Bealtaine: The Fires of Summer

Opposite Samhain on the wheel, Bealtaine lights the fires of summer on 1 May — driving the cattle between the flames and opening the bright half of the year.

Exactly opposite Samhain on the wheel of the year stands Bealtaine (pronounced BYAL-tin-eh) — the festival of 1 May that throws open the bright half of the year. Where Samhain begins the winter, Bealtaine begins the summer, samhradh; and where Samhain is a festival of the dead, Bealtaine is a festival of fire, cattle and abundance. The two are mirror images, six months apart. (See how all four fit together in The Irish Calendar.)

The fires of summer

Bealtaine — a name often read as "bright fire" — was above all a fire festival. Great bonfires were kindled on the hilltops, and the central rite was one of protection: cattle were driven between two fires before being led up to the high summer pastures, the smoke and flame warding off disease and ill-luck for the season ahead. As at Samhain, the hearth fires of every home were put out and then rekindled from the communal blaze, tying the whole community to a single flame.

This was the beginning of the buaile — the old practice of booleying, moving the herds and often the younger people of a household up to summer grazing in the hills, and living there until the harvest.

When the Otherworld stirs again

Bealtaine shares something else with its opposite, Samhain: it is a threshold, and at thresholds the boundary with the Otherworld thins. The aos sí, the fairy folk, were abroad, and much of the festival's folk custom is protective — yellow May flowers (primrose, marsh marigold, gorse) strewn on doorsteps and windowsills to keep them out, and the decorating of a May bush with ribbons and blossom. The dew of Bealtaine morning was gathered for beauty and health, and holy wells were visited before sunrise.

The fire at the centre of Ireland

The great Bealtaine fire was lit at the Hill of Uisneach in County Westmeath — the symbolic centre of Ireland, the meeting point of the provinces. Tradition holds that its flame was lit first and answered by fires kindled on hill after hill across the country, until the whole island was ringed with light. The custom has been revived in recent years, and a Bealtaine fire burns on Uisneach once more.

In the old mythological history of Ireland, Bealtaine is a day of arrivals: several of the legendary peoples who settled the island — including the Milesians, the ancestors of the Gael — are said to have made landfall at Bealtaine.

A few words for the season

Bealtaine is the third of the four festivals of the Celtic year, opposite Samhain and following Imbolc. Last comes Lúnasa, the festival of the harvest.