Wishing You & Yours A Very Happy & Blessed Beltane,
May the Goddess Bless You & Keep You Always,
Lady A & The WOTC
A May Day Carol
Beltane Incense
Beltane Ritual Potpourri
Beltane Oil
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In parts of Scotland, the Beltane bannock is a popular custom. It’s said that if you eat one on Beltane morning, you’ll be guaranteed abundance for your crops and livestock. Traditionally, the bannock is made with animal fat (such as bacon grease), and it is placed in a pile of embers, on top of a stone, to cook in the fire. Once it’s blackened on both sides, it can be removed, and eaten with a blend of eggs and milk. This recipe doesn’t require you to build a fire, and you can use butter instead of fat.
Combine oatmeal, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Melt the butter, and drizzle it over the oats. Add the water, and stir the mix until it forms a stiff dough. Turn the dough out on a sheet of wax paper and knead thoroughly.
Separate the dough into two equal portions, and roll each one into a ball. Use a rolling pin to make a flat pancake that is about ¼” thick. Cook your oatcakes on a griddle over medium heat until they are golden brown. Cut each round into quarters to serve.
Traditionally, the Beltane bannock would have been made with meat fat, such as bacon grease, instead of butter. You can use this if you prefer.
Fertility Bread
Breads seem to be one of the staple foods of Pagan and Wiccan rituals. If you can tie your break baking into the theme of the Beltane Sabbat, even better. In this recipe, use an uncooked loaf of bread (available in the refrigerated section of your grocery) and turn it into a phallus.
To make your fertility bread, you’ll need the following:
The phallus bread, naturally, represents the male. He is the horned god, the lord of the forest, the Oak King, Pan. To make the phallus, use one of your refrigerated tubes of dough. Cut the dough into three pieces – a long piece, and two smaller, rounder pieces. The longest piece is, of course, the shaft of the phallus. Use the two small pieces to form the testes, and place them at the bottom of the shaft. Use your imagination to shape the shaft into a penis-like shape.
Once you’ve shaped your bread, allow it to rise in a warm place for an hour or two. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until golden brown. When it comes out of the oven, brush with a glaze of melted butter. Use in ritual or for other parts of your Beltane celebrations.
Admittedly, the one in the photo is a bit… thick, but hey, use your imagination!
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The Green Man is an archetype often represented at Beltane. He is the spirit of the forest, the lusty fertility god of the woodlands. He is Puck, Jack in the Green, Robin of the Woods. For your Beltane celebrations, why not put together a cake honoring him? This spice cake is easy to bake, and uses a delicious cream cheese frosting and rolled fondant to create the image of the Green Man himself. This recipe makes either one 9 x 13″ sheet cake, or 2 8-inch rounds.
Preheat oven to 350, and lightly grease and flour your cake pan. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl and blend well. In another bowl, combine milk, eggs, vanilla and rum extracts together.
Add the softened butter to the flour mixture, and beat until it forms a clumpy sort of dough. Gradually add the liquid mixture in, blending it a little at a time until all the milk mixture has been combined with the flour mixture. Beat until completely smooth, and then add the brown sugar. Mix for another thirty seconds or so. Scoop batter into the pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before removing from pan. Once you have it out of the pan, you can begin frosting the cake.
To make the cream cheese frosting, combine the cream cheese and the butter in a bowl, mixing well. Add the vanilla extract. Finally, stir in the confectioner’s sugar and blend it in. Spread this evenly over the cake, and allow it to sit for an hour or so to firm up.
To make the Green Man himself, you’ll need green fondant. If you’ve never worked with fondant before, it can be a little tricky, but with some practice you’ll be able to use it easily. Roll out the fondant and knead it into a ball. Add the green food coloring in very small amounts and blend it in, until you’ve got the shade of green you want.
Roll the fondant out until it’s about 1/8″ thick. Use the leaf-shaped cookie cutters to cut out different sized leaves. Score lines on them, to look live leafy veins. Place them on top of the frosted cake and press in place, layering them to form a Green Man. Roll two small pieces into balls, flatten them down, and put them in to create eyeballs in amongst the leaves. Reminder – fondant tends to dry quickly once it’s rolled out, so only cut off small pieces. The cake in the photo was made using a block of fondant about the size of a package of cream cheese.
Tip: if you’re in a hurry, or you’re not much of a baker, you can use any boxed spice cake mix.
Beltane is a time of great fertility — for the earth itself, for animals, and of course for people as well. This season has been celebrated by cultures going back thousands of years, in a variety of ways, but nearly all shared the fertility aspect. Typically, this is a Sabbat to celebrate gods of the hunt or of the forest, and goddesses of passion and motherhood, as well as agricultural deities. Here are a list of gods and goddesses that can be honored as part of your tradition’s Beltane rituals.
In some rural societies, May Day flower baskets were a perfect way to send a message to someone you cared for, especially at Beltane. In the Victorian era, it became popular to send people messages told in the language of flowers. There was a fairly standard list, so if you received a bouquet of lemon blossoms, for example, you’d know that someone was promising you fidelity and faithfulness in their love for you.
You can make this basket and fill it with the flower that sends the message you want to send along. Hang it on the door of someone special!
You’ll need the following supplies:
Cut a large circle out of heavy-duty paper. The best kind of paper for this project is actually the 12×12″ scrapbooking paper — it doesn’t tear easily, and it comes in an apparently endless variety of designs. To cut the circle, place a large dinner plate on the paper and trace it, and then cut it out.
Cut a wedge-shape out of the circle. Imagine the circle is a pizza with six slices, and remove one of those slices.
In addition to the circle, you’ll need a strip about 12″ long by an inch wide.
Roll the circle (minus the wedge-piece) up so that it forms a cone shape. Tape or glue the edges in place.
Attach the strip to the open end of the cone, to make a handle.
Finally, fill the basket with flowers. You may also want to add ribbon, raffia, magical herb cuttings, or some Spanish moss to jazz it up a little. Hang the basket over the doorknob of someone special, so that when they open their door, they’ll find your gift!
By Patti Wigington, About.com
At Beltane, spring is beginning to get seriously underway. Gardens are being planted, sprouts are beginning to appear, and the earth is returning to life once again. This time of year is associated with fertility, thanks to the greening of the land, and with fire. A few fire-associated herbs can be blended together to make the perfect Beltane incense. Use it during rituals and ceremonies, or burn it for workings related to fertility and growth.
Fresh herbs will likely be too young to harvest right now, which is why it’s a good idea to keep a supply on hand from the previous year. However, if you do have a fresh plant you wish to dry out, you can do this by placing it on a tray in your oven at low heat for an hour or two. If you have a home dehydrator, these work just as well.
This recipe is for loose incense, but you can adapt it for stick or cone recipes. As you mix and blend your incense, focus on the goal of your work.
You’ll need:
Add your ingredients to your mixing bowl one at a time. Measure carefully, and if the leaves or blossoms need to be crushed, use your mortar and pestle to do so. As you blend the herbs together, state your intent. You may find it helpful to charge your incense with an incantation, such as:
Fire blend and fire light,
I celebrate Beltane this warm spring night.
This is the time of most fertile earth,
the greening of the land, and new rebirth.
Fire and passion and labor’s toil,
life grows anew out of the soil.
By Beltane’s flames, bring fertility to me,
As I will, so it shall be.
Store your incense in a tightly sealed jar. Make sure you label it with its intent and name, as well as the date you created it. Use within three months, so that it remains charged and fresh.
By Patti Wigington, About.com
Altar Maypole Centerpiece
For many people, a Maypole Dance is the best way ever to celebrate the fertility holiday of Beltane… but let’s face it, you may not have the ability to do that. Not everyone can stick a 20-foot pole in their yard, or you may not even know enough other Pagans (or Pagan-friendly non-Pagans) to have a Maypole Dance in the first place. If that’s the case, there’s a much smaller alternative. You can easily make a Maypole to put on your Beltane altar.
For this simple craft project, you’ll need the following:
Use the hot glue gun to attach the dowel rod to the center of the wooden circle. Once the glue has dried, you can stain or paint the wood if you choose. Attach the center of each ribbon to the top of the dowel rod, as shown in in the photo.
Use the Maypole as a centerpiece on your altar. You can braid the ribbons as a meditation tool, or include it in ritual. Optional: add a small floral crown around the bottom to represent the feminine fertility of the Sabbat, as shown in the photo.
By Patti Wigington, About.com
Even to this day there are hobby horse celebrations all over England, and one of the best known is in Padstow, Cornwall. In Padstow, it’s actually called the ‘Obby ‘Oss (try saying it with a Cornish accent, and it makes sense). Residents escort either a red or a blue hobby horse around the town, singing songs and generally having a good time to welcome in the spring. These two rival horses are made over a large open framework and include a fairly scary mask.
In A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties, author Robert Greenfield describes a scene from the Padstow festival, which hearkens back to the lustier, earthier origins of the celebration. He says, “The man playing the hobby horse is led through the streets of Padstow … On its route, the hobby horse often stops to drag women under its dark costume in a graphic attempt to portray a fertility rite. It used to be said that if you were caught beneath the veil you would be pregnant within the year.”
England, interestingly enough, doesn’t have a monopoly on the hobby horse tradition, although we often think of it as a specifically British Pagan custom. Julie Scott Meisami describes in her Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature a similar tradition in Persia. The kurraj, or hobby horse, appears during celebrations of No Ruz, and goes about splashing water at people and pounding on doors. She says, “In ancient Persia and Central Asia, the hobby horse was used in … Shamanic rites as well as in seasonal fertility rites, to help establish contact with spirits. In Islam, hobby horse performances, accompanied by music and dancing, were either for the sake of inducing a delirious and ecstatic state, or for celebrating feasts, combats, and military exercise.”
Planning a Beltane celebration? Why not incorporate hobby horses into your ritual? Put together a hobby horse costume – and this can be as simple as a mask, a mane, and a pair of ears – and let the horse chase a designated lady around the Maypole. Depending on who’s attending your event, you could take it a step further, and add phallic symbols to the costume. Let your imagination run wild, and welcome in the fertility season of Beltane with a hobby horse of your own.
By Patti Wigington, About.com
The Maypole is one of the traditional symbols of Beltane, and let’s not kid ourselves about its purpose: it’s a giant phallus.
Because Beltane festivities usually kicked off the night before with a big bonfire, the Maypole celebration usually took place shortly after sunrise the next morning. This was when couples (and probably more than a few surprised triads) came staggering in from the fields, clothes in disarray and straw in their hair after a night of bonfire-inspired lustiness.
Dig a hole in advance, a few feet deep. You don’t want your friends to wait while you hunt for a shovel. The hole should be at least three feet deep, to keep the pole from flopping over during the ceremony.
Beltane kicks off the merry month of May, and has a long history. This fire festival is celebrated on May 1 with bonfires, Maypoles, dancing, and lots of good old fashioned sexual energy. The Celts honored the fertility of the gods with gifts and offerings, sometimes including animal or human sacrifice. Cattle were driven through the smoke of the balefires, and blessed with health and fertility for the coming year. In Ireland, the fires of Tara were the first ones lit every year at Beltane, and all other fires were lit with a flame from Tara.
The Romans, always known for celebrating holidays in a big way, spent the first day of May paying tribute to their Lares, the gods of their household. They also celebrated the Floralia, or festival of flowers, which consisted of three days of unbridled sexual activity. Participants wore flowers in their hair (much like May Day celebrants later on), and there were plays, songs, and dances. At the end of the festivities, animals were set loose inside the Circus Maximus, and beans were scattered around to ensure fertility. The fire festival of Bona Dea was also celebrated on May 2nd.
May 6 is the day of Eyvind Kelve in Norse celebrations. Eyvind Kelve was a pagan martyr who was tortured and drowned on the orders of King Olaf Tryggvason for refusing to give up his pagan beliefs. A week later, Norwegians celebrate the Festival of the Midnight Sun, which pays tribute to the Norse sun goddess. This festival marks the beginning of ten straight weeks without darkness.
Also in May, the Greeks celebrated the Plynteria in honor of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and battle, and the patroness of the city of Athens (which was named after her). The Plynteria includes the ritual cleansing of Athena’s statue, along with feasting and prayers in the Parthenon. On the 24th, homage is paid to the Greek moon-goddess Artemis (goddess of the hunt and of wild animals). Artemis is a lunar goddess, equivalent to the Roman moon-goddess Diana – she is also identified with Luna, and Hecate.
A number of pre-Christian figures are associated with the month of May, and subsequently Beltane. The entity known as the Green Man, strongly related to Cernunnos, is often found in the legends and lore of the British Isles, and is a masculine face covered in leaves and shrubbery. In some parts of England, a Green Man is carried through town in a wicker cage as the townsfolk welcome the beginning of summer. Impressions of the Green Man’s face can be found in the ornamentation of many of Europe’s older cathedrals, despite edicts from local bishops forbidding stonemasons from including such pagan imagery.
A related character is Jack-in-the-Green, a spirit of the greenwood. References to Jack appear in British literature back as far as the late sixteenth century. Sir James Frazer associates the figure with mummers and the celebration of the life force of trees. Jack-in-the-Green was seen even in the Victorian era, when he was associated with soot-faced chimney sweeps. At this time, Jack was framed in a structure of wicker and covered with leaves, and surrounded by Morris dancers. Some scholars suggest that Jack may have been a ancestor to the legend of Robin Hood.
Today’s Pagans and Wiccans celebrate Beltane much like their ancestors did. A Beltane ritual usually involves lots of fertility symbols, including the obviously-phallic Maypole dance. The Maypole is a tall pole decorated with flowers and hanging ribbons, which are woven into intricate pattern by a group of dancers. Weaving in and out, the ribbons are eventually knotted together by the time the dancers reach the end.
In some Wiccan traditions, Beltane is a day in which the May Queen and the Queen of Winter battle one another for supremacy. In this rite, borrowed from practices on the Isle of Man, each queen has a band of supporters. On the morning of May 1, the two companies battle it out, ultimately trying to win victory for their queen. If the May Queen is captured by her enemies, she must be ransomed before her followers can get her back.
There are some who believe Beltane is a time for the faeries — the appearance of flowers around this time of year heralds the beginning of summer and shows us that the fae are hard at work. In early folklore, to enter the realm of faeries is a dangerous step — and yet the more helpful deeds of the fae should always be acknowledged and appreciated. If you believe in faeries, Beltane is a good time to leave out food and other treats for them in your garden or yard.
For many contemporary Pagans, Beltane is a time for planting and sowing of seeds — again, the fertility theme appears. The buds and flowers of early May bring to mind the endless cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth that we see in the earth. Certain trees are associated with May Day, such as the Ash, Oak and Hawthorn. In Norse legend, the god Odin hung from an Ash tree for nine days, and it later became known as the World Tree, Yggdrasil.
If you’ve been wanting to bring abundance and fertility of any sort into your life — whether you’re looking to concieve a child, enjoy fruitfulness in your career or creative endeavors, or just see your garden bloom — Beltane is the perfect time for magical workings related to any type of prosperity.
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