Beltane at Thornborough 2010
Sunday May 2nd - Starting at 12 Noon
Admission FREE - Everyone Welcome!
At Thornborough Henge, near Ripon in
North Yorkshire, Brigantia, England, UK.
Beltane is a Celtic word which means 'fires of Bel' (Bel was a Celtic deity). It is a fire festival that celebrates of the coming of summer and the fertility of the coming year.
Celtic festivals often tied in with the needs of the community. In spring time, at the beginning of the farming calendar, everybody would be hoping for a fruitful year for their families and fields.
Beltane rituals would often include courting: for example, young men and women collecting blossoms in the woods and lighting fires in the evening. These rituals would often lead to matches and marriages, either immediately in the coming summer or autumn.
Other festivities involved fire which was thought to cleanse, purify and increase fertility. Cattle were often passed between two fires and the properties of the flame and the smoke were seen to ensure the fertility of the herd.
You can read the full text of this article at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion
Beltane is just one of four Celtic quarter-days that mark the passing of the seasons through the year.
The other quarter-day festivals are:
Lughnasa (beginning of August),
Samhain (beginning of November)
Imbolc (beginning on February)
The last of these, Imbolc, is the festival most asscociated with the Celtic Goddess Brigantia/Brighid (see article opposite).
Brigantia is the name of a Celtic diety worshipped throughout the North of England at the time of the Roman invasion (around 2000 years ago).
Her followers, the Brigantes, were the largest tribal federation in Britain and occupied much of the land that is now Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Durham and Northumberland.
Her name, derived from the root 'Brig', meaning 'flame, force, vigor, and exalted status' also equates her with the Irish Goddess Brighid.
The Christian St. Bridget is also associated with sacred flames, and in her home county of Kildare in Ireland a fire was kept continously burning in her honour by nuns of the local abbey (a practice that is generally believed to have been the survival of a much older pagan tradition).
The Romans equated the characteristics of Brigantia with their own diety of Minerva (the Greek Athena), patron Goddess of 'poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic, and the inventor of music'.
Find out more about Brighid/Brigantia at:
applewarrior.com/celticwell
Imbolc (February 1st) is the Celtic festival more traditionally associated with Brighid/Brigantia (see 'Wheel of the Year' opposite), but given Brigantia's strong connection with fire and flames we feel it appropriate to evoke her name and blessings at the traditional 'fire festival' of Beltane.
We hope you will join us in saying: Hail Brigania! And raise a cup of mead in a toast to the Land, People and Goddess of the North of England.
She who shapes the world itself with fire,
She who ignites the spark of passion in the poets,
She who leads the clans with a warrior's cry,
She who is the bride of the islands,
Snd who leads the fight of freedom.
Hail, Brigantia! Defender of kin and hearth,
She who inspires the bards to sing,
She who drives the smith to raise his hammer,
She who is a fire sweeping across the land.
An original poem by: Patti Wigington
Beltane at Thornborough 2010
Sunday May 2nd - Starting at 12 Noon
Admission FREE - Everyone Welcome!
At Thornborough Henge, near Ripon in
North Yorkshire, Brigantia, England, UK.