This ancient Celtic fire festival is one of the four high holidays or cross quarter days on the Wheel of the Year, and it goes by many names, Bealtaine, Walpurgisnacht, Walburga, Rudemas, Floralia, Mayday, and May Eve, to name just a few. The word "Beltane" means "Bel's fire", underlining the deep connection between this day and the ancient Celtic god of light and fire. Although Bel is often associated with Apollo, and he is a deity who possesses solar attributes like Lugh and Brigid, he has never been worshipped as being the Sun itself.

The gods of Beltane are the virile young gods of field, forest and wild places such as Bel, Balor, Pan, Cernunnos, and Jack-in-the-Green.

The female deities of Beltane are goddesses of earthly abundance such as Flora, Walpurga, Maia, Demeter and Danu.  At Beltane, the goddess is manifest in her aspect as Maia Majesta, or "Great Mother", the Roman goddess of springtime.  Maia Majesta was the mother of Hermes (Mercury) the god of magic, and She is associated with the legendary Irish Queen Medb, Maeve, the faery Queen Mab, and the Lady of the May.  At first reading,  this blending of things Celtic and Roman may seem a trifle confusing, but there are valid reasons for it.  As the Roman Empire expanded westward into Celtic Europe, the Roman invaders discovered that there was a wealth of parallels between their own pantheon of gods and goddesses and the pantheon of the native Celts. Whenever possible, the Romans tried to reconcile their own deities with those of the Celtic pantheon, and while such reconciliations could not always be made, the results were a fruitful blending of spiritual beliefs which did not displace the beliefs of the native Celts.

May is springtime, and Beltane is a time of spring revelry, folk festivals and village fetes.  The puckish Jack-in-the-Green is an honoured guest at every function, and he represents the young Forest God in His green and lusty prime.  The Goddess is evolving from Maiden to Mother, and She is pursued by the amorous young God through the greening fields and across the hillsides.  In the Craft, Beltane is the time at which the God and Goddess are joined together in matrimony.

There is an abundance of ancient lore related to Beltane.  Ancient tales speak a riddle of a woman "neither clothed nor unclothed, neither walking nor riding", probably a reference to the madcap, flirtatious and downright silly spirit which prevails at Beltane.  On this day in ancient times, need or bale fires were kindled from oak planks, and the ancients drove their flocks between the two fires to ensure health, protection and fertility for their animals during the coming year.  At this time the flocks were traditionally moved to summer pastures from their winter quarters.  Beltane was the occasion on which the Harvest Bride (the last sheaf of grain from the previous year's harvest) was ritually burned. Cottage doors were hung with wreaths and garlands of May flowers, village maidens wore floral crowns, and there were village processions in which strange and wonderful costumes were worn.  Cross dressing at this time was not unusual.  In ancient times, many cultures celebrated the Great Marriage or Great Rite by copulating in the fields to ensure abundant crops and a successful harvest.

At Beltane the flowering hawthorn (which is sometimes called the "Flowering May") is cut.  In long ago times, it was traditional for maidens to spend the night of Beltane in a forest near their village,  weaving their crowns of spring flowers and bathing themselves in fresh morning dew as a beauty treatment.  On Beltane night, there was singing, dancing, feasting and revelry in the village, and after the evening festivities, couples retired into the forest to make love and to gather the branches, flowers and wild herbs which would adorn the May Pole the next day.  These brief alliances were called "greenwood marriages", and the children born of such liaisons later in the year were considered special or privileged. Older members of the community returned to their homes, bearing an ember from the bel fire to rekindle their hearth fires - it was considered very unlucky to let the fire on one's hearth go out at any time of the year except Beltane or Samhain.  For the ancients,  the fire on the hearth was a powerful symbol of community, well being and good fortune.  The fires of Beltane represented the heart fire or heart of the community, and they also represented the light or sacred fire which lies at the heart of all existence.

In the morning, the Maypole which had been made by the village youth was paraded through town.  Every home was visited by the rowdy procession and its occupants were awakened with song.  Members of the procession were rewarded with food, drink or money, and the home was blessed by the spirit of the May.   As  representatives of the Maiden goddess, women in the procession were adorned with crowns of hawthorn flowers, wore white gowns and carried baskets of flowers which were strewn along the path of the procession, and the male members of the group were also crowned with greenery.  The parade ended at the village green, where the Maypole was "planted", then decorated and hung with brightly coloured ribbon streamers.  An important part of the day's festivities involved the choosing of a May Queen and King, and there was a ritual dance around the May Pole by the young people of the village, weaving the brightly coloured strands of ribbons together in intricate patterns.  It is at this time that the form of marriage known as "jumping the broomstick" took place, a term which is still in use in some cultures, particularly those with Celtic origins.

There are serious aspects to this holiday as well.  There are otherworldly forces and strong presences about at Beltane.  When one is beyond the protected and warded confines of one's home on Beltane, she or he should take special care, for this is the time when the Faery Folk ride and the Wild Hunt haunts the skies.

Today practitioners of the Old Religion or Craft observe Beltane and the Great Rite, but they do so symbolically with ritual and feasting.  They meditate on desire and on the meaning of desire; they cast spells to attract a mate, kindle need fires, or they burn tokens of things they wish to cast off in the coming year. This is the time for weaving flower garlands and wreaths, for morris dancing, for playing whimsical games and for performing pantomime.  Like Samhain, Beltane falls at a time when the veils between this world and the world beyond the fields we know are thin, so it is an excellent time for rites of divination.

The colors of Beltane are gold, green, purple, red, white, and its incense is musk, vanilla, rose, patchouli, woodruff, galangal, oak or any combination of these.  The traditional motifs of Beltane are bright coloured ribbons and flowers such as hawthorn and columbine.

Beltane or May Day is an exuberant time, a time of fertility, of new life and the greening of the land, and as such it is an appropriate time for such things as May Poles, strange costumes, rituals, morris dancing, bonfires, feasting and courting.