Why May Day is One of the Most Sexy Days of the Year

In much of Europe the first day of May is marked as a day to honour the common worker. Since the 19th century, May Day has been celebrated as the International Workers' Day – an international equivalent to the Labour Day celebrated on the first Monday of September in North America.

But before it became associated with the labour movement, the first of May had been marked for centuries as a holiday. Known variously as Beltane, Walpurgis or simply May Day, this celebration reaches back to pre-Christian times when it was often seen as the transition from winter to summer.

Many Pagans and non-Pagans alike use the word Beltane – from the Gaelic bealltainn – to denote the 1^st of May and the celebrations that take place on that day. Some say the word means something like “bright fire”; Douglas Harper gives it as “blazing fire.” Whatever the derivation, it was the name given by the Celts to fiery celebrations that took place as the winter gave way to summer.

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Beltane Fires

One of the best known traditions of Beltane is the lighting of a bonfire. The ancient Celts used to light two large fires and drive their livestock between them, as a ritual of purification. This would protect the animals as they sent them out to graze in summer pastures. People who sought the same purification after a winter of being cooped up indoors, could dance between or leap over the fires.

In a similar tradition, young couples would jump over the fire together as a celebration of their love and sometimes as a sign that they wished to be married for a year and a day. Couples who wished to stay together after this time, could return to the Beltane fires to renew their vows for another year. A variant on jumping the bonfire is jumping over a cauldron in which a smaller fire is burning.

A Deeper Gene Pool

In days gone by, the people from many villages might come together at Beltane to allow young people to look for potential mates. It was also not uncommon for people of all ages to slip away from the bonfire with a partner they took just for the night. These “greenwood marriages” may have addressed fertility issues for some couples, and probably also contributed to the genetic diversity of the communities involved!

Today’s Beltane festivals do tend to have that element of sexuality and ecstatic surrender. But as Kerry Mullen mentions, the decades old fire festival in Scotland is now “growing up” and beginning to include activities with a more family-friendly focus. The energy becomes more one of celebrating spring and a more innocent kind of frolicking...