A Chairde, Friends,
We find ourselves on the cusp of Bealtaine, the Irish word for the month of May, thought to derive from the old god Bel or Belenus, a pan-Celtic deity meaning ‘bright’ or ‘shining’, and the Gaeilge word tine, meaning ‘fire’. So ‘Bright Fire’. Or perhaps Bealtaine comes to us from béal meaning ‘mouth’ in Irish and again tine, ‘fire’, so ‘Mouth of Fire’. Either way, we are working with the element of fire, which archetypally means a heavenly dance between the generative and destructive power of our home-star, of the sun. Bealtaine is a time to learn how to dance in the flames. It marks the beginning of summer in Ireland.
‘The Goddess is the unspeakable wisdom that grows into the very cells of the body. She lives with this sacramental truth at her centre: the beauty and the horror of the whole of life are blazing in Her love. She is dancing in the flames.’
Marion Woodman, Dancing in the Flames
We have travelled from the dark half of the year that began at Samhain, through the stirring of the land at Imbolc, and now we’re ready for full bloom at Bealtaine when the wheel (whose symbolism we explored in our last Imbas Dispatch) turns and oscillates towards the light half of the year. In the alchemical cycle, we have entered the Citrinitas, the ‘yellowing’ symbolised by solar consciousness, the rays of illumination, the ‘fire in the head’.
Bealtaine in essence is a time of arrival, a time to embody, dare, reveal, shine, collaborate, hold the energy of the bloom, which so many of us struggle to do. To dance in the flames unapologetically shining our bloom; and fittingly, one of the most well-known Bealtaine rituals I share below is a folk cure or rather protection against sunburn. We can shine without being burnt.
A Time of Arrival
Our human ancestors are said to have arrived on Irish shores at Bealtaine led by the file, the ‘poet-seer’, Amergin Glúingel (or sometimes Glúnmar, meaning ‘bright-kneed’ or ‘big-kneed’), who lands with his ‘host of druids’. Amergin himself means ‘the wonderfully conceived’. Before this time, the land was inhabited by the Tuatha Dé Danann, the ‘Tribe of the Goddess Danu’ and various otherworldly beings.
The triple goddess, Ériu, Banba and Fódhla, go on behalf of the Tuatha Dé Danann to meet these new arrivals, who have been prophesied, ‘long have soothsayers had knowledge of your coming’, they tell Amergin and his host. We see here how the sovereignty goddess figure acts as a political negotiator because it is she who determines who is worthy to be custodians of the land.
Amergin encounters each of the three goddesses at a different point in the journey he must take to the Hill of Uisneach, the sacred navel point of Ireland, the fifth dimension (which you can read more about here). When he arrives at Uisneach, Ériu is there waiting. She agrees to allow our ancestors to stay on the physical plain if they name the land after her, which of course comes to pass as we still hold the goddess’s name, Éire (we inherit the word ‘Ireland’ possibly from Éire combined with ‘land’, ‘Éire Land’). We are one of the few countries to be named after the goddess. Amergin is then set a challenge to calm the nine waves of the gods, which he does by invoking the spirit of Ériu, Banba and Fódhla, of the land herself.
The Tuatha Dé Danann then leave this upper world and enter sídhe, the Irish word for both the hollow hills and fairy mounds, and its inhabitants — the Otherworld essentially. In this way, the natural world becomes the dwelling place of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and the deities themselves. The land is ensouled with the divine; it is divine. This division marked the end of an era when the supernatural was the undisputed master of the earth and ushered in a new period where deities and humans co-existed: our ancestors in the conscious realm of the upper world, the Tuatha Dé Danann below in the unseen domain of the unconscious, these realms continually interacting through the human psyche and the psyche of the land, our soul and Ériu’s soul.
The Tuatha Dé are rebirthed in Irish folklore as the daoine maithe, the ‘good people’, or the daoine uaisle, the ‘noble folk’ or ‘aristocracy’. This is what we call the fairies as it is taboo to say síog or sí (from Old Irish síd or sídhe), ‘fairy’ or ‘fairies’ in Irish. They descend from ancient deities embodying powerful archetypes; goddesses and gods who are the real ‘aristocracy’. This is why they are both respected and feared.
From a mythological perspective, this heralds a profound shift in consciousness, and speaks to the creative fluidity of the Irish psyche. It is at this threshold, the space between, where we receive imbas, the fire in the head, the gift of divine wisdom, when we learn how to dance in the flames as a portal between the ceantar, the waking reality, and the alltar, the dreamtime of the Otherworld.
Bealtaine Spells
Continuing on with fairy magic, a key time of year for piseógs is Bealtaine, especially Oíche Bhealtaine, ‘May Eve’ (30th April). A piseóg (often anglicised as pishogue) is a superstitious belief, charm or spell, the most common form of spellcasting in Ireland. Traditionally, they were used to protect against bad luck and to appease the fairies, but also to cast spells with malevolent intent. Below are some Bealtaine piseógs from our National Folklore Collection…
You can see in this one, fear of the changeling child:
‘A snail brought into the house on May Eve will trace the initials of the future husband on the floor, which can be read next morning. Fairies steal children and leave a sickling in their stead on May Eve. Children on this account are not let out alone on this day. Sometimes singing is heard outside to coax children as the fairies wish to steal them. No fire or coals are allowed out of the house on this day. Food left over from the previous day is thrown out for fairies. Salt left over on any day after a meal is - in the bog or field - scattered about for the fairies. People who rise before the sun rises and wash their faces in dew will not be sunburned or tanned that year. The luck of the world is with anyone who could get a clutch of eggs on May Eve.’
Archival Ref: Volume 0116, Page 118
Bealtaine is a potent time for love divination, this is a piseóg that can be done all year round:
‘The following was a charm or pishogue worked to find out the person’s future husband or wife - usually the husband. A looking glass was placed under the pillow of the person who slept for the first time in a strange house. That person was supposed to dream of her, or his future husband - or wife. It was necessary that the person should not know that the mirror was under the pillow.’
Archival Ref: Volume 0482, Page 035
This sharing of Bealtaine traditions speaks to intergenerational memory:
‘May-flowers around stables and byres on May Eve was also considered very effective in respect of the fairies who were believed to be very active on that particular night. They were even pushed into keyholes and odd “crannies” so that the fairies should be kept outside. In Ballycastle today (1936) I know this custom to be followed - the people carrying out this strange custom if asked why they do it will probably laugh and say ‘Och. To keep out the “wee folk”’. But there is more in it than that. The fact is that it was the custom of their parents (now dead) and probably their parents before that. After all country people and very industrious people at that do not get the idea of spreading may-flowers around their dwelling from say America, no! They got that idea from fine old Irish people now enjoying their long sleep.’
Archival Ref: Volume 0323, Page 0009
Not only does May dew make you beautiful (see ritual below), but it also helps you tie and untie knots.
‘The people believe that the fairies are out on May Eve so they put ash around the churn so that the fairies cannot take the butter for the year. If anyone milks another person’s cow before sunrise on May morn they will have that person’s butter for the year. If you wash your hand in the dew on May morn before sunrise you will be able to ready or loosen any knot for the coming year.’
Archival Ref: Volume 0138D, Page 02_025
Bealtaine Ritual
I share this every year because it’s a ritual I adore doing myself, it is usually done on May morning, but Bealtaine celebrations would likely have lasted for days if not weeks in Old Ireland. Technically Bealtaine is the midpoint between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice so feel free to do this as a regular seasonal ritual. I’ll begin with the riddle…
Bealtaine Riddle:
‘I washed my face in water that had neither rained nor run, and I dried it on a towel that was never woven nor spun.’
Before dawn, gather morning dew and wash your face with this natural elixir or if you want to go full throttle, roll around naked in it. You can collect your dew in a jar or soak a facecloth on the grass and smooth over your skin. The dew’s fusion of fire from sunbeams and the healing properties of water are thought to bestow beauty as well as protecting from sunburn, chapping and wrinkling of the skin for the summer ahead. To conserve the potency of the dew, it should not be washed off. Allow it to be dried by air, the ‘towel that was never woven nor spun’.
Wishing you every bright Bealtaine blessing!
Croí isteach,
Jen x
Sources:
Dúchas: National Folklore Collection
Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (translated by Myles Dillon), Gods and Heroes of the Celts
Marion Woodman, Dancing in the Flames: The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness
What a beautiful post again Jen. I loved hearing about Eire land - Ireland - and had forgotten how rare it is for any country in the world to be named after a Goddess. That feels really powerful and sacred. I also resonated deeply with the words you curated on the wheel for Bealtaine like “dare” and “shine.” And finally, that image of The White People, the Tuatha Dé Danann, is absolutely enchanting. The Thank you for your Imbas.
Absolutely gorgeous post. The Tuatha Dé called me to Eire for Bealtaine 7 years ago, long before I understood who they were or what Bealtaine was. It was part of my awakening to gridworking. Thank you for deepening my knowledge here. 💜