Beltane vs Mayday | What's the difference?
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- Опубліковано 29 кві 2024
- A look into the ancient Celtic Fire Festival of Beltane, and also the May Day of later English folk tradition celebrating the beginning of Summer.
We will look at ancient precursors to the festival in the pagan worldview of our European forebears, where this day was a crucial one in the pastoral calendar - when livestock would be driven to summer pastures amid magic protective rites and fertility rituals.
We also look at later folk traditions connected with May Day, such as the Green Man, the May Queen, Fairy folk, Morris Dancing and of course the May Pole and ask what, if any, resonance these may have with our pre-Christian past and the worldview of Germanic Paganism.
Finally I will look at some ways to engage with this time of year in a way that feels like a nod to the old ways.
To support me as a storyteller & folklorist consider making a donation on Patreon:
patreon.com/TheStoryCrow?
Happy Beltane! 🔥
Right. I'm off to the woods
Have to comment re mass slaughter.. livestock were treated well, due to so much reliance on their produce & strength.
To slaughter a herd- in Ritual, would take days & much would be wasted.
Many of the more recent Biddy Early tales, tell of folk saying their crop or horse or cow has been cursed/old/ill.. & what will they do...
I feel it was more like the First Nations- they would only take one.
There was a huge Animism part of old Paganism, blood would not be spilled recklessly.
Thx for ur vid. 🌻
See you there! :)
Is that a bus yall cruising? Appreciate the video this is a great Beltane for a beautiful summer
That analogy you made of paganism resurgence in the Renaissance, The Enlightenment, and our current era is really beautiful and inspiring...
Gratitude
🌞⛈️🌈🕊🌿🍄✨️
Same🍄
“If there’s a bustle in your Hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen.”
I always thought it was "if the is a busle in your hedgerow, don't be a law man. It's just spring clean for the may queen.
yes, there are two ways, you can go back..but in the long run.. there's still ways to change the road you're on..Hxx
@@heatherpadgett2116 It really makes me wonder.
And as we wind on down the road... ☺️
@@marksadventures3889 ohhhhhh... really, makes me wonder Hxx
MAY THE ENERGY OF BELTANE IGNITE YOUR INNER FLAMES OF PASSION & CREATIVITY . BLESSED BE ! 🔥
Same to you 🔥🔥🔥🌳🌳🌳✨✨✨
I was born on Imbolc 9 moons after a nice May Day. My parents’ DNA was happy to twine. She/He created me.
Intriguing. I did appreciate the absence of any judgmental tones, and found your (literally) fireside style of delivery engaging. Thanks for posting.
I will not be getting on with my life until I have consumed your entire channel 😁💜💜💜
😂 your going to be sick of my face 😂
For me as a non-herder it is a planting moon and I spend a lot of time communing with the seedlings going into the ground. The birds and frogs are in full song and it’s truly magical.
When you live in western Alberta. You realize how far behind your growing season is. I still have some snow in my yard. Only flowers I will be getting is from the store unfortunately.
Happy HexenNacht & Blessed Beltane. 🔥
You clip at THIS time of the year? Well I never, now there's a thing! Never 'eard owt s' queer in all me born days! Clipping on the first of May! Where are you... Bar-flipping-bados?!? Hell. Each to their own mind' I dare say, each to their own! If it works for you, who am I to say otherwise? ...You wait till I tell me ord man about that though, he'll be cackling ower t' gate about that all summer. Clipping on May day! Meheh!
@@JesseP.Watson Where I live, this is time, which is adjusted for Lambing and new weather. Whole big world of folk out there. Everyone has different times when it is healthy to sheer. Not everyone is just like you. Most of us are decent ;) Happy Beltane!
@@CASTERSRABBITHOLE See: humour.
@@JesseP.Watson I'm Autistic, and unless I see someone indicate it's a joke, I read it as what is written, A Jab by someone who doesn't realize not everyone with sheep lives near them. So... Happy Beltane, I mean it.
@@CASTERSRABBITHOLE Ah, my apologies, then the joke is on me. Have a happy Beltane and I hope you have a good shearing season.
By the way, that was dry Northern humour which many people don't understand (I'm from a sheep farm in the North of England, in Yorkshire). Up there we have a kind of straight-faced humour that makes a game of throwing light insults at each other. It is though a sign of affection, the old men up there do it, it kind of expresses something like: "I'll say things to you, because you're my friend, that someone else might think was an insult, so if I pretend to insult you, it means I know we're good enough friends for you not to take it seriously." Something like that. A similar to rap battles where they compete throwing insults but its just a game.
So as a fellow shepherd, I saw you as a friend.
All the best to you, enjoy the smell of lanolin - one of my favourite smells that is (not a joke).
Happy Bealtaine, folks!
In the 50s when I was in grammar School in Austin Texas we used to have a May Day festival every year and we had maypoles and the students with different Maypole dances with ribbons make different patterns we practice for a couple of months before to get it right for the festival
Thanks so much 🌻🏵🌹
Happy Mayday to you and yours.
How wonderful, I was looking for a good explanation of this, not two days ago now! Thank you again, definitely going to be here alot it seems 😆
Very interesting and informative 😊❤ lovely analysis and breakdown.
Glad you enjoyed it!
super! thanks for sharing your knowledge, images, and passion, I really enjoyed your teaching
Glad it was helpful my friend ☺️
Happy holiday, and may the good spirits always be at your side. Acuci moya.
Same to you 🙏🌳✨
Thank you so much, I really enjoy your channel. Your stories helped to ground me.
This comment makes my day. Thank you. Folklore does that. Here to lots more grounding. 🙏✨
Lovely vid! I enjoy your explaining the 2 holidays! You are so informative!
Thanks for watching 🙏☺️
Thank you so much for your videos. I love listening to you. Happy mayday to you and yours xx
Same to you, have a great rest of the summer 😊🌳🙏✨
First of May First of May
Outdoor fucking starts today
But as usual it do rain
So we fucks off indoors again.
Dang that’s a darling ditty
😂😂😂🙏👍
I always look forward to your videos
Great storytelling, thank you! Will you make one about the summer solstice?
Probably! Thanks for watching ☺️🙏
Thanks for your informative guides.
Being bought up under Christian traditions. And rejecting those ways. It's fantastic to find out about more natural traditions that are more in tune with rhythm of the year. thanks for you videos
Also, bet you're great to have pint with
When I was at Primary School in rural nz in the 1960's, there was a Maypole in the playground.....
Wonderful explanation with your beautiful fire in the background. Blessed Be.
Happy Beltane 🔥💐🕯️
Right back atchya! 🔥✨🌳
This time of year has a strong awakening calling to me. That we’ve survived the winter and now seeing evidence that the winter is truly over. The grass is getting green and flowers are exploding everywhere and life in all its forms are rejoicing. Humans are particularly attracted to each other after the long winter confinement. Bird eggshells are seen on the lawns and its evidence that babies are being born. Insects are showing themselves after their hibernation. Bright vibrant colors are appearing after the drab winter scenery. I feel my body wanting to expand and flex and shake off the tightness of the winter months and get myself into working condition so I can produce food and then start storing it for the next winter preparation.
Your videos are my favorite way to start the day.
Pleased to hear that, thank you 🙏
Have a great day ☺️
I really enjoy your videos, fascinating.
Thanks for watching ☺️🙏
Thank you another great video
Great knowledge and awareness. Always told in the great story teller tradition. Well done and thanks. 🧙♂🌟🌳🌲🔥
Glad you enjoyed it, always a pleasure to see you in the comments 🙏
May 1 is my birthday. What an interesting history of this date.
Cool, happy mayday birthday day 😂🤷♂️☺️
Please do an episode on the Elder tree
I will do! 🌳
Happy Beltane ❤🌸🌼always a pleasure to hear you 🙏 thank you
Same to you, thanks for watching 🔥✨🌳
You’re missing the obvious suggestion: join a Morris dance group!
😂
Already did - but great shout! 🕺 🌞 🌳 🍺 🔔
There's a lot of different ways that the Beltaine thing could go. It could have absorbed customs from older cultures, but the name is still what Celts called that holiday or the Irish could have borrowed the name too.
Beltaine is for adults, May Day is a "family friendly" version for the day after.
Depends how phallic one wants to go on the symbolism of the maypole I suppose 😅
@@TheStoryCrow
It's all phallic, but May Day is dancing with ribbons, while the night before does more without the pretty imagery.
Love this Thank you, never heard of it, well May pole yes the rest no! Wonderful Im gonna have me a fire tonight!
I hope you all had a lovely Beltane 🌺
You need to watch Beltane in Glastonbury we was there it was amazing 😊
Having been compelled by association to attend a rural conservative Lutheran church in Wisconsin (the parishioners are German farmers and their descendants,) My non-Christian self was amused when long sticks with colorful streaming ribbons were passed out to the children to wave at the end of church service on Easter Sunday. Not sure if it is a common Lutheran practice or not. Just saying..
Enjoy your frolic!
Compelled by association. Well said.
Those crazy Lutherans 😂
him and her bless you for beltain all...
I know that when the seasons start and end is a vary variable concept. I don’t think it makes sense to consider Beltane the start of summer. Beltane is within Taurus, a fixed sign. Before Taurus was Aries, the cardinal sign and cardinals initiate the season, fixed maintains the season, and then Gemini, the mutable, ends the season. Hence , astrologically Beltane is the middle of spring, and later Litha will begin summer.
Totally see what you’re saying, and astrology is not my strong suit.
By some reckoning though, the year only has two seasons - summer and winter - no fall or spring. So Beltane is the beginning of the light half of the year, vs Samhain - the ‘beginning’ of the dark half.
Other systems might put that on the equinoxes - but I didn’t make the rules 😂
Thanks for the comment 🙏
Fascinating as always...yes,the Puritans never like that frolicking !
Cheers
They simply cannot abide a jig 🕺
Beltaine blessings. I have my yellow flowers picked this morning, a bit of the morning dew, and violet tea for later. Gathering with friends at the local watering spot for games(Music Bingo) the 2 fire pits and a bit of libation. Not a bad May Day celebration.
Sounds delightful 🔥🔥🔥🙏✨
Just a thought, I learned from Egypt! Many of those big single standing stones would be used to tell time of day! Like a sundial on a large scale. Would have to be an open space obviously. Many smaller ones indicated a turn or split in the path when the area was forested but now trees are all gone. Remember everything was heavily forested?
Interesting!
May pole symbolises the alignment of the energy with in man and man's efforts and the nature working in harmony think of it as in the chakras aligned in perfect harmony to ascend and brings forth fruits enlightenment and so on. That's what I reckon anyway
I like that
Is that Tamsin Foster in your video? If so, tell her hello from Andy in California.
Erm. Unless she’s been lying about her surname for years I don’t think so. But I’ll tell her you said hi anyway 👋😂
@@TheStoryCrow Got it! Have fun.
History is interesting
Forgot late 1800s Chicago labor riots, but NAILED the rest
When he mentioned the phallic images in paganism it made me think of some of the stone in Ireland that had those images and were transformed into crosses with Christianity influence.
Yes, good point
👍
Who is fiddling at the start of the video?
Blessed Bealtaine to everyone..☘️✨💚🤍🧡
Predating Puritan writings you can find biblical versus on nature worship addressed in the word of God. I think it's pretty much all addressed as idolatry which is also advised to avoid within the ten commandments.
Happy Beltane from rainy, cold, dreary, dismal Maine USA 😂 For me Beltane also means hockey playoffs! Go Bruins!!
So according to the Pagans we're already in Summer? Where I am it doesn't even feel like Spring has started yet.
We've already had a few 80 degree days where I'm at. 😅 But yeah it's mostly been the usual spring weather.
Spring is crashing all around here. Still it won’t stop raining 😂🙏
In the ‘light half’ of the year
@@TheStoryCrow Our house still has the Furnace running.
Have been to Beltany a couple of times, never made the connection which Beltane, makes sense.
Amazing place eh
Suggesting May Day is possibly relative to Asia mystic Hindi and polytheistic Hindi is making me laugh. This is interesting 🤠👍
Yes, but of a stretch that one, but hey, indo-European family 😅
Truly, Europeans influence everything. That's why Asia is referred to as Euro- Asia. I think it's fascinating in food too, for instance like curry seasoning in Asia the original was more like garam masala before colonization or in Africa for instance a staple of fufu comes from Spaniard Europeans. Even the first African American slaves arrived to the first colonial settlements after the ship was diverted from South America slavery and they spoke Portuguese from East Africa. Portuguese. How languages in Africa have not survived the world or just etymology in general is really amazing.
In Ireland we pronounce Bealtaine as Byel-tinna
Yup. Sorry we nicked your word. 😂
@TheStoryCrow haha pronunciation doesn't matter. The spirit of the festival is what matters and that's there in Britain too
Pronouncing it Beltane sounds terrible, it’s not an English word.
@seanfinlay6822 it's an anglicised version of an Irish word. Same as galtymore instead of galtee mór, or sleevebawn instead slieve bán, or knockroe instead of cnoc rua. It's everywhere in Ireland.
I'm not pagan but i always like to be educated on things that other cultures and religions believe.
I don't want to be ignorant to others' beliefs.
Don’t have to identify as pagan to lean into the old ways, many of these customs date from Christian times, but with old roots and resonances 🌳
Good attitude 👍☺️
☆
Yall are my new favorite channel absolutely love yallz
🌞⛈️🌈🕊🌿🍄✨️🎨🌞
I got confused with him saying possible origin of May Day being "pre- Christian thought"and then reference to the medieval period which would have started 500 yrs after the death of Christ Jesus. I just never heard " pre- Christian thought" before. Prophetic testament of the coming Messiah pre- dated Christ's birth even though there is some mention of the Lord's appearance prior to his own birth in the Old Testament, including a mention of Christ being with God from before the beginning of time. I think that even the Egyptian history of switching to sun God worship was probably a very human connection to a coming Christ. Just my opinion, although we know in history of Egypt enslaving Israelites and fighting against the warnings of prophets who were hearing from God guiding Israelites to their promise land. I really enjoy history and culture and story telling.
Well, England ‘relapsed’ into paganism in the early medieval with the arrival of the Anglo Saxons of course, so not pre Christian in terms of BCE necessarily
Mayday doesn't repeat Beltane but it rhymes.
Swedish midsummer is your mayday.. travelling customs...
I'm not sure why but there was an ad in the early part of your program that was SO LOUD compared to your audio I had to quit watching.
😅
Beannachtai na Bealtaine oraibh!
🦉
🦉
there’s no crow emoji…
Bummer ...crow emoji would be cool. Love what you're doing here on YT :)
Thanks ☺️🙏
⚽⚽⚽⚽⚽
ive always heard the irish pronounce it bel ton e
They do, but the Scottish and English don’t 👍🇮🇪🏴🏴
@@TheStoryCrow The Oyrish do mispronounce everything.
Shag away!
And she's buying a stairway.......to heaven...Hxx
Just for my own entertainment I'm going to challenge myself this week to randomly use the words Asian Puritans in a sentence this week to random people.
You must!
21;12..lol..Hxx
I wish I lived in the homeland, well I suppose I kinda do as a part Native American, also a direct descendant of Brian Boreau. The mother land calls me!!
Embrace it! 😂
@@TheStoryCrow I do! Im an earthen child all the way!
So Mayday is indigenous to Britain and Beltane is not. It's peculiar that Beltane is widely celebrated at Glastonbury but Mayday is not.
Some would argue it’s the other way round, despite beltane being a Gaelic loan word, evidence of vast fire festivals way back in the British Neolithic. Whereas May poles may have been a Germanic import. But the festivals merge the further back we go in time 👍
@@TheStoryCrow The Beltane customs go back to Ireland, having obfuscated any Brythonic ones that pre-existed. There's nothing about Beltane that can be disentangled from the Irish because even a hybrid Irish/Brythonic is not actually Brythonic. To be considered natively Brythonic it would have to have all the Irish customs removed, including the word Beltane. Even Taliesin gives reverence to Christ in his poem The Battle of The Trees, illustrating that even in Taliesin's 6th century era, that there was quite a divergence between what we now see celebrated in Beltane as to what was actually happening in Brythonic Britain in the 6th century. It's an interesting topic, I love the spread of your videos!
I see your point, fair enough. All I’m saying is ritual activity involving slaughter of livestock and massive fires occurred around early May in British pre-history - before Celtic languages arrived on these islands (probably). To call these ‘Beltane’ might be a stretch, sure, but the similarity is there.
But yes, I do agree the Gaelic tradition steamrolled over any native Brythonic one for sure, although those probably died out long before, in the shift to an agrarian economy from a pastoral one (in southern Britain at least). Interesting topic though, thanks for the input 🙏☺️
@@TheStoryCrow Yup, agreed! Although there is still some continuing Brythonic things going on-and anyone can call their MayDay bonfire a Brythonic Bonfire instead of a Beltane Bonfire :D problem solved
Irrelevant. Today is the 13 Floréal, year of the French Republic CCXXXII, celebrating the wallflower!
😂
The Island dwellers are claiming May Day as a "English" custom! Your country with tiny May trees is where this custom is supposed to stem from? Laughable! The smallest village here in Austria and Southern Germany has a taller May tree than you!
(obviously joking with the phallic comparison but still true in essence) and yes it is from pre-christian times. You should come to the Austrian alps during some of the pagan festivities that were not revivied but survived in the mountains through the middle ages.
The impertinence of these schnitzel eating continent dwellers with their pristine forests and punctual services!
Under no illusions the land Willy came from Germanic Europe to Britain. Just the later trappings like green men I associate with Englishness.
I’ve been looking for a source to definitely show the May pole stemmed from pagan practice though - and can’t find any, even though it seems likely. Is there evidence of that in your area? Id be interested for sure.
Thanks for the comment 👍
@@TheStoryCrow
The earliest references for the maypole in Germany and Austria would seem to be from about 1500 - whereas in Britain it is from the mid 1300's.
So, in Britain for it to be pagan in origin the tradition would have to have been in existence for some 500 years or more before it was first noted.
That might be the case, but without proof to say this is a pagan tradition tends toward wishful thinking.
The paper trail has gone … what utter bollocks! Actually, this entire garble is pretty much flaky …
What kind of argument is that?
Do you need a tissue?
Are you going to be ok?
😂