to the creek to the flowering hawthorn tree I visit every year, wash my face in the morning dew underneath the tree and tie clooties in its branches, similar to the Beltane traditions we explored in last week’s episode, Episode 22 - Beltane (Water): Springs, Wells and Morning Dew.
Then, leaving a gift for the hawthorn tree and asking its permission… so as not to anger the faeries (as the old folktales go), I’ll cut a blossom-filled branch, bring it home, decorate it with ribbons and fix it to the front verandah post, honouring an old tradition from my ancestral homelands in western Europe, which we will explore in this episode about Beltane’s more earthy delights, including the tradition of bringing in the May Bush, going ‘a-Maying,’ garlanding, and dancing the May Pole.
The May Bush
All in this pleasant evening, together come are we,
For the summer springs so fresh, green and gay;
We’ll tell you of a blossom and buds on every tree,
Drawing near to the merry month of May
English Maying Song, year unknown
As the spring celebration of Beltane, also called May Day, approached, flowers and greenery were gathered to decorate houses and churches across the European countryside, as well as ship’s masts throughout fishing towns. Where flowers and greenery were difficult to come by such as in cities or industrial towns, colourful ribbons were cheerfully substituted. Branches from different flowering trees or bushes were placed on the doors of houses, different species holding various meanings according to local custom. The most favoured was the blooming hawthorn, while others such as sloe, elder, crab-apple, nettle and thistle were, in some places, marks of insult.
Youth’s folks now flocken everywhere
To gather May baskets and smelling brere
And home they hasten the posts to dight
And all the Kirks pillars ere daylight
With hawthorn buds and sweet eglantine
And garlands of roses and sops in wine.
Edmund Spence, 16th-century English poet
‘Long Life, a pretty wife and a candle for the May Bush’ was a rhyme recounted by children in Dublin when looking for a contribution of candles, money or sweets for their May Day festivities.
National Museum of Ireland
The Hawthorn Tree
The hawthorn tree, Crataegus sp., often known as the May tree or whitethorn, is a small, deciduous tree native to Europe, North America, and parts of Asia. It is a richly symbolic tree and holds great significance in various cultures and traditions.
In Eastern European cultures, the hawthorn was considered a symbol of protection and healing and was often planted near homes to ward off evil spirits and protect against curses. Additionally, the hawthorn was associated with fertility and good luck. Its blossoms were sometimes used in rituals and celebrations related to love and the arrival of spring.
In the Celtic nations, and Ireland in particular, the hawthorn tree has long been associated with the realm of fairies, particularly those trees standing alone in open fields or near sacred springs or wells. It was believed that these trees were inhabited by the sidhe, also known as the good people or fairy folk. Angering the fairies by cutting down their sacred home is still believed to bring misfortune. Many tales caution against disturbing these trees, and superstitions related to hawthorns often deter people from harming them even now. It is still considered unlucky to cut hawthorn wood or bring the blossoming boughs into homes or under rooves, except on May Day.
In the Celtic Druidic tradition, hawthorn is represented in the Ogham alphabet by the letter Huath, which stands for dualities, change and liminal space and was associated with protection and transformation. Due to their long and sharp thorns, hawthorns often served as a natural boundary or hedge, providing a protective barrier against negative energies and enchantments. Hawthorn is still one of the most important hedgerow plants that mark the boundaries between fields and properties throughout the British Isles.
Hawthorn also has a long history of medicinal use. It is renowned for its ability to heal heart and circulation problems. The berries, leaves, and flowers of the hawthorn tree are used to make extracts, teas, and tinctures. These herbal remedies are believed to support cardiovascular health, help regulate blood pressure, and improve blood circulation. Additionally, hawthorn has been used to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and aid in digestion. It is also considered a symbol of hope and protection in herbal lore, providing physical and spiritual nourishment.
‘A-Maying’
Waken chaps and wenches gay,
An’ off t’country to gather May
Staffordshire Customs, Superstitions and Folklore, 1924
As with the Beltane traditions of dew bathing and visiting springs and wells, the tradition of going ‘a-Maying’ was commonly practiced across Europe on the first day of May. Merry parties and picnics were held in wild forests and fields, girls and young women made flower wreaths and braided flowers into their hair, and boys and young men competed against each other in impromptu games.
This scene was famously described in Thomas Malory’s Morte D’Arthur (The Death of King Arthur), when Queen Guinevere and her entourage spent the morning in the May woods and came home “bedashed with herbs, mosses and flowers, in the best manner and the freshest”.
May Day was also a time for young lovers to tryst or pledge their troth. Christian leaders bemoaned the improprietous behaviour that accompanied May Day celebrations, often involving uninhibited young people enjoying physical relationships. Bawdy songs, filled with double-entendre and metaphors for making love/having sex were written and sung.
Now is the month of Maying
Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are a playing, fa la,
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass. Fa la.
English Ballad by Thomas Morely, England, 1595
A Pleasant Country Maying Song 1629
Thus the Robin and the Thrush,
Miscke make in every bush,
While they charm their pretty notes,
Young men hurle up maidens cotes.
In ‘The Pepys Ballads’, edited by Hyder Edward Robbins, Cambridge 1929
Garlanding
In the 15th Century in England, women and young girls would make money by displaying and selling May garlands. This tradition was taken up by schools and expanded into processions. Young girls usually, but sometimes young boys too, dressed in May Day finery, decked in ribbons and flowers, carrying displays of flowers and greenery, and went door to door collecting money for their school. In some regions, they also sang May carols, crowned a May Queen or danced with Jack in the Green. A person dressed as Jack in the Green would dance, and cavort in some May Day processions, wearing a conical or pyramid-shaped costume made of wicker or wooden frame covered in green foliage. These traditions are being revived and it is now common to see May Day processions in towns, hamlets and cities throughout England and the British Isles.
In many countries around Europe, May Day has become a focal point for the Labour movement, often marked with a public holiday and sometimes involving Labour Day marches.
Maypole
Maypoles and dancing the Maypole were once common May Day customs throughout Europe and European colonies. Maypoles are tall wooden poles, decorated with flower garlands, ribbons, and streamers, erected in fields and commons, around which communities danced, feasted and drank together.
They have twenty or forty yoke of oxen, every ox having a sweet nose-gay of flowers placed on the tip of his horns, and these oxen draw home this Maypole… which is covered all over with flowers and herbs, bound about with strings, from the top to the bottom, and sometimes painted with variable colours, with two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with great devotion. And thus being reared up, with handkerchiefs and flags hovering on the top, they strew the ground around about, bind green boughs about it, set up summer halls, bowers and arbours hard by it. And then they fall to dance about it.
Philip Stubbes, 1580s in ‘The Stations of the Sun: a history of the ritual year in Britain’ by Ronald Hutton, 1996, p. 234
Competing villages often attempted to steal each other’s maypoles, a tradition usually undertaken in the spirit of misrule fun, but which sometimes resulted in violence. Festivities featuring the maypole were most commonly found in the southern regions of the British Isles and Germanic countries as well as throughout Slavic Europe. They are also a prominent feature of Swedish midsummer celebrations, where they are called midsommarstang. Maypoles did not generally feature in the Gaelic regions where the fire ceremonies dominated Beltane celebrations.
This short black and white video (2:49 mins) features footage of May Day celebrations at Elstow, Bedfordshire, England in 1939:
In Germanic countries, the maypole is called maibaum (May Tree) and the dancing is known as Tanz in den Mei. Dances could be as simple as wrapping ribbons around the maypole or as complicated as weaving patterns or creating a ‘gypsy tent.’
The video (0:56 mins) below shows students from the Archer School for Girls participating in their annual Maypole Dance in 2019.
Maypole dancing became popular in Australia and New Zealand during the late 1800s and was performed until the 1960s at ‘sports carnivals, picnic days and special events such as Empire Day and the Annual Combined Public Schools’ Display at the Sydney Cricket Ground’ (NSW Schoolhouse Museum of Public Education, 2013).
The video (11:18 mins) below from the National Museum of Ireland is very informative about the traditions related to May Day in Ireland.
I hope you have enjoyed this series of four episodes about Beltane. If you are in the southern hemisphere, you might like to incorporate some of these old traditions into your celebration of Beltane or weave some Beltane traditions into your Halloween celebrations. The following suggestions can be adapted according to whatever belief system you hold, whether that is a particular religion, cultural practice or no belief at all.
Beltane Eve
Decorate your home with witches, skulls, skeletons and ghosts bedecked with colourful ribbons and flowers.
Trick-or-treating - adorn witchy, skeleton or ghost costumes with flowers and ribbons or dress up as the Green Man or Green Woman, faeries (many folktales depict more sinister versions of the modern faeries as we know them) or a character from your favourite story, fairytale or folktale.
Light one or more candles when you get back from trick or treating and let it burn down to its base (always take precautions around fire).
Place a candle on the floor and have your family and/or friends jump over it three times for good luck. If this feels too unsafe for you or you have less mobile family members, place two candles on the floor and have your family/friends walk or move between them.
Have fun with divination - try reading tarot or oracle cards, throwing runes or bones, scrying with a bowl of water, reading candle wax in water or tea leaves in a cup of tea or playing the Ouija Board. For some, this will be a serious undertaking for others it will be a bit of fun that fits in with the ‘spooky’ season. If your belief system is indisposed to this kind of activity, why not use this time to pray in whatever way suits you best.
Make clooties and leave them under each family member’s pillow until the morning.
Beltane Morning
Get up before dawn and journey to a hawthorn tree, bringing a basket with clooties, a gift for the hawthorn tree (food or drink, I’m sure the tree would appreciate some fertiliser tonic) and a pair of sharp and clean secateurs
Wash your face in the morning dew, underneath the hawthorn tree or from a grassy, flower-filled field, remembering that not only does the dew have the power to beautify a person’s face and boost their health, it is also filled with magic according to folk lore, and holds the memories of all living things
Tie your clooties to the hawthorn tree, saying a prayer, wish, affirmation or words that seem most appropriate to you and your belief system
Ask the hawthorn tree for permission to remove one of its branches (to avoid angering the faeries), cut one that seems most appropriate to you and to the hawthorn tree, and leave your gift in return
Go home and decorate the hawthorn branch with ribbons and other knick-knacks then tie it to a pillar on your front porch or verandah, or a-fix it to the front of your house in another way
If you are lucky enough to have the time or if you delay your Beltane/Halloween celebrations until the weekend, why not get some friends and family together for a picnic in a forest or a field or even get your community together and bring back the tradition of Maypole dancing.
The exciting and colourful Latin American tradition of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) can also provide seasonally appropriate inspiration for this time of year, which we will explore next week’s episode, Episode 24 - Dia de Los Muertos.
Until then:
Waaken chaps and wenches gay, An' off t’country to gather May!
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