May 1
BELTANE
The Fire Festival
Beltane, which celebrates the entry of summer, was one of the two great fire-festivals held by the Celts in honour of the sun.
Of their four seasonal festivals, Beltane and Samhuinn (Hallowmas), which are exactly six months apart, were of major importance, for in a community whether at the hunting or at the pastoral stage of development, they mark the two main divisions of the year. At Beltane the fianna, that legendary band of heroes commanded by Fionn or Fingal, ceased to be quartered on the people and went forth to hunt and fish; at Hallowmas, they returned to the fold. By Beltane, the seed had been committed to the ground; by Hallowmas the crops were already inned. Thus Beltane may be regarded as a Day of Supplication, when a blessing was invoked on hunter and herdsman, on cattle and crops, and Hallowmas as a Day of Thanksgiving for the safe return of the wanderers and the renewal of the food supply.
To the Druids, the sun was the seat and centre of the divinity, and fire, because of its affinity with the sun, was their mystic medium of worship. The object of the fire ceremonies was two fold –propitiation and purification. They were intended in the first place to propitiate the mysterious forces of nature and ensure fertility in field and fold and on the hearth. Propitiation, of course, meant sacrifice. We know that in the first century BC, human sacrifices were still made in Gaul, and although there is no direct evidence of their practice in Britain, in the descriptions of surviving rites there are, as we shall see, what can hardly be interpreted as other than traces of the same custom. Later, animal sacrifices were substituted, notably that of the bull, and eventually there was merely the ‘offering of the cake,�?or consecrated bread.
The other function of the sacred fire was to purify the air by the destruction of all malign influences and to protect the community from any calamities that might threaten during the year –thunder and lightning, blight vermin, disease, sterility, and, above all, wicked enchantments.
The Beltane fires were kindled on the hilltops at break of day. They were built on a scale to illumine a wide area, and for several days the community was engaged in collecting the necessary fuel. Only sacred woods were used: in some districts the tradition lingers of nine varieties. Each bonfire was built in two sections with a narrow passage between, and around it was cut a circular trench (symbolic of the sun) of sufficient circumference to hold the assembled multitude.
On the eve of Beltane, all the domestic fires, which had burned continuously day and night for a twelvemonth, were extinguished. Long before dawn, shadowy figures began to emerge from the doorway of each heather-thatched hut, and presently a long procession of men, women and children began to mount the step hillside –each family leading or driving before it all its domestic animals—to the spot sanctified by centuries of worship. The ceremonies were directed by the white-robed Druids.
By primitive peoples, the sun was regarded as the male principle by which the earth, or female principle, was fertilized, and the Beltane festival may be likened to a wedding ceremony where the bride, the Earth, welcomes her lover, the Sun, through whose embrace she shall produce abundance of corn, cattle and men.
Of the Mysteries enacted at the festival, nothing is known, for the secrets of their cult died with the last of the Druids. The popular ceremonies, however—that is, those in which the whole community took part—survived, and have, indeed, displayed an astonishing vitality under the successive rules of Iona, Rome and Edinburgh, and from them we can largely reconstruct the ancient festival.
Within the charmed sun circle, the eyes of the assembled multitude were turned to the far horizon to await the coming of the New Sun.
‘Out of the east it welled and whitened; the darkness trembled in to light; and the stars were extinguished like the lamps of a human city. The whiteness brightened into silver, the silver warmed into gold, the gold kindled into pure and living fire, and the face of the east was barred with elemental scarlet. The day drew its first long breath, steady and chill; an for leagues around the woods sighed and shivered. And then, at one bound, the sun had floated up �?nbsp; On every side the shadows leapt from their ambush and fell prone. The day was come.�?
Did the worshippers greet the new-born sun with a tumultuous shout, or with prayer, or with a hymn of praise such as the Israelites might have sung in such a place? That we do not know, but the spirit of Beltane breathes in William Blake’s words:--‘”What�? it will be questioned, “when the sun rises, do you not see a disc of fire, somewhat like a guinea?�?nbsp; “Oh, no no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord god Almighty!�?I question not my corporeal eye, any more that I would question a window, concerning a sight. I look through it, and not with it!”�?/FONT>
As the eastern sky was brightening, the chosen men were already at work creating the needfire, the virgin flame from which the bonfire should be kindled, flint and steel being alike taboo. The ritual of the needfire was performed by �?the nine times nine’—that is, by eighty-one men working in relays of nine, rubbing together two great planks of the sacred oak until the friction should create a flame. To the watching multitude, the fire had the appearance of being derived straight from heaven.
As the sun leapt into sight, the victim was slain and a portion of the sacrifice was placed on each pile. The flame was then applied, and as soon as the bonfire was ablaze, the whole company formed into procession and walked thrice round it, moving invariably deiseil, in a sunwise direction. Next the cattle were driven thrice through the fire –that is, through the narrow passage—in order to ensure protection from murrain. When the blaze had subsided, all the sick animals were driven across the embers, sometimes in a regular order of precedence, the sheep first, then the cows, and lastly the horses. As soon as all the beasts were through, people rushed forward and sprinkled one another with the sacred ashes, or blackened their own and one another’s faces. Torches of dried sedge, heather or other material, were lit at the sacred flame, and with these the younger men encircled the herds to ensure fertility and protection from evil. With torches still burning and kept whirling round in imitation of the dance of the ‘new sun,�?which was reputed to whirl round three times on rising above the horizon, they approached their homes; and having circuited first the fields of growing corn and then their dwellings, they entered, and with the consecrated brand kindled a fire on the hearth. The virtue of the fire was believed to last a twelvemonth; hence it was never allowed to go out, but burned continuously until the following Beltane Eve. Embers brought back from the bonfire, after being extinguished in water, were placed in the mangers at which the cattle fed, and ashes were strewn on the fields to protect the crops from vermin, or were used as remedies in sickness being with sprinkled on the ailing part, or mixed in water and drunk by the patient.
Martin tells us that the need fire was withheld from the heads of such families as had omitted to pay their tithes or to discharge any other ecclesiastical obligations, and that malefactors suffered for their crimes by being burned in the fires of Beltane.
Meanwhile the elders of the tribe stayed behind to propitiate the enemies of their flocks and herds—the foxes, the eagles, and the storms. Butter, cheese, eggs and milk were placed in a hollow stone, or sometimes a caudle of eggs and milk was prepared and thrown on the ground by way of libation. There followed the offering the consecrated bread, the bonnach Bealltain or Beltane bannock, which in pre-Christian days the Druid, and later, one of the fathers of the tribe, threw bit by bit over his left shoulder, uttering an incantation in which he invoked the floods and the storms, the beasts and birds of prey, to spare his lambs and kids.
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
First 