In early May, with crops flourishing in fields and animals getting fat in lush pastures, rural communities across Europe welcome the first flicker of summer.
Around Britain, maypole dancing is seen at village fairs and church fêtes, often held on Whitsun (the seventh Sunday after Easter), but in traditional Celtic culture, the coming season was heralded with a huge fire festival. Sometimes described as Gaelic May Day, Beltane is a celebration of rising warmth and fertility, with people paying thanks to the sun.
- The first signs of spring
- Britain's best spring walks: 23 beautiful trails
- Spring blossom is out now - here's how to identify it
Roughly translating as ‘bright fire’, Beltane is the anglicised version of a name that combines a Celtic sun deity Bel (also called Belenus, Belenos, Belinus, Beli Mawr) and the Gaelic word for fire: teine.
Celebrated for millennia, especially in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland (with a similar tradition, Cyntefin, in Wales), the festival falls halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. On this date, or the evening prior, processions traditionally took place, typically led by people playing the role of Bel (the May Queen) and the Green Man. These traditions largely disappeared during the Victorian era, but in the 1980s Beltane was revived, most notably in Edinburgh, where a popular festival takes place.
What is Beltane?
Celebrated by pagan and Celtic cultures across the British Isles, Beltane was an important fire and fertility festival heralding the peak of spring and imminent arrival of summer, during which rural communities gave thanks to the sun and appealed to the deities who controlled the elements to provide them with a bountiful harvest season and success with their herd animals.
Beltane is one of the four major Gaelic seasonal festivals that form the cornerstones of the traditional Celtic calendar – together with Imbolc, Lughnasadh and Samhain. Of these events, Samhain and Beltane were the most significant; both are fire festivals, strongly imbued with symbolic interaction between the human and the mythical world.
Beltane is an anglicised version of the festival’s name, however, and the Celtic areas where it was celebrated each had their own spelling: in Scottish Gaelic it is Latha Bealltainn, across Ireland it’s Bealtaine and on the Isle of Man people refer to it as Laa Boaltinn.
How did Beltane begin?
The earliest mention of Beltane is in Old Irish literature, including in Sanas Cormaic written by Cormac mac Cuilennáin around 900AD, but Beltane is thought to have been celebrated since pre-Christian times.
When is Beltane?
Beltane is generally associated with 1 May, although some parades took place the evening before. It predates the Julian and Gregorian calendars, but it falls exactly halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice.
What traditions are associated with Beltane?
Beltane bannocks (oatcakes) were traditionally baked the night before and eaten on the day. In Ireland, offerings were traditionally made to supernatural beings, the aos sí, and people would decorate parts of their dwellings with yellow wildflowers, signifying flames.
Fire is a constant theme in Beltane festivals, with people dancing around and jumping through flames, imploring deities to bless them with purity, fertility and good fortune for their farming endeavours. Having being put out before the festival, home hearths were relit from the Beltane blaze.
However, despite the theatrics at Buster Ancient Farm (and other neopagan ceremonies), and films about the subject, there’s no evidence to suggest wicker man effigies were ever really burned during Beltane celebrations, let alone with sacrificial human victims inside them. (There are reports of druids conducting such sacrifices, but they are questionable, coming from Roman leaders seeking to portray the Celtic pagan priests as bloodthirsty savages.)
How is Beltane celebrated today?
Since being reinvigorated in 1988, by a collective including musicians and academics from the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh, a Beltane fire festival has flourished again in the Scottish capital, with traditional celebrations mixed with some modern twists. After being staged at Arthur’s Seat for several years, the rapidly growing event moved to Calton Hill, with a procession starting at the National Monument (‘the Acropolis’, to Beltaners), led by characters invoking the May Queen and the Green Man, and accompanied by drummers. Initially it was a free-to-attend festival, but it’s now ticketed, with up to 12,000 people turning up annually. Beltane festivals are also annually recreated in early May at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire, where the spectacle includes the burning a huge wickerman (without any sacrificial victims inside, thankfully).
Is Beltane associated with other festivities or customs?
Although Beltane is most strongly associated with the traditional Celtic communities in Scotland, the Isle of Man and across the island of Ireland, a very similar festival has long been celebrated in Wales. Cyntefin, as it was historically known, is more commonly called Calan Mai (first day of May) or Calan Haf (first day of Summer) now. Like Beltane, the event featured bonfires, people jumping through flames and eating oatcakes, as well as carol singing and maypole dancing.
Main image: Performers take part in the Beltane Fire Festival on Calton Hill, Edinburgh in 2024/Getty
More UK folklore and celebration days
- Imbolc: All you need to know about this ancient spring celebration
- Helston Flora Day: a celebration of colour in Cornwall
- St George's Day: when it is, the history behind the legend - and whether St George was real
- Just who Britain's eerie Green Man really is, is one of the country's biggest mysteries, but could this ancient spirit of mischief be the hidden guardian of nature?
