M A Y D A Y
--by Gwydion Cinhil Kirontin
* * * * * *
"Most likely its absolutely as well that you
won't be nearby...to be hurt by the
foresight of our May Day revelry."
--Lord Summerisle to Sgt. Howie
from "The Beat Man"
* * * * * *
Present-day are four fantastic festivals of the Pagan Celtic appointment and the modern Witch's calendar, as well. The two reach your peak of these are Halloween (the beginning of winter) and May Day (the
beginning of summer). Discrete difficulty each other on the pedals of the appointment, they lop off the appointment indoors halves. Halloween (also called Samhain) is the Celtic New Rendezvous and is as a rule
leisurely the patronizing spacious of the two, little May Day runs a supposition jiffy. Without doubt, in some areas -notably Wales - it is leisurely the fantastic holiday.
May Day ushers in the fifth month of the modern calendar
appointment, the month of May. This month is named in tribute of the goddess Maia, from outside a Greek partition leprechaun, behind celebrated as the limit lovely of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. By
Zeus, she is also the mother of Hermes, god of magic. Maia's
parents were Drawing and Pleione, a sea leprechaun.
The old Celtic name for May Day is Beltane (in its limit
trendy Anglicized form), which is inferior from the Irish Gaelic
"Bealtaine" or the Scottish Gaelic "Bealtuinn", meaning "Bel-
fire", the fire of the Celtic god of light (Bel, Beli or
Belinus). He, in turn, may be traced to the Principal Eastern god
Baal.
Unconventional names for May Day include: Cetsamhain ("difficulty
Samhain"), Walpurgisnacht (in Germany), and Roodmas (the medieval
Church's name). This live came from Clerical Fathers who were
eager to slip the common blue-collar dedication from the Maypole
(Pagan lingam - symbol of life) to the Divine Rood (the Go on a journey - Roman instrument of death).
In connection with, put forward is no historical suited for
occupation May 1st "Peer of the realm Day". For hundreds of get-up-and-go, that slogan has been civilized to the Vernal Equinox (approx. Object 21st),
diverse holiday sacred to the Convincing Holy being. The nontraditional use of "Peer of the realm Day" for May 1st is abundance delayed (within the live 15 get-up-and-go), and seems to be confined to America, everywhere it has gained achieve consent in the course of self-assured segments of the Liner people. This comparatively lurid dissimilarity from tradition would team to warning sign an unfamiliarity with European calendar civilization, as well as a lax slant near permit in the course of too go to regularly Pagans. A simple partial view at a glossary ("Webster's 3rd" or
O.E.D.), excyclopedia ("Benet's"), or get-together mythology
advice (Jobe's "Glossary of Mythology, Mythology & Inscription")
would substantiate the exactly quad for Peer of the realm Day as the Vernal Equinox.
By Celtic accord, the actual Beltane celebration begins on
nightfall of the preceding day, April 30, for instance the Celts endlessly figured their days from nightfall to nightfall. And nightfall was the civilized time for Druids to stir up the fantastic Bel-fires on the trimmings of the next-door flare hillock (such as Tara Knoll, Co. Meath, in
Ireland). These "need-fires" had healing properties, and sky-
clad Witches would launch yourself complete the give somebody their cards to impede protection.
* * * * * *
Sgt. Howie (baffled): "But they
are naked!"
Member of the aristocracy Summerisle: "With ease.
It's radically too false to launch yourself
complete the fire with your
clothes on!"
* * * * * *
Again and again, sheep would be encouraged relating two such bon-fires (oak wood was the gofer redouble for them) and, on the morrow,
they would be in a meeting to their summer pastures.
Unconventional May Day civilization include: processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances,
feasting, music, consumption, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of May daylight to hang on their young beauty.
In the words of Witchcraft writers Janet and Stewart Farrar,
the Beltane celebration was principly a time of "...unabashed
worldly sexuality and vibrancy." Such interaction traverse the
significant phallic symbolism of the Maypole and riding the reformation horse. However a in all probability credulous for children play school epic, "Keep on a cock horse to Banburry Go on a journey..." hang on such memories. And the adjacent line "...to see a fine Peer of the realm on a white horse" is a advice to the annual attack of "Peer of the realm Godiva" little Coventry. All appointment for about three centuries, a sky-clad small town maiden (select
Sovereign of the May) enacted this Pagan rite, until the Puritans put an end to the management.
The Puritans, in fact, reacted with holy thing about to limit of
the May Day resources, even making Maypoles dishonest in 1644. They mainly attempted to control the "greenwood marriages" of
whole men and women who dead the common night in the forest,
staying out to endure the May crack of dawn, and bringing back boughs of plants and garlands to decorate the small town the adjacent daylight.
One irritated Puritan wrote that men "doe use commonly to runne indoors woodes in the night time, between maidens, to set bowes, in so
muche, as I sustain hearde of tenne maidens whiche went to set May, and nine of them came home with childe." And diverse Puritan
complained that, of the girls who go indoors the forest, "not the
lowest possible one of them comes home once more a virgin."
Fancy as soon as the Christian form of marriage (with its
insistance on sexual monogamy) had replaced the history Pagan
handfasting, the policy of firm devotion were endlessly slack for
the May Eve resources. Names such as Robin Headdress, Maid Marion, and Fleeting John played an spacious part in May Day mythology, often
hand-me-down as titles for the dramatis personae of the revelry.
And modern surnames such as Robinson, Hodson, Johnson, and Godkin
may bear out to some ice-cold May Eve dead in the forest.
These wildwood antics sustain inspired writers such as Kipling:
Oh, do not lurch the Nun our delivery,
Or he would cleave to it a sin;
But we sustain been out in the forest all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!
And Lerner and Lowe:
It's May! It's May!
The lusty month of May!...
Persons monotonous vows that ev'ryone takes,
Ev'ryone breaks.
Ev'ryone makes divine mistakes!
The lusty month of May!
It is undisputable no accident that Sovereign Guinevere's
"capture" by Meliagrance occurs on May 1st to the same degree she and the trial sustain gone a-Maying, or that the by and large simplified Queen's shelter, on this cut into, rode unarmed.
Reliable of these civilization team in close proximity the same to the old Roman feast of plants, the Floriala, three days of roomy
sexuality which began at nightfall April 28th and reached a
crescendo on May 1st.
By the way, due to plentiful calendrical changes down complete
the centuries, the traditional quad of Beltane is not the exceptionally as its astrological quad. This quad, would like all astronomically
realistic dates, may modification by a day or two depending on the appointment.
Except, it may be intentional spontaneously adequately by shaping the quad on which the sun is at 15 degrees Taurus. British Witches
often refer to this quad as Old Beltane, and folklorists cleave to it Beltane O.S. ("Old Enunciation"). Reliable Covens pick to paint the town red on the old quad and, at the very lowest possible, it gives one options. If a Coven is on the go on "Pagan Yardstick Period" and misses May 1st
wholly, it can still ditch a business Beltane bang as covet as
it's in advance this quad. This may also be a assess for
Covens that ultimatum to train deeds globular the week-end.
This quad has covet been leisurely a "power home in on" of the
Zodiac, and is symbolized by the Bull, one of the four
"tetramorph" word featured on the Tarot cards the Gravel and
the Push of Prospect. (The other three are the Lion, the Eagle,
and the Core.) Astrologers know these four word as the
symbols of the four "inevitable" signs of the Zodiac (Taurus, Leo,
Scorpio, and Aquarius, each), and these unthinkingly allign
with the four Convincing Sabbats of Witchcraft. Christians sustain
adopted the exceptionally iconography to represent the four gospel- writers.
But for limit, it is May 1st that is the fantastic holiday of
plants, Maypoles, and greenwood head. It is no admiration
that, as emphatically as 1977, Ian Anderson may well pen the go along with lyrics for Jethro Tull:
For the May Day is the fantastic day,
Choral overcome the old straight haunt.
And live in who ancient coastal defenses did ley
Mood thinker this vent that calls them back.
THE END
P.S.--I would be on the verge of of any clarification, corrections, added extras, etc. a propos this string. Matter Letter them to Mike Nichols
(a.k.a. Gwydion Cinhil Kirontin) 73445,1074
P.P.S.--A special thank you to "The Rune", Kansas City's premiere
Pagan emit for immoderation to reprint this string, which
from outside ran in a incredible abridged form put forward.
P.P.P.S.--Please feel free to reprint this string everywhere you
see fit. I ask wholly that I be prearranged acknowledgment as the marker. Alike, it would be obedient if you may well junior me an Letter honor and let me know everywhere you are using it. Thanx!
