Talk:Beltane
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I thought Beltane was May Eve. Is this just because I have no idea what I'm talking about? :-)
- In Irish, Oíche Bealtaine is May Eve, and Lá Bealtaine is May Day. Mí na Bealtaine, or simply Bealtaine is the name of the month of May. Evertype 10:14, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
Could someone more knowledgable than I parse out an historically accurate background for Beltane (and thus for May Day) that is distinct from the modern revival? --trimalchio
-- I will do a Samhain on it (tomorrow, I'm off out for dinner with my wife) and root out this undue emphasis on Neopaganism. It is an old Celtic festival and deserves better treatment than this. sjc
- Thanks, sjc. I'm all for the neopagan component of the article (living with a neopagan will do that to a guy, so I thought I should register that vote) but I do think that it is a bit misbalanced.--trimalchio
Neopagan or not neopagan? I recall dancing around a Maypole of sorts in first grade, at age 6. Our teachers took a bare pole onto the playground, we affixed strips of green crepe paper to the tree and we danced in circles around it. We saw nothing particularly pagan about it at the time, and this was a public high school in Alabama in 1964. - Dwmyers
- It is traditionally pagan, and has been revived or preserved by the Neopagan tradition. Evertype 10:14, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)
Sounds more like May Day. May Day and Beltaine are two very different things. Beltane isn't neopagan IT SELF, althought some neopagans celebrate it or holidays they call Beltane. I think that is an important thing some people need to learn. Beltane is a Gaelic holiday, that some neopagans celebrate. Just like I'm a Gael that celebrates some Norse and Asian holidays, that doesn't ever make those holidays Gaelic.
Maypole dancing is a component part of the pre-christian Celtic phallic/fertility cults. If you like I'll do an article on it. sjc
- Maypole dancing is *Germanic*, the Scandinavians, English, Germans and other continental Germans (Dutch, Austrians etc) do it, Celts have never did it.:] Well, maybe some Irish or Scots that don't speak Gaelic anymore, but it's not Celtic.
- No more so than any of the many other assorted folk customs from pre-Christian roots. I assume you received presents from an elf and carved lanterns from fruit too. - Montréalais
Clarification needed: is Beltane a single day or a "season", as the opening line seems to say (or both?) -- Evercat 17:27 Apr 30, 2003 (UTC)
Beltane is a single day.
I deleted some glaring factual errors (e.g., the Vernal Equinox may be celebrated the world over, there is no evidence beyond modern era Neopagan books that the Celts ever celebrated it. For further information, visit www.adf.org.) I also deleted some creative spellings, some Wiccan-centric explanations for the holiday and my own smart assed comment about the creative spellings. I did all this so that the file could accurately represent several different paths (Wiccan, Neodruids, Mesodruids, etc.). The focus was a little heavy on the One Great Goddess theory stuff before. Amarshall
Hmmm. Just because the Neopagan Beltane derives from numerous sources doesnt mean that there should not be an article about it (given that a good number of folks do observe it). Perhaps there should be seperate sections in the article for the Gaelic Beltane and the Neopagan one. Logotu
Maybe someone would like to something on May Eve? It is my understanding this is the original name given to the neopagan holiday that has often become confused with Beltane. A whole article on it, what neopagans believe about it and do, linking to the Beltane article saying that some celebrate it instead, or mix the two (along with May Day, the neopagan celebration is a combination of Germanic maypole and fertility-focus, Gaelic need fire and purification-focus, and the Wiccan idea about a dying God and his consort/mother, which seems to be the most common form, which is why I think it should go back to just being called May Eve, since it's so different from Beltane, and not just regular Beltane being celebrated by neopagans), would be in order?
- While being a purist is all very well, it's sometimes not practical. Beltane seems to be the most common name for the Neopagan Spring festival (and yes, it combines elements from May Day, May Eve, Beltane, and probably some garbled anthropology, in an attempt to create a generic non-Christian Spring observence; live and deal). -- Logotu
Beltane is Gaelic, as a word, but there's evidence in the Coligny calendar that it was part of the Gaulish year as well, and additional evidence from Welsh texts that May Eve/May 1 or calen Mai had particular associations with the Otherworld, much as Beltain in Irish medieval texts is used. It would be almost impossible to "filter" the various influences out. Certainly the vernal equinox is not something that seems to have been marked on the Coligny calendar, nor was it important to the Irish until they began to use Christian calendar-keeping. DigitalMedievalist 16:22, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC) Lisa
- Want to specify the evidence in Coligny? Evertype 10:14, 2004 Dec 16 (UTC)