Beltane – the Coming of the May

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Beltain, Beltane, blackthorn, blackthorn winter, hawthorn, May, Maying

Each spring in the UK, we watch the blackthorn arrive in March. There’s an old country saying about being beware of the “blackthorn winter” – the snap of cold that arrives before the blackthorn dies. But, for me, the point about the blackthorn, is that it’s the herald of the hawthorn.

The hawthorn was the signal of the coming of the summer for centuries. In the book of old customs in my library, I could turn up the one from around the 15th or 16th century, where the mistress of the house gives food to the first servant who brings in the May. For that’s its old name: May. People went out in the woods a-maying. The “green gown” that turns up in many a folk song refers to the stains on a maid’s gown gained from frolics in the woods with lovers.

All this took place at the end of April/the beginning of May. For that’s when the hawthorn flowers – and boy, does it flower! I call it “spray on Beltane” because it’s like those cans of faux snow you can buy to spray onto windows to look like some illustration of a Dickens novel. Where the blackthorn is the herald, the full majesty is the hawthorn. In the UK it’s everywhere – the boughs laden with white blossom.

But there was another, grimmer, reason why it was loved in earlier centuries. You see, where the blackthorn flowers before it puts out leaves, the hawthorn puts out leaves first, and then flowers. And to explain the importance of the hawthorn’s leaves, I need to explain what life could be like in the spring.

The most eye-opening talk I ever heard was an hour with a trained herbalist, who was telling a small private house-moot what it was really like to live in (say) the early medieval period. Or perhaps any century between the ending of Roman Britain and the beginning of the industrial period. Clear away the romantic view of country living and put yourself in the place of someone who has been struggling to get by all winter. Your family are beset with illness, and your beast are still chomping their way through the remains of the fodder you preserved for them.

Spring heralds two great events – the rejuvenation of pasture, so you can turn the animals out to graze. And the flourishing herbs with the antiseptic properties you need to clear the ailments that develop over winter without fresh food.

You know that the grain store would begin to run out by early summer, so rations of bread reduce by the spring. That’s why one of the names for the hawthorn is ‘bread and cheese’ because chewing the buds and young leaves is extra food. You know the grain will run out long before harvest, which is why there may be summer madness, if you eat infected grain out of desperation. But right now, you welcome the light and heat because you can harvest plants that grow in the wild, and your sheep is producing milk. (The Anglo Saxon name for the month we call May was “three milkings” – presumably per day) And – even better – if you can afford to keep chickens, they will begin to lay again.

And the return of the light and heat means less illness, and the chance to take joy in the flowers and the warmth. The dark is over. so, even if you will have to make it through the dangerous summer months until the harvest is in – there is much cause to rejoice and enjoy life.

So gives thanks as you watch the long shadows move further and further through the hours. Watch the animals, released from the byre onto grass, buck and dance for joy! Dance yourself and leap the fire! You have survived the cold and death of another winter, and lived to see the colour come back into the world.