Beltain and A-Maying

Let’s go A-Maying and greet the Lord of the Forest and the Lady of May!

The name for May comes from the old Latin mag which means “to grow” and also is the root of the Goddess name Maia, the name of the month. The month of May brings in the festival of Beltain, later Christianized into the name of May Day. Bel or Belinus was the name of the primary Celtic deity of Beltain in Ireland and Beli Mawr in Wales. Originally this was a fertility festival and connected with the Lord of the Forest and the May Queen. It is the time to celebrate the Sacred Marriage between the Lord of the Greenwood and the Goddess as Earth Mother.

Celebration of May Day, one of the most festive of the year, often began with gathering flowers, setting up a May Pole and decorating it and then dancing and singing around it. A young maiden was crowned Queen of the May and later, during Christian times, this Queen of the May led processions in honor of the Virgin Mary. People celebrating May Day, the transition from winter to summer, lit bonfires as a part of the celebration to help hurry in the warmth of the sun after a long winter.

Food is magical and the foods associated with May Day are almonds, frankincense, cakes, cookies, red fruit, salad, honey and wine. Foods for fertility would be fig, grape, pomegranate, eggs, milk, poppy seeds, rice and sesame seeds. Foods for money and prosperity are allspice, almond, anise, basil, beans, cabbage, lobe, desserts, dill, eggplant, endive, fig, ginger, lettuce, mace, nutmeg, peanuts, pecans, sage, sesame seed, spinach and pineapple. (Taken from Magical Cookbook for the Kitchen Witch www.kitchenwitchstore.com. ) Early wine is not the best so was often flavored with woodruff and strawberries to make May Wine, appropriate as an offering of “first fruits” for the God and Goddess.

This holy day, as with other spring festivals, is associated with fertility, gain and prosperity so is an appropriate time to ask for these blessings. Direct the powers of your mind and light a green candle to attract prosperity or meditate with an egg, the symbol of fertility.

Modern celebrations of May Day have become varied and individual. Cammie, an employee www.aquariusbooks.com. and her group, have their own tradition at their feast. The members decided that they were no longer maidens and too old to be Queen of May and needed a new way to determine the ruling King and Queen. She makes a special pie, hides a male and a female trinket in it (this year it is an acorn and an oak leaf; another time it was a chalice and a blade) and the people who find the trinket become the King and Queen for the evening.

Cammie’s Beltain Pie

Large box of Chocolate Pudding
8 oz tub of Crème Cheese
8 oz Carton Sour Cream

Mix all the ingredients and pour into a graham cracker crust. Poke the two trinkets into the filling and cover with whipped cream. Place the pie in the middle of the table and each person takes a fork
eating until both trinkets are found.

The month of May has also long been associated with the gathering of fairies. As flowers bloom they herald the approach of summer and are a sign that the fairy folk are at work.


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