A number of traditions link the month of May to Mary. In ancient Greece, May was the month dedicated to Artemis and the reverence for this goddess was transferred to Mary with the Christianization of Europe. More generally, pre-Christian rites of spring (fertility rites), such as the Maypole, were subsumed by the Church into a festival of the Mother of God. This sacred holiday is traditionally known as Beltane, and is practiced today in Earth-based spiritualities. It is also the Celtic holiday for the goddess Brid, who was subsumed into the Catholic church as St. Brigid.
The May Queen is also known as The Maiden, the goddess of spring, flower bride, queen of the faeries, and the lady of the flowers. The May Queen is a symbol of the stillness of nature around which everything revolves. She embodies purity, strength and the potential for growth, as the plants grow in May. She is one of many personifications of the energy of the earth.
She was once also known as Maid Marian in the medieval plays of Robin Hood and of the May Games - she is the young village girl, crowned with blossom, attended by children with garlands and white dresses. Some folklorists have drawn parallels between her and Maia, the Roman Goddess of Springtime, of Growth and Increase whose very name may be the root of “May”.
The Maypole is often considered a phallic symbol, coinciding with the worship of Germanic phallic figures such as that of Freyr. Potential other meanings include symbolism relating to the Yggdrasil, a symbolic axis linking the underworld, the world of the living, the heavens and numerous other realms. Also likely related, reverence for sacred trees can be found in surviving accounts of Germanic tribes, for example, Thor’s Oak, Adam of Bremen’s account of Sacred groves and the Irminsul.
The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian Europe, as in the Celtic celebration of Beltane, and the Walpurgis Night of the Germanic countries. Although the pagan-oriented celebrations faded as Europe became Christianised, a more secular version of the holiday continued to be observed in the schools and churches of Europe well into the 20th century. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the Maypole and crowning of the Queen of the May. Today many Neopagans, especially Wiccans, celebrate reconstructed versions of the old pagan holidays on May 1.
For the Celts, Beltane marked the beginning of the pastoral summer season when the herds of livestock were driven out to the summer pastures and mountain grazing lands. In modern Irish, Mà na Bealtaine (’month of Bealtaine’) is the name for the month of May. The name of the month is often abbreviated to Bealtaine, with the festival day itself being known as Lá Bealtaine. The lighting of bonfires on Oidhche Bhealtaine (’the eve of Bealtaine’) on mountains and hills of ritual and political significance was one of the main activities of the festival.
- END -
ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
- What’s the origin of pole vaulting?
- St. Simeon Stylites
- Queen of Swords
- New York Occult Stores
- The King and Queen
