Why are May bonfires important?

 

 

In many regions of Europe people celebrate May day, or the day before, by lighting bonfires. In Ireland they call it Beltaine, in Sweden they call it Valborg, and in both countries you will see people gather around enormous fires. But why?

The roots go back not only to the pagan religions of Celtic and Germanic Europe, but even further, to their shared origins. The earliest reference to Beltane in Ireland is from the 10th century and associates it with bonfires and a Celtic pagan god whose name is something like Belenus. This god has Indo-European roots as we also see a Slavic equivalent called Belobog “The white god” and an English god called Bældæg.

Swedes gather at the ancient barrows of Gamla Uppsala while the Valborg fire burns behind them

 

The Bel part of Beltane and Belenus means “bright” and is cognate with the Old English bæl meaning “bale” as in bale-fire “funeral fire/bonfire”. Bældæg is a god attested in Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies as the son of the god Woden. His name means “bale day” or “pyre day” and he is the same god as the Norse Baldr, son of Odin. In Norse myth the god Baldr is associated specifically with a funeral pyre and this is likely the reason for the name Bældæg “pyre day”.

The name of the Anglo-Saxon Saint Walburga replaced earlier names for the May fire festivals in Germany and Sweden which became Walpurgis and Valborg respectively. But thanks to Grimm we know that previously the Germans celebrated Pholtag “Phol day” and Phol is also another name for the god Baldr.

 

 

The evidence from Germany and England confirms that Baldr was the god of the Spring bonfire in the Germanic regions of Europe, while the Gaelic regions had a similar custom for their god Belenus.

The EU has introduced a new law which bans May bonfires and therefore infringes on the religious rights of European pagans to practise their ancient customs. Our right to practice our religion must be defended at all costs.


READ AND WATCH MORE:

VIDEO: May day traditions in Cornwall and Devon 

May Day and Easter have Pagan origins 

VIDEO: Pagan May Ritual in North Devon: The Earl of Rone 

Tories threaten May day (2011) 

VIDEO: 1953 May rites in Padstow 

Film Discussion: Four Films Set in Rural Britain

British May Day Folk Traditions - Old Oss and the Maypole

Easter and May day are pagan

Now begins Eastermonth! This is an entire month which the Anglo-Saxons devoted to the goddess Ēastre. Her name is not, as some erroneously claim, related to the Semitic goddess Ishtar, nor to the hormone estrogen, but is in fact Germanic. Ēastre, or as she is known in modern English, "Easter" was equivalent to the continental German goddess Ostara and both names are derived from that of the ancient Indo-European goddess of dawn *H₂ewsṓs (→ *Ausṓs), from whom the Vedic goddess of dawn, Ushas, is also derived. One of the holy names of Ushas was Bṛhatī (बृहती) "high" which is cognate with Proto-Celtic *Brigantī meaning "The High One", and the name of a British goddess Brigantia (Brigid). The Greek goddess Ēōs, Baltic goddess Aušrinė and Roman goddess Aurora are all etymologically derived from the same IE word and likely from the same PIE goddess. The month is attested by Anglo-Saxon monk Bede, who said feasts of the goddess were celebrated in April, but when we can only guess. There is no reason to believe it was on the exact day Christians now celebrate Easter. Some aspects of Christian Easter resemble paganism because the symbolism of eternal life and rebirth are important for both. The Roman pagans had a flower festival called Floralia on 27th April which may well have had equivalents in Britain, but surely the largest celebration for the dawn goddess was at the end of the Easter month on the eve of May day which heralds the dawn of summer. I consider May day, or specifically the night before it, to be the climax of Eastermonth and a holy celebration to this sacred goddess. I have covered the diverse celebration of May day around the world in a video already (see link below). The photo above is shows the May queen in Devon in 1955, a young girl who symbolises the dawn goddess Easter who heralds the start of Summer, and the May pole which is a phallic fertility symbol.

I would also speculate that since, in Celtic and Germanic countries, the folk culture around May eve has focused heavily on sexuality, even in recent times, usually of an unbridled sort normally prohibited by Christian morality, and since the cult of Aurora was often invoked in sexual poetry, we might well assume that the cult of Easter had a heavy emphasis on the sexuality and fertility of young people, especially women. The Greek Eos was cursed by Aphrodite with unsatisfiable sexual desire causing her to abduct handsome young men - a promiscuity very reminiscent of an account of May eve among the English in the early modern era by a puritan who wrote that on that night "Scarcely a third of maidens going to the woods returned home undefiled", similar account are recorded in Ireland. The fecundity of the earth is tied explicitly to that of the wombs of nubile girls of the community. For this reason a sort of transgressive sexuality becomes temporarily permissible due to the divine associations of sex on this night.

May Day and Easter Goddess of Dawn

Oss Oss Wee Oss! (1953)

May Day and Hal an Tow

Today is May Day! a very important day in the English calendar. It was three years ago that I wrote an article about the threat posed to May Day by squabbling political groups. Well May day hasn't been lost yet! Whatever Cameron and the Communists might be doing, sensible folk should be joyfully celebrating the coming of Spring.

As well as the famous Maypole, based on pagan fertility cults, there are many other folk traditions in England which welcome in the May. One such tradition is found in the ancient Cornish song "Hal an Tow" It has been sung on May Day as a part of the May celebration in Helston, Cornwall for centuries. The Watersons sang Hal-an-Tow in 1965 on a BBC TV documentary called Travelling for a Living. See the video below.




 The video below shows how the song is integrated into the May Day celebrations in Helston.



The lyrics vary and are sung differently by various groups. Here are the lyrics to the Waterson's version sung in the video.

 Since man was first created
 His works have been debated
 We have celebrated
The coming of the Spring  

Chorus

Hal-an-tow, jolly rumbalow
We were up long before the day-O
To welcome in the summer,
 To welcome in the May-O
The summer is a-coming in And winter's gone away-O

What happened to the Spaniards
That made so great a boast-O?
 Why they shall eat the feathered goose
And we shall eat the roast-O

Take no scorn to wear the horn
It was the crest when you was born
 Your father's father wore it
And your father wore it too

 Robin Hood and Little John
 Have both gone to the fair-O
And we will to the merry green wood
To hunt the buck and hare-O

God bless Aunt Mary Moyses
 And all her power and might-O
And send us peace to England
Send peace by day and night-O