Egg Charm For Beltane.

 

Think carefully what you wish for! The general rule of thumb is a brown egg for wishes involving animals and white for wishes involving people and plants, for example healing a sick animal, person or plant. Eggs with white shells are difficult to come by now as chickens are generally given feed which produces the desired brown shell, but in recent years some of the supermarkets are making white eggs available at this time of year so they are worth looking out for.

 

1. Blow the egg. Using a fat needle, pierce a hole in both ends of the egg, making one hole larger than the other. Using the needle pierce the egg yolk gently and swirl it around to break up the yolk. Place a small drinking straw in one end and gently blow through the other hole to help gravity do its work.

 

2. Paint Your Egg Talisman. When your egg has thoroughly dried out place it on top of a little mound of blue tack to hold it in place and you are ready to go! Choose a symbol to represent your wish – a heart for love, coin for prosperity, a candle for wisdom, whatever is meaningful for you. Or you can paint the whole egg in a corresponding colour – red for love, green for prosperity, purple for wisdom and so on. Another way to do it is to stick rose petals on for love, or feathers for fertility – again it is what is meaningful to you that is important.

 

3. When it is ready find a suitable place for it and prepare for it for hanging by threading a thin thread (embroidery thread, thin wool) through the two holes and secure it with a large knot, a bead, or even a matchstick at the bottom to hold it steady.

 

4. Clear your mind and focus on your desire for abundance/fruitfulness and its place in your life:

 

‘Little charm made of shell as I hang you here may all be well. May all things grow. May all things flow. Blessings for the turning of the Wheel.”

 

 

Use these words or any others that you are comfortable with – remember this is all about your intention.

 

 
Egg charm donated by our Counter Enchantress from her own family traditions.

 

The Fae at Beltane

 

For many Pagans, Beltane is traditionally a time when the veil between our world and that of the Fae is thin. In most European folktales, the Fae kept to themselves unless they wanted something from their human neighbors. It wasn’t uncommon for a tale to relate the story of a human being who got too daring with the Fae — and ultimately paid their price for his or her curiosity! In many stories, there are different types of faeries.

 

This seems to have been mostly a class distinction, as most faerie stories divide them into peasants and aristocracy.

 
Early Myths and Legends

In Ireland, one of the early races of conquerors was known as the Tuatha de Danaan, and they were considered mighty and powerful. It was believed that once the next wave of invaders arrived, the Tuatha went underground. In hiding from the Milesians, the Tuatha evolved into Ireland’s faerie race. Typically, in Celtic legend and lore, the Fae are associated with magical underground caverns and springs — it was believed that a traveler who went too far into one of these places would find himself in the Faerie realm.

 

Another way to access the world of the Fae was to find a secret entrance. These were typically guarded, but every once in a while an enterprising adventurer would find his way in. Often, he found upon leaving that more time had passed than he expected.

 

In several tales, mortals who spend a day in the fairy realm find that seven years have passed in their own world.

 

Mischievous Faeries

In parts of England and Britain, it was believed that if a baby was ill, chances were good that it was not a human infant at all, but a changeling left by the Fae. If left exposed on a hillside, the Fae could come reclaim it.

 

William Butler Yeats relates a Welsh version of this story in his tale The Stolen Child. Parents of a new baby could keep their child safe from abduction by the Fae by using one of several simple charms: a wreath of oak and ivy kept faeries out of the house, as did iron or salt placed across the door step. Also, the father’s shirt draped over the cradle keeps the Fae from stealing a child.

 

In some stories, examples are given of how one can see a faerie. It is believed that a wash of marigold water rubbed around the eyes can give mortals the ability to spot the Fae. It is also believed that if you sit under a full moon in a grove that has trees of Ash, Oak and Thorn, the Fae will appear.
Are the Fae Just a Fairy Tale?

 

There are a few books that cite early cave paintings and even Etruscan carvings as evidence that people have believed in the Fae for thousands of years. However, faeries as we know them today didn’t really appear in literature until about the late 1300s. In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer relates that people used to believe in faeries a long time ago, but don’t by the time the Wife of Bath tells her tale. Interestingly, Chaucer and many of his peers discuss this phenomena, but there is no clear evidence that describes faeries in any writings prior to this time.

 

It appears instead that earlier cultures had encounters with a variety of spiritual beings, who fit into what 14th century writers considered the archetype of the Fae.

 

So, do the Fae really exist? It’s hard to tell, and it’s an issue that comes up for frequent and enthusiastic debate at any Pagan gathering. Regardless, if you believe in faeries, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Leave them a few offerings in your garden as part of your Beltane celebration — and maybe they’ll leave you something in return!

 
by Patti Wigington
Published on ThoughtCo

Handfasting

 

As Beltane is the Great Wedding of the Goddess and the God, it is a popular time for pagan weddings or Handfastings, a traditional betrothal for ‘a year and a day’ after which the couple would either choose to stay together or part without recrimination. Today, the length of commitment is a matter of choice for the couple, and can often be for life. Handfasting ceremonies are often unique to the couple, but include common elements, most importantly the exchange of vows and rings (or a token of their choice). The act of handfasting always involves tying the hands Handfasting(‘tying the knot’) of the two people involved, in a figure of eight, at some point in the ceremony and later unbinding. This is done with a red cord or ribbon. Tying the hands together symbolizes that the two people have come together and the untying means that they remain together of their own free will.

 

Another common element is ‘jumping the broomstick’ – this goes back to a time when two people who could not afford a church ceremony, or want one, would be accepted in the community as a married couple if they literally jumped over a broom laid on the floor. The broom marked a ‘threshold’, moving from an old life to a new one.

 

Mead and cakes are often shared in communion as part of the ceremony. Mead is known as the Brew of the Divine, made from honey which is appropriate for a love ceremony (and is the oldest alcoholic drink known to humankind).

Trees of Beltane

 

Hawthorn

Hawthorn is a deeply magical tree and is one of the three trees at the heart of the Celtic Tree Alphabet, the Faery Triad, ‘by Oak, Ash and Thorn’. Traditionally Beltane began when the Hawthorn, the May, blossomed. It is the tree of sexuality and fertility and is the classic flower to decorate a Maypole with. It was both worn and used to decorate the home at Beltane.

 

Birch

Birch is regarded as a feminine tree and Deities associated with Birch are mostly love and fertility goddesses. It is one of the first trees to show its leaf in Spring. Eostre/Ostara, the Celtic goddess of Spring was celebrated in festivities and dancing around and through the birch tree between the Spring Equinox and Beltane. Birch twigs were traditionally used to make besoms (a new broom sweeps clean). Maypoles were often made from birch and birch wreaths were given as lover’s gifts.

 

Rowan

A tree of protection and healing. Branches of Rowan were placed as protection over the doors of houses and barns at Beltane to protect from increased Faery activity as they woke from their winter slumber. Sprigs were worn for protection also. Rowan berries have a tiny five-pointed star on the bottom reminiscent of the pentagram.

 

The Old Ways

The Maypole

It’s Beltaine time again…. And let’s clear up a little bit of semantic confusion right here at the start. The word may also be spelled Beltane, Beltain, Beltine, Bealtaine, Bealltainn, Bealtuinn, and probably in some ways I haven’t yet discovered. The word comes from Gaelic, and it’s correctly pronounced BEE-yul-TIN-yuh.

Along with Lughnasadh (Lammas), Samhain, and Imbolc, Beltaine is one of the four crossquarter sabbats, i.e., one that falls between the quarter days— the equinoxes and solstices. Beltaine is generally celebrated on May 1, although the astronomical point between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice is usually between May 5 and 7. To make this even a little more confusing, extant records suggest that the ancient Celtic Druids most likely didn’t celebrate Beltaine on a specific date or according to the night sky, but rather according to what was happening in the agricultural world. When the hawthorn— or other spring-blooming white flowered tree— bloomed, Beltaine had arrived.

Yet another name for Beltaine is May Day, a holiday always celebrated on May 1. Whatever you call it, Beltaine or May Day has always symbolized the kickoff of summer. It’s also a day strongly associated with fertility, sex, reproduction, and passion. This is the holiday where peoples past would celebrate raucously for hours (or days) and then pair off and steal into the fields, where they’d copulate as a way of insuring the earth’s fertility in the coming season. Carrying this ancient sexual allusion forward, it’s no surprise that the most recognizable modern symbol of Beltaine is the maypole. The maypole is a tall wooden pole that is erected for Beltaine celebrations. Streams of ribbon are fastened to the top of the pole, and dancers grab the ends and dance round the pole, weaving in and out in patterns that literally weave the ribbons into a pattern around the pole. The dance can be done with a group as small as 6 and as large as 24; it works best with 12 to 16 dancers. The taller the pole, the longer the ribbons, and the wider the circle inscribed; therefore, a taller pole usually benefits from a larger number of dancers.

Most serious maypoles are 12 feet or more in height, and some of the really tall ones reached 50 to 60 feet. In many cases, the young men of the village were charged with finding the ideal tree for the maypole, a task they began weeks or even months before the event. The same young men would fell the tree, prepare it, and then sink and install the pole itself. Birch was commonly used for the pole and is one of the nine sacred Celtic woods. Spruce was sometimes used, too. The act of felling the tree, of course, became a type of sacrificial ritual and was enacted with solemnity and respect.

No one is really sure how the maypole ritual was started. There are scattered references to maypoles in Iron Age literature and in some medieval writings as well. One story links it to the Feast of Flora, goddess of flowers. Flora’s feast was celebrated on April 30 to May 1 as part of traditional Rites of Spring. Young women who had reached physical maturity over the last year were chosen to dance (and sometimes to help prepare) the maypole. The day began with a dawn trip into forests and fields, where the young women picked vines and flowers to adorn their dancing costumes. The complete process became a rite of passage as well as a ritual.

The maypole dance has also been linked to old German Pagan customs, and was widely practiced throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and for a period after before being more or less quashed by the Christian church. Today, the practice of dancing the maypole is more commonly observed in Europe than in any other country.

The maypole is most commonly described as a phallic symbol, i.e., a representation of the erect penis that has been buried deeply in the (mother) earth— a clear symbol of fertility and reproduction. The idea of maypole-as-phallus also has a possible connection to Roman worship of the fertility god Priapus. There have been other attempts to explain the maypole’s symbolism. For example, the poles have been linked to the “world axis” and possibly to demonstrating reverence for trees or for the World Tree, the Yggdrasil known in Norse Pagan traditions.

While most villages construct the maypole for Beltaine, some occasionally put it up for midsummer, the summer solstice. Towns that regularly include the maypole in their festivities often leave it in place from one season to the next, allowing it to become a focal point of sorts. In some locations, young men try to steal maypoles from neighboring communities, much as college mascot-stealing used to be held in vogue.

The actual maypole ceremony was usually just one part of a community-wide revel that may have involved singing, morris dancing, parades, food and drink, and other festivities. Many towns elected a “Queen of May” to rule over the festivities; a male corollary, the “Robin Hood,” was also sometimes chosen. The actual maypole dancers were typically either children or young women and were often clad in white, giving rise again to symbols of procreation. It was typical for dancers to wear wreaths of vines and flowers in their hair, as well as adorning their outfits with colored ribbons. If the dance was completed without any ribbons coming loose from the pole or breaking during the dance, it was felt to be a sign of luck. Once the dance was done and the pole plaited with ribbons, some groups redid the dance in reverse to undo the weaving— the reasons for this are unclear.

The maypole ceremony has developed its own offshoots, too. In some European towns, young men plant miniature maypoles outside the homes of their fiancés or intended fiancés on the night before Beltaine. One version of the dance was immortalized in the film, The Wicker Man.
At the end of the day on Beltaine, with dancing done and feasting complete, most groups built a giant bonfire to keep the revelry going. “Jumping the fire” was a common pastime for the young men of the village and was supposed to reveal their virility and courage. Flowers and feasting, song and dance, parades and poles, crowns and Queens…. Just another Beltaine. May yours be merry!

Llewellyn’s 2013 Sabbats Almanac: Samhain 2012 to Mabon 2013
Susan Pesznecker

A Celebration of May Day

May Day ushers in the fifth month of the modern calendar year, the month of May. This month is named in honor of the Goddess Maia, originally a Greek mountain nymph, later identified as the most beautiful of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. By Zeus, she is also the mother of Hermes, God of magic. Maia’s parents were Atlas and Pleione, a sea nymph.
The old Celtic name for May Day is Beltane (in its most popular Anglicized form), which is derived 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 Middle Eastern God Baal.

 

Other names for May Day include: Cetsamhain (opposite Samhain), Walpurgisnacht (in Germany), and Roodmas (the medieval church’s name). This last came from church fathers who were hoping to shift the common people’s allegiance from the Maypole (Pagan lingam—symbol of life) to the Holy Rood (the cross—Roman instrument of death).

 

Incidentally, there is no historical justification for calling May 1 ‘Lady Day’. For hundreds of years, that title has been proper to the vernal equinox (approximately March 21), another holiday sacred to the Great Goddess. The nontraditional use of ‘Lady Day’ for May 1 is quite recent (since the early 1970s), and seems to be confined to America, where it has gained widespread acceptance among certain segments of the Craft population. This rather startling departure from tradition would seem to indicate an unfamiliarity with European calendar customs, as well as a lax attitude toward scholarship among too many Pagans. A simple glance at a dictionary (Webster’s 3rd or O.E.D.), encyclopedia (Benet’s), or standard mythology reference (Jobe’s Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore & Symbols) would confirm the correct date for Lady Day as the vernal equinox.

 

By Celtic reckoning, the actual Beltane celebration begins on sundown of the preceding day, April 30, because the Celts always figured their days from sundown to sundown. And sundown was the proper time for Druids to kindle the great Bel-fires on the tops of the nearest beacon hill (such as Tara Hill, Co. Meath, in Ireland). These “need-fires” had healing properties, and skyclad Witches would jump through the flames to ensure protection.
Frequently, cattle would be driven between two such bonfires (oak wood was the favorite fuel for them) and, on the morrow, they would be taken to their summer pastures.

 
Other May Day customs include: walking the circuit of one’s property (“beating the bounds”), repairing fences and boundary markers, processions of chimney sweeps and milkmaids, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of May morning to retain their youthful beauty.

 

In the words of Witchcraft writers Janet and Stewart Farrar, the Beltane celebration was principally a time of “unashamed human sexuality and fertility”. Such associations include the obvious phallic symbolism of the Maypole and riding the hobbyhorse. Even a seemingly innocent children’s nursery rhyme “Ride a cock horse to Banburry Cross …” retains such memories. And the next line, “to see a fine Lady on a white horse”, is a reference to the annual ride of Lady Godiva through Coventry. Every year for nearly three centuries, a skyclad village maiden (elected “Queen of the May”) enacted this Pagan rite, until the Puritans put an end to the custom.

 

The Puritans, in fact, reacted with pious horror to most of the May Day rites, even making Maypoles illegal in 1644. They especially attempted to suppress the “greenwood marriages” of young men and women who spent the entire night in the forest, staying out to greet the May sunrise, and bringing back boughs of flowers and garlands to decorate the village the next morning. One angry Puritan wrote that men “doe use commonly to run into woodes in the night time, amongst 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.” And another Puritan complained that, “Of forty, threescore or a hundred maids going to the wood over night, there have scarcely the third part of them returned home again undefiled.”

 
Long after the Christian form of marriage (with its insistence on sexual monogamy) had replaced the older Pagan handfasting, the rules of strict fidelity were always relaxed for the May Eve rites. Names such as Robin Hood, Maid Marion, and Little John played an important part in May Day folklore, often used as titles for the dramatis personae of the celebrations. And modern surnames such as Robinson, Hodson, Johnson, and Godkin may attest to some distant May Eve spent in the woods.

 

These wildwood antics have inspired writers such as Kipling:

 

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;
But we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!
And Lerner and Lowe:
It’s May! It’s May!
The lusty month of May! …
Those dreary vows that ev’ryone takes,
Ev’ryone breaks.
Ev’ryone makes divine mistakes!
The lusty month of May!

 

It is certainly no accident that Queen Guinevere’s ‘abduction’ by Meliagrance occurs on May 1 when she and the court have gone a-Maying, or that the usually efficient Queen’s guard, on this occasion, rode unarmed.

 

Some of these customs seem virtually identical to the old Roman feast of flowers, the Floralia, three days of unrestrained sexuality that began at sundown April 28 and reached a crescendo on May 1.

 

There are other, even older, associations with May 1 in Celtic mythology. According to the ancient Irish Book of Invasions, the first settler of Ireland, Partholan, arrived on May 1, and it was on May 1 that the plague came that destroyed his people. Years later, the Milesians conquered the Tuatha De Danann on May Day. In Welsh myth, the perennial battle between Gwythur and Gwyn for the love of Creiddyled took place each May Day, and it was on May Eve that Teirnyon lost his colts and found Pryderi. May Eve was also the occasion of a fearful scream that was heard each year throughout Wales, one of the three curses of the Coranians lifted by the skill of Lludd and Llevelys.

 
By the way, due to various calendrical changes down through the centuries, the traditional date of Beltane is not the same as its astrological date. This date, like all astronomically determined dates, may vary by a day or two depending on the year. However, it may be calculated easily enough by determining the date on which the sun is at fifteen degrees Taurus (usually around May 5). British Witches often refer to this date as Old Beltane, and folklorists call it Beltane O.S. (Old Style). Some covens prefer to celebrate on the old date and, at the very least, it gives one options. If a coven is operating on ‘Pagan Standard Time’ and misses May 1 altogether, it can still throw a viable Beltane bash as long as it’s before May 5. This may also be a consideration for covens that need to organize activities around the weekend.

 

This date has long been considered a “power point” of the zodiac, and is symbolized by the Bull, one of the tetramorph figures featured on the tarot cards, the World and the Wheel of Fortune. (The other three symbols are the Lion, the Eagle, and the Spirit.) Astrologers know these four figures as the symbols of the four “fixed” signs of the zodiac (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius), and these naturally align with the four Great Sabbats of Witchcraft. Christians have adopted the same iconography to represent the four Gospel writers.

 
But for most, it is May 1 that is the great holiday of flowers, Maypoles, and greenwood frivolity. It is no wonder that, as recently as 1977, Ian Anderson could pen the following lyrics for the band Jethro Tull:

 

For the May Day is the great day,
Sung along the old straight track.
And those who ancient lines did ley
Will heed this song that calls them back.

 

 

The Witches’ Sabbats
Mike Nichols; Wren Walker

 

Wheel of the Year – Beltane

Beltane takes place on May 1st. It is a Major Sabbat and a Celtic fire festival. Beltane marks the marriage of the Goddess and the God. In the Celtic calendar, it is the start of summer. This is a Sabbat of fire and fertility and also a time for handfasting (a Wiccan wedding).

 

The God is viewed as a grown man and the Goddess as the Maiden. Symbols of Beltane are the maypole, marriage, and bonfires. The veil between the worlds thins at this time just like Beltane’s cross-quarter, Samhain.

 

This is also a time when the Fae or Fairies are very active, and you stand a better chance of seeing during this time. Goddess and Gods to honor at Beltane are Isis and Osiris, Zeus and Hera, Odin and Frigga, or any other married deities. The colors of Beltane are reds and spring colors

 

Source

 

Wicca: A Year and A Day in Magick The Complete Beginners Guide
Lady Nephthys

 

Beltane Day

The Festival of Flowers, and the welcoming of the good spirits of the dearly departed and the friendly sprites and fairy-folk of previous ages. It is immensely lucky when it occurs during a New Moon or Full Moon cycle between the 1st and the 5th days of May. This Sabbat marks the “coupling” of the God and the Goddess, and is most favorable to fertility, and the conceiving of merry-be-gots or, love-children who are happy and often fortunate in life despite not having been born in traditional wedlock. This is a time for creativity and the exulting in one’s natural gifts and talents.

 

Source

The Enchanter’s Almanac: 2016 to 2017 (First Edition)
Murray T. Paschal