There are few things for which I'll willingly stand on a hilltop in downtown Edinburgh for four hours on a chilly night. Beltane happens to be one of them.
For the folks back home: Beltane is a Celtic fertility festival (remember that bit in The Mists of Avalon?) now celebrated by the Beltane Fire Society every April 30 (since May 1 is officially Beltane). I couldn't actually see most of the procession around the mountain, since we were sharing Calton Hill with 12,000 of our closest friends, but here's the quick and dirty on the event:
The May Queen and her court, the White Women, have to walk through a processional fire arch and enter the Underworld to reunite the elements. They parade around the mountain, visiting each of the four elemental sites in turn, while the Red Men (and women), who are wearing little more than loincloths, interact with the crowd and try to subvert the parade. Meanwhile, the Horned God touches the May Queen, dies, and is reborn as the Green Man in a dance. In the end, a giant bonfire is lit and there is much rejoicing, particularly since it's very cold up there.
While we couldn't see much of the parade itself, there was plenty to watch. Side shows. Various pagans in their cloaks. A girl wearing elf ears. Drunk Frenchmen (one of whom almost fell on me from his buddy's shoulders). Fire jugglers. A Red Woman who...um...danced on the Parthenon steps in a loincloth and nothing else (we felt sorry for the Red Men...it was really cold last night). The poor Christian group giving out much-appreciated chai tea and, well, laughable pamphlets. (Really, they were pretty bad.)
What was neat was that the evening started as a perfectly clear night with a full moon, and as we watched, the fog rolled in from the Firth and covered everything. By the time we left, it was decently foggy and the whole place had atmosphere.
The video was meant to capture the fire arch, but regrettably, the lighting was horrible and the crowds were worse, so it's more of a "Sounds of Beltane" clip.
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