Summer Begins

Ello mates, after going to Beltane I realized it’s a story that isn’t quite long enough to make a proper blog post. However, since I mentioned that I was going to write about it at least twice, I decided to give a short summery of what I did that day.

Tuesday April 30 2013

It was an unusual day because I had an extraordinary amount on my plate. My essay for Professor Mooney (Gerry) was done, but I still had a short essay for Professor Simpson, some last minute prep work for my trip back to Orkney, and loads of research to do for my history independent study. I suppose the most unusual part of the day was the fact that I actually got just about everything done that I had planned. However, when I got up that morning, the Beltane Fire Festival felt like a perk that I simply didn’t have time for.

Since it was a Tuesday, I didn’t have class so I decided to skip lunch and spend the early afternoon in Edinburgh. I wanted to check out a few more books on Neolithic Orkney. However, the Scottish section of the library was closed for renovation. It wouldn’t be open again until after I was back in the States. That wouldn’t help me, so I went across the road to the Scottish National Library. Now this is a proper research library. I had to fill out a mountain of paperwork, and get a photo ID before I got in. You have to request your books, and they bring them to a collection desk. Once you request a book, it takes about two hours to get it. So that left me with a hefty amount of time to wander about Edinburgh. I didn’t mind this though, because I had a few errands to run, I was hungry for lunch, and generally speaking it was a beautiful day.

I returned to the National Library and picked up the books that had been dropped off at the reception in my absence. I took these into the reading room. They were brilliant books that fit exactly what I needed. The only problem was I could only read them in the reading room. I couldn’t take them with me to Orkney and read them on my travels. I simply didn’t have time to sit and read them that day. I’d have to wait until next week.

I returned home and prepared for my trip up to Orkney. It was quite the wait until Beltane. I poked around the house doing somewhat productive things until about half seven, when I headed into town. Originally I was with a large group of us from the house, but when a few of them stopped to go pee, I decided to keep going because the #3 was right there.

The festival didn’t start until the sun had completely set. Everyone was standing in a semi circle around the large stone steps. It was a good thing I had gotten there as early as I did. The crowds were growing thicker. I was lucky to be second to the front.

The general premise of Beltane is as follows: Beltane is a 1/₈ point in the year. From a solar perspective the best way to cut the year in half is at the solstices. The equinoxes are half way between the solstices, and Beltane marks half way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. According to Celtic paganism, this marks the start of summer. The Beltane Fire Festival is an adaptation on their fertility ritual. So in this ritual there are a few characters. There are the “Red Men” although there are several red women. There are the “White Women” although there are several white men. And there is the Green Man, who is a fertility god and represents nature and all that. The general plot of the ritual starts with the characters presenting themselves. The Red Men are supposed to have this strong Sex drive, but the White Women don’t really want anything to do with it. They go back and forth for quite a while and then they all get together at the end.

Now the difficult thing with watching a pagan ritual is that pagan rituals are very big on procession. This means that the parts of this story played out over quite a few different places, and there was no one place where anyone could get a view of all of these. This meant that you had to predict the group and try to beat them to their future destination. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get a good spot. Now I’m a short guy so about half of the segments I had to watch from a distance.

That being said the parts I did see were really cool, there was all kinds of wild dancing. And so much fire. Being a bit of a Pyromaniac… well you can see how that would trip my fancy. With the exception of the bit with the bonfire, it was rather cold that day so I felt bad for the dancers who were next to naked.

I left at the end of the festival. There was an opportunity for the public to join in on the dancing, but I still had a paper to write. It was 12:15 by the time I hopped on the N3 to Dalkieth. It was 2:57 by the time I went to bed. Needless to say I was rather tired by the time I started my next peedie adventure to the Orcades.