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For the early Celts, Beltane was signaled by the blossoming of the
hawthorn tree at the beginning of May, therefore known as the "May Tree."













Beltane, traditionally celebrated on the eve of May 1st (“Fixed Date” ), is one of the four “cross-quarter” festivals on the Celtic Wheel of the Year. The word “Beltane” probably originates from the Celtic God “Bel,” meaning “the bright one” and the Gaelic word “teine” meaning fire. Thus, Beltane (or Beltaine) is a “fire festival” celebrating the coming of summer ("Here Comes The Sun"). "Beltane" is the Anglicized form of Irish Gaelic name for either the month of May or the festival that takes place on (or about) the first day of May. In some places, Beltane was referred to as “The May.” Called the “Day of Bealtaine,” it was historically a Gaelic festival celebrated in medieval Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Beltane also marks a midpoint between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice (“Astrological Date”), technically a mid-Spring festival. Thus, Beltane is about rebirth after the cold and dark of winter and the sprouting season of early spring. For the Celts, it signified the beginning of the pastoral summer season when the herds of livestock were driven out to the summer pastures and mountain grazing lands. Before there were calendars, many Celtic peoples celebrated Beltane with the first pinky-white blossoms of the sacred hawthorn tree, also known as “the May tree.”






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May, and among the miles of leafing,
blossoms storm out of the darkness —
windflowers and moccasin flowers. The bees
dive into them and I too, to gather
their spiritual honey. Mute and meek, yet theirs
is the deepest certainty that this existence too —
this sense of well-being, the flourishing
of the physical body — rides
near the hub of the miracle that everything
is a part of, is as good
as a poem or a prayer, can also make
luminous any dark place on earth.
-Mary Oliver

Thematic Images for the
Orphic Essay-with-Soundtrack
Beltane / May Day:
A Holiday for Pagans & Workers

Prologue to Beltane / May Day Musical Essays: Troubadour Spring Poetry/Song "Nature Introductions"
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Troubadour serenading his lady amongst the hawthorn trees (also known as "May trees" and "Fairy trees") in May. Hawthorn tapestries left and right (William Morris).
The "Nature Introductions": Exordium & Reverdie
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In connecting a previous musical essay series, "The Troubadours & The Beloved" to the present "Beltane/May Day" series, GS had discussed poet Ezra Pound's assertion that behind the troubadours was a secret, erato-mystic love cult based upon an ancient pagan fertility religion and quoted Pound: "... the birth of Provençal song hovers about the Pagan rites of May Day.”
Therefore, the GS would connect his current Beltane/May Day musical essay series back thematically to the troubadours, who celebrated in poetry/song the twin joys (joi) of spring and love for the months of April and May.
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Concerning the troubadour love poems/songs with the theme of the Spring season, there are "nature introductions" known as exordium in the genre of reverdie ("re-greening") in troubadour poetry/song (usually only first stanza) linking of spring and love. The troubadours often used the exordium when springtime weather inspires and bird songs “teach” the poet to sing. The bird in many troubadour cansos serves as the poet’s “messenger,” who will carry his message to his beloved. Technically speaking, the reverdie specifies time of composition at the end of March and early April. Spring inspires love and song, and the poem’s position is a love plea. As one literary historian tells us: “The reverdie properly belongs to May-Day festivities." (There are some 35 examples of "nature introductions" one can find.)
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The earliest extant example of the musical form of the alba (dawn song) is the song "Kalenda Maya" (or "Kalenda Maia:" "The Calends of May") written by the troubadour Raimbaut de Vaqueiras (c.1150–1207) to the melody of an estampida, a dance form played by French jongleurs. (The Romans called the first day of every month the calends, signifying the start of a new lunar phase.)
“On the first of May, gay the plumage of birds,
Song the day, loud the cuckoos.”
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(From a 6th-century Celtic Welsh poem, "The Calends of May")
When the days are long in May,
I like a sweet song of birds from afar …
And neither song nor hawthorn flower,
Can please me more than winter’s ice....
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~Jaufre Rudel (12th century)
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It’s sweet when the breeze blows softly,
As April turns into May ….
Whiter she is than Helen was,
The loveliest flower of May ….
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~Arnaut de Mareuil (12th century)
Through her who holds my heart in play;
So I prize not April or May,
For she blithely turns away ….
~Peire Vidal (12th century)
This love of ours it seems to be
Like a twig on a hawthorn tree
That on the tree trembles there ….
~Guillaume de Poitiers (12th century)


Thematic Images for Blessed & Happy Beltane / May Day












Thematic Images for Origins of Beltane / May Day:
Pagan Gods & Festivals


























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Pan and Syrinx
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Pan and Flora
The Roman Saturnalia, ancient precursor to May Day revelries





The Roman Bacchanalia, ancient precursor to May Day revelries










German Walpurgis Night, precursor to May Day revelries
(It is celebrated on May Day Eve and dedicated to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring, Walpurga, who was later Christianized as St Walpurga and thus "Saint Walpurga's Eve.")


Thematic Images for Beltane Gods & Goddesses


























Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Characters & Themes

May Queen "Come up, come in with streamers! Come in with boughs of May!"

























Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Maypole & Maypole Dance























































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The Maypole at Merrymount
















The Padstow Maypole





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Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Dances


























Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Morris & Mummers Dances

























Thematic Images for May Day Maypole Fairs & Vintage Magazine Covers








Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Poems
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Thematic Images for "May Queen" Poem (Tennyson)
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Thematic Images & Poems for Going a-Maying
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The May Queen Going a-Maying (England, 1856)

























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"a branch of May" for "A-Maying"
Thematic Images for Beltane Enchanted Landscapes











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Celtic "Otherworld" of the Faerie (Sidhe)
Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Mid-Spring Festival










Thematic Images for Beltane Hawthorn

Beltane Hawthorn Tree mandala













Thematic Images for Beltane / May Love:
Maypole Lovers, Handfast Lovers, Bowers of Bliss,
Greenwood Marriage, Sacred Marriage






























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“The Merrie, Merrie Month of May” has always been a merry month for lovers, when the swift current of the erotic impulse courses through leaf and vein, and so it was also called “The Lusty Month of May.” In the British Isles, young men and maidens would go “a-maying” on the eve of May Day (Beltane), spending all night in the greenwood to return at day-break, “bringing in the May.” Thus, May Day was a special time for lovers and sexual union, and the maypole played a central part in this ritualized courtship and mating. The maypole, symbolic of male and female sexual energies, was profusely decorated with flowers. Youthful couples disappeared into the fields and forest—in their greenwood “bowers of bliss” (arbor cupiditatis)—to make love under the moon, returning to the village to dance around the maypole.
This all disturbed the sexually uptight Puritans to no end, as they saw these “bacchanals” as smacking of paganism. One morally outraged Puritan wrote that “men doe use commonly to runne into woodes in the night time, amongt maidens, to set bowes, in so muche, as I have hearde of tenne maidens whiche went to set May, and nine of them came home with childe.” Another Puritan complained that, of the girls who go into the woods, “not the least one of them comes home again a virgin.”
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The Origin of Jonathan Coulton’s song “The First of May”
JoCo: “And the whole concept of a dirty rhyme that references the first of May is stolen from some kind of traditional dirty rhyme that people used to say. In the past. Honestly I’m not entirely sure where it originated, but my grandfather used to say it, and I have met other people who’s grandparents used to say it…. Anybody have some more definitive explanation?” Mike: “Well, according to at least one source of the arcane wit (‘Another Almanac of Words at Play’ by Willard R. Espy), it's an old English folk saying that originally went: ‘Hurray, hurray! the first of May! / Hedgerow tupping begins today!’ ‘Tupping’ is, apparently, a colorful expression to describe sheep copulation. It's a shame it fell out of use.” Ed: “I heard James Taylor speak this rhyme in concert. He was introducing his ‘First of May’ song and said he heard his dad say it to himself. The lyrics of his ‘First of May’ are based on the idea suggested by the rhyme.” JoCo: “Oh man, you mean I stole this idea from JAMES TAYLOR?” (Taken from JoCo’s blog.)
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Beltane / May Day Sacred Marriage (Hierogamy)


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The boughs put forth their tender buds, and “Love is Lord of all!”
He bowed his head. He stood so still,
They bowed their heads as well.
And softly from the organ-loft
The song began to swell.
Come up with blood-red streamers,
The reeds began the strain.
The vox humana pealed on high,
The Spring is risen again!
The vox angelica replied—
The shadows flee away!
Our house-beams were of cedar.
Come in, with boughs of May!
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~ Alfred Noyes, "The Lord of Misrule"


Thematic Images for the Beltane "Fire Festival": The Traditional Fire Rituals & The Fires of Love


The Celtic high priests, the Druids, kindled the great “Bel-fires” on the tops of the nearest beacon hill. Old Irish “Beletene” means “bright fire.” Gaelic “Bealtaine” means the month of May. At sundown on the eve of Beltane, great bonfires were lit throughout the land to attract the power of the sun back to Earth. The practical purpose of these bonfires was purify and sanctify the community and their livestock in readiness for the new cycle of the year.
The Celtic word "Beltane" is also said to mean the fires of the proto-Celtic god Bel or Belenos. (The word “Bealtaine” originates from the Celtic God “Bel,” meaning “the bright one” and the Gaelic word “teine” meaning "fire." Together, these words make “Bright Fire,” or “Goodly Fire.” Thus, Beltane (or Bealtaine) is a “fire” festival.” It appears, then, that the ancient Celts called the first cross-quarter festival on their wheel of the year “Beltane,” from the ancient word for “bright fire,” which honored their god of solar light and fertility. Thus, Beltane is sometimes literally translated as “bright” or “brilliant fire,” and is supposed to refer to the bonfires lit on Beltane eve by a presiding Druid in honor of the god Belenos. On Beltane Eve the Druids and their people gathered on high hills with a view of the rising sun and built great bonfires. House fires were extinguished and relit from these hilltop bonfires. These “need-fires” (“tein-eigen”) served to welcome in the summer, to encourage the sun’s warming rays, and to walk between for purification. Those gathered on Beltane were encouraged to leap the flames in a dynamic gesture of the acceptance of the blessing of fertility, creativity, and good fortune. So people leaped the fires to show the exuberance of the season. These joyous leaps turned into ecstatic dancing around the bonfires.
However, there was another purpose for these Beltane fires. The fires of Beltane also represented the fires of passionate desire that flared up though the ground and brought fertility to the land and the people. Couples leaped over the fire together to pledge themselves to each other. Traditionally speaking, then, this was a “fire festival” especially for young lovers, who made it through the cold and scarce winter months. With summer approaching, they could feel the fires of love rising in their solar plexus. Thus, for today’s Neopagans, Beltane signifies the flowering of cosmic sexual energies and mystical union between the goddess and the horned god, a time to be at harmony with the environment.
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May Queen at Beltane Fire Festival (Edinburgh, 2022)
Beltane Fire Festival (Edinburgh, 2022)
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The Beltane / May Day Fires of Love
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The choice is between partial incorporation and total incorporation (integration). Participation (playing a part) or fusion. Total incorporation, or fusion, is combustion in fire…. The one is united with the all, in a consuming fire…. The word consummation refers both to the burning world and the sacred marriage…. Learn to love the fire. The alchemical fire of transformation …. Love is all fire …. The truth concealed from the priest and revealed to the warrior: that this world always was and is and shall be ever-living fire. Revealed to the lover too: every lover is a warrior; love is all fire. ~N.O. Brown, Love’s Body
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The Sacred Marriage (Hieros Gamos):
Then fire, make your body cold,
I'm going to give you mine to hold,
Saying this she climbed inside
To be his one, to be his only bride.
And deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And high above the wedding guests
He hung the ashes of her wedding dress.
It was deep into his fiery heart
He took the dust of Joan of Arc,
And then she clearly understood
If he was fire, then she must be wood.
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~Leonard Cohen, "Joan of Arc"
To love is to burn, to be on fire.
~Jane Austin
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And didn't we catch the fire
And didn't we call upon the spirits....
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Breathe in the sweet fire of love
I'm not the same anymore
Sweet, sweet fire
Sweet fire of love
Sweet fire of love
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~Robbie Robertson, "Sweet Fire of Love"
Thematic Images for Beltane / May Day Festivals






















William Blake, "May-Day In London" (1784)