Beltane

The weather was still changeable enough that you went out prepared for anything. This was the Somerset Levels in an age before everything had a screen, an idyllic unplugged kind of living I did not know to be grateful for at the time. We built camps in the fields. We went on adventure hikes along the abandoned railway lines, making bows and arrows as we went. We cycled the country lanes for miles with no particular destination, and came home filthy and content.

And there was fire. My father built bonfires, and I would zone out in front of them, finding pictures dancing in the flames, reading shapes in the fire without knowing that what I was doing had a name. It was scrying, though I was years from learning the word. If we were really lucky there was a baked potato in foil stuffed with local Cheddar, though that treat was usually saved for Bonfire Night.

That is Beltane, the festival of the returning sun and life lived outdoors. It opens the bright half of the year, the exact opposite point on the wheel from Samhain. Where Samhain is the descent into the dark, Beltane is the leap into the light. Fire, fertility, the green world roaring back, everything alive and reaching.

May Day was the last echo of it most of us grew up with. Maypoles, the crowning of a queen, the sense that summer had been let off the leash. Underneath the village-fete version was the old fire festival, one of the two great hinges of the Celtic year.

What Beltane is

Beltane falls on 1 May, the cross-quarter point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It opens the light half of the year, paired with and opposite Samhain, which opens the dark. Together they are the two most important festivals of the Celtic calendar, the doors into the two halves of the year.

The name means "bright fire" and fire is the heart of it. The great Beltane ritual was the lighting of the bonfires. Cattle were driven between two fires for purification and protection before being moved to summer pastures. People leapt the flames for luck, for fertility, for a blessing on the year ahead. All the hearth fires of a community were extinguished and relit from the communal Beltane fire.

It is a festival of fertility in the widest sense, of life forcing itself up and out, the blossom on the hawthorn, the cattle to pasture, the human world joining in with handfastings, courtship, and unashamed celebration. Beltane is the year at its most alive and least restrained.

The history, in plain English

Beltane is one of the four great Celtic fire festivals, recorded in early Irish literature, where the lighting of the need-fire and the driving of cattle between flames are described as central rites. The festival was observed across Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Wales under related names, and the fire ceremonies survived in parts of the Celtic world into the modern era. The Beltane fires on the hills of Ireland and Scotland were once visible for miles.

The traditions are about fire, fertility, and protection. The bonfires. The leaping of the flames. The driving of livestock through the smoke. The gathering of the May, the cutting of hawthorn blossom and greenery to decorate the home. The maypole, a later but related survival, the ribbons and the dance a clear fertility rite barely disguised. The May Queen, the embodiment of the goddess of spring at her height.

Where Christianity absorbed Samhain into All Hallows, Beltane proved harder to baptise, and much of it survived as folk custom, May Day, rather than as a church feast. The fire and fertility were too obviously pagan to convert, so they simply continued as celebration.

What I do at Beltane

Beltane is the one festival that asks you to go outside and stay there. The work is to get into the living world and join it.

I get out. Beltane is not an indoor festival and never was. A walk, a fire if you can have one safely, time spent in the green world while it is at its most exuberant. My childhood Beltanes were unplanned and outdoors and that is still the right shape for it: less ritual, more life.

I light a fire if I can, even a small one, even a candle if a bonfire is not possible. Fire is the festival. The flame is the link back to every Beltane fire lit on every hill for thousands of years. And I still do what I did as a boy in front of my father's bonfires, let my eyes soften and find the pictures moving in the flames. Fire-gazing is one of the oldest forms of divination there is, and Beltane is the night for it.

If you want a simple practice: on the evening of 1 May, light a flame and name what you want to bring to life this summer. Then go outside, even briefly, and notice how much is growing. Beltane rewards participation, not contemplation. The festival happens in the fields, not in your head.

The Lovers speaks

The card of Beltane is The Lovers, the card of union and desire, fitting for the festival of fertility and fire. Let it speak.

"The Lovers, Children of the Voice Divine. The question is always the same. When will I find that connection, my missing piece? Who will allow me to discover myself? Who will love me? Every clairvoyant, soothsayer and crystal-gazer knows: falling completely in love with yourself is the only magic that allows you to fly. Love creeps up on us when we are not looking. Cupid's arrow comes out of nowhere. Always love yourself first, that is a given. Put the real you out there, with all of your cracks and perceived faults. This is what someone will fall for. This is when your two halves will fit, and make you catch your breath when you see them."

The Lovers are Gemini the Twins, and their Hebrew letter is Zayin, the light of God in the shape of a sword. The card asks the Beltane question and answers it the only true way: the union you are looking for begins with the one you make with yourself. You can read the full meaning of The Lovers card here.

Beltane in the tarot

The Lovers is the festival's card, but Beltane carries others.

The Empress (III) is here in full force, fertility and abundance at their height, the earth giving everything.

The Sun (XIX) is rising toward its peak now, the joy and vitality of the bright half fully underway.

The Ace of Cups for love overflowing, the Two of Cups for union and partnership, the Four of Wands for celebration, the maypole and the marriage feast.

How to mark Beltane

Light a fire. A bonfire if you can, a candle if not. Fire is the festival's heart.

Gather the May. Hawthorn blossom and spring greenery to decorate the home, the old "bringing in the May".

Get outside. Beltane lives in the fields. A walk, a gathering, time in the green world at its most alive.

Celebrate union. Of any kind. Partnership, friendship, community, and above all, as the Lovers insist, your union with yourself.

Dance if you get the chance. The maypole, or anything. Beltane is the least solemn of the festivals. Joy is the point.

Beltane 2026 dates

Beltane 2027 dates

Beltane in the Southern Hemisphere

South of the equator Beltane falls at the start of November, opening the southern bright half just as the Northern Hemisphere turns toward Samhain and the dark.

Around the wheel from Beltane

Beltane is the doorway into the bright half of the year, the mirror of Samhain. To see how it fits with the other seven sabbats, return to The Wheel of the Year.

Frequently asked

My best Beltanes were lived before I knew the word, outdoors in the Somerset fields and along the old railway lines, the first real sun on our backs, and my father's bonfires at the end of the day with the pictures moving in the flames. That is the festival exactly: the returning sun, life lived outside, fire to gaze into. Light a flame, gather some blossom, go out into the green while it is roaring.

I will see you under the next moon. And on May Day, light a flame and go outside.

Yours, Paul O'Mara