Beltane and May - much more than a day

Many will remember and celebrate festivities on May 1st, rise early to dance in ceremonial manner to welcome the summer, gather dew for medicinal purposes or in some other way mark and continue the folk-memories that relate to much more than a day. The Celtic festival of Beltane was not necessarily celebrated on what for us has become the first day of the month of May in our solar calendar. Just as Easter is today, Beltane was celebrated at a 'time of year' set by, and according to, the moon.

The ancient lunar-based festival celebrated the start of the summer half of the Celtic year and even earlier celebrations were similarly seasonally set by the moon. Until quite recently, a century or so ago, April 30th the eve of May, Walpurgis Night named after an 8 th century Anglo-Saxon saint, saw the start of festivities in Devon with hill-top fires. Bonfires were lit and young men led their partners sunwise round the pyre, jumping three times through the flames before feasting on full-moon cakes, supping potent wines of elder, dandelion, or blackberry made a year or two earlier,which by then were particularly potent and then following other nocturnal pursuits. The eve of May or its moon-time predecessor, was when the Queens of winter and summer met in battle, when Flora, ancient Sabine goddess of spring and flowers, youthfulness, and sex, encouraged a night of earthy celebration and Maeve, the Celtic Queen Mab of the Fairies, invited dancers to pick a partner, then wander to the Greenwood to make love at sunrise; all long before witches adopted the night as one of their two main Sabbats.

The Daily Western Times in 1880 noted that

The first of May is 'May-doll' day

The second of May is ducking day

The third of May is stinging-nettle day.

and at least May-doll activities and paying water penalties, not just to SWW, are still to be found.

It was a tradition for young girls to carry about dolls, as richly dressed as they could make them, in baskets of flowers on May Day. Some suggest the custom accorded recognition to the Blessed Virgin, patroness of the month of May, but others contend that a deeper mystery, some unrevealed truth, was intended in the doll-carrying, for the face of the doll was covered over carefully, only to be revealed to the initiated. Others were not permitted to lift the veil, until they had qualified themselves for the privilege. An acceptable coin, offered and taken in response to a pretty curtsey and the initiation question, "Will you please to see a May-doll, sir ?" was sufficient to ensure that the provider of a metal portrait of the monarch would gain the privilege of viewing the concealed figurine. The custom of carrying and revealing May-dolls survived throughout the 20th century. A letter in The Times in 1927 describes the custom at Bishopsteignton and the paper also recorded the custom witnessed at Teignmouth in 1934, mentioned it twice as being seen in Barnstaple during the 1970's and in Torquay a decade ago.

Soon, at fetes, fairs and festivals the survival of ritual invocations to the water deities of ancient times will clearly be seen, with those deities still being placated by the sacrifice of victims. In 19 th century Devon on Ducking Day, 2nd May, grubby boys who would normally be expected to avoid contact with water under any other circumstances, and whenever possible, claimed the long established 'right' to throw water, preferably dirty water dammed in ditches, over anyone who appeared on the streets without a sprig of hawthorn on their apparel. A fee was demanded of strangers, who wished to pass, unsoaked, and was readily paid to avoid a ducking. In Kingsbridge, the fire engine was put out on display and the hose used to drench inquisitive bystanders and onlookers.

Present day threats of a drenching will be found today in many Devon village summer revels, with waterlogged sponges being hurled at victims. Willing volunteers will also be found tempting the fate of being 'dunked' in water butts of some kind if the seat they are on is somehow removed from beneath them by missiles thrown at a target that, when hit, trips some kind of mechanism that brings about their downfall.

The folk-memories of pacifying water deities surface yet again, or perhaps that should be submerge, when competitors sit astride slippery poles over water and 'fight' each other to avoid a ducking or when tug o' war teams facing opponents across a stream strive to pull their opponents into the water. Oblations still appear to be being paid to the deities.

There was an ancient custom observed in Bovey Tracey on sting-nettle day, or Roodmas day, May 3rd . when all the children were given a nettle, or bunch of nettles, to flog each other with. Witnessed early in the last century the custom remains curiously local but with little explanation. Roman soldiers are said to have used nettles, whipping their aching muscles to ease the pain. While Devon was less 'occupied' than many areas the custom celebrated by children by thrashing each other with nettles quite probably arose after people saw the soldiers using nettles that way. Roodmas Day is a festival of the Church of Rome and was also celebrated at Bovey Tracey on the first Monday after the third of May to commemorate the finding of the cross upon which Jesus suffered. A procession of Bovey parishioners circumnavigated the bound of their parish with the walkers carrying garlands of flowers on staves; the walls of the village houses were also adorned with flowers on this day of special celebration.

Then, there remains a further 28 days of May, an active month for knot, not nut, gathering, bound beating, well dressing, water blessing, holding auctions or hunting the Earl of Rone in Combe Martin towards the end of it.

© Roy & Ursula Radford