1st May: Beltane/May Day

Here are 10 customs associated with the festival of Beltane:

1. Maypoles: In olden times, a Maypole would be a tree cut down specifically for the purpose on the night before, as it was supposed to be a living tree. Permanent Maypoles, erected on a village green and painted red and white, came later. (The tallest Maypole is at Barwick, in Elmet, West Yorkshire, England. It is 86 feet tall). On May 1st, young women would dance around the tree, often holding ribbons and creating elaborate weaves as they go.
2. Washing in the dew: Washing your face in the morning dew at sunrise on May 1st is supposed to guarantee beauty. Getting your hair wet as well was especially lucky. In addition, witches and pagans would collect the Beltane dew to use as consecrated water in rituals.
3. Flowers and greenery: Collecting branches and flowers was another tradition of May Eve, and the plants collected would either be given as gifts or used to decorate the home. Dairy farmers believed that hanging a green bough over the door brought good Milk production.
4. Bonfires: Beltane fires were traditionally started by rubbing sticks or flints together, traditionally by a Druid priest, on a hillside or at a sacred place. Jumping over the fire, running through it or dancing around it promoted purification or fertility. A common custom was for farmers to drive their cattle between two fires to protect them from disease and to make them fertile. The magic of the fire was believed to work on people, too, so women who wanted babies would run through the fire as well. If a young woman wanted to see the face of her future husband, it was said that she could achieve this by dancing around nine bonfires.
5. Cakes: Bannock cakes or Beltane cakes, cooked the previous evening on embers on a stone, would be eaten to ensure a good harvest. Some cakes were purposely baked with nine knobs on. These were called "knobby cakes" and each knob would be dedicated to a being, natural or supernatural, that might threaten the livestock. As people sat around the fire, they would each break off a knob in turn and throw it in the flames, and say something like, "This is for you, fox, don't steal my lambs," or "this is for you, gnomes, don't steal our milk".
6. Sacrifice by lottery: one piece of cake would be blackened in the fire and each person would blindly select a piece. The person who got the blackened piece was the "devoted person" or "Beltane hag" would have to jump through the fire three times and then go around with their faces blackened with the ashes. A very long time ago, the chosen one would actually have been burned alive.
7. May Queens and Kings: The May King would be chosen by some sort of athletic contest, a race, or climbing up the Maypole. Nowadays there is often just a May Queen, who will have been chosen by a vote. If there is a May King, he is selected by the May Queen. They represent the marriage of the sun to the Earth.
8. Hobby Hosses: This custom lives on in places like Padstow in Cornwall where a man dressed as a horse cavorts through the streets, pouncing on young woman and smearing them with ashes. Traditionally the women who are caught by him will get married, or pregnant (or both!) during the coming year.
9. Contacting spirits: As at Halloween, or Samhain, the veil between the worlds is said to be thinner today, so it's easier to commune with spirits and fairies. It's even possible, they say, to visit the Faerie Realm - but if you do, don't eat or drink anything while you are there or you'll be trapped there forever.
10. Partying! Eating, drinking and being merry was a big part of Beltane. Traditional drinks are punch made of woodruff blossom, or Mead. It was also traditional to disappear into the woods and have a lot of sex - so not surprisingly, the Puritans banned it along with Christmas!