BELTANE

A flamboyant Celtic festival of fire and fertility, Beltane is a traditional celebration of spring's bounty and the lengthening of the days, writes Pat Kinsella

- 

In early May, with crops flourishing in fields and animals getting fat in lush pastures, rural communities across Europe welcome the first flicker of summer.

Around Britain, maypole dancing is seen at village fairs and church fêtes, often held on Whitsun (the seventh Sunday after Easter), but in traditional Celtic culture, the coming season was heralded with a huge fire festival. Sometimes described as Gaelic May Day, Beltane is a celebration of rising warmth and fertility, with people paying thanks to the sun. Roughly translating as 'bright fire', Beltane is the anglicised version of a name that combines a Celtic sun deity Bel (also called Belenus, Belenos, Belinus, Beli Mawr) and the Gaelic word for fire: teine.

Celebrated for millennia, especially in Scotland, the Isle of Man and Ireland (though there are parallels with a similar festival called Cyntefin, traditionally celebrated in Wales on May Day, 'Calan Mai' or 'Calan Haf', first day of summer), the festival falls halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Since medieval times it's been pinned to 1 May.