Bealtaine Fire Festival 🔥 | May Day Traditions in Ireland | Irish Magic & Folklore

Bealtaine - May Day - is one of Ireland's Folk Fire Fire Festivals with many roots in magic and folk traditions in Ireland.
In this video I talk about some of the Irish folk magic, superstitions, ritual, charms, and divination that's still seen in Irish cultural practices today. I also talk about the etymology of Bealtaine (often anglicized as Beltane, and confused with the Wiccan holiday with the same name).
I also talk about "Piseogs", or piseog/piseoga and what they are in theIrish tradition.
I'm not Wiccan, I follow a path of Irish spirituality which focuses on our living cultural heritage as well as revived customs and practices from our historical cultural heritage and wanted to share some of the practices and beliefs associated with this time of the year.
Some of the links for things I quoted in the video:
"Bealtaine" on Dictionary of Irish [eDil]
dil.ie/search?q=bealtaine
"Piseog" Definitions
www.teanglann.ie/ga/eid/piseog
www.teanglann.ie/ga/fb/piseog
www.teanglann.ie/ga/fgb/piseog
Dúchas.ie [the National Folklore Collection & Schools' Collection]
www.duchas.ie/en/src?q=bealta...
www.duchas.ie/en/src?q=piseoga
www.duchas.ie/en/src?q=May+Da...
Also check out those sites in general, they're a wealth of information and insight! :)
If you're interested in finding out more, there are more resources below:
Ireland's Folklore and Traditions (a blog by Shane Broderick - Irish folklorist and Folklore & Celtic Civilization graduate)
irishfolklore.wordpress.com/2...
Shane also appeared on a recent episode of the That Witch Life Podcast, find it at URL: thatwitchlife.com/2021/04/26/...
Lora O'Brien (a native Irish Draoí, Pagan Priest and practitioner of Irish Native Spirituality) talks Bealtaine on KZbin:
• Bealtaine - Beltane in...
^ Check our Lora's Channel if you aren't familiar!
Also, there is a course available at the Irish Pagan School on Bealtaine (and all the Irish fire festivals, among many other topics from native teachers) - find it here: irishpaganschool.com/p/bealtaine
Also, one of my favourite KZbinrs Tara who runs Diary of a Ditch Witch posted yesertday with her Bealtaine adventures! Check it out here: • Bealtaine Daytrip (Rav...
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[@hopper1aoa15]

I love the red haired woman....love your channel....keep up the great work....

[@bealtainecottage]

Thank you for all the knowledge you share! Blessings of Bealtaine to you XXX Colette

[@eileencregg6754]

Thank you for sharing, I watch Tara Tine and Lora O'Brien they are wonderful 👀💯💚🍀🇮🇪

[@pillarsoflight2607]

Lessons on (true) Irish paganism by an Irish. I love how more, and more of you are coming out, and dispelling the trash we Americans were fed for so long.

[@CreativeIntuitive]

❤

[@profbri.02]

How wonderful you are.

[@acutiff7125]

Came here for non-appropriated info. Thank you.

[@eileencregg6754]

I love learning Heritage as 2nd generation Irish, 61yr I'm excited to learn more and more... 👀💯💚🍀🇮🇪

[@Ogham]

Great job!

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Grma 😁

[@DiaryofaDitchWitch]

Love it, well done! So glad I clicked in here, this channel rocks!

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Thank you so much Tara! Fan-girling a little bit here

[@SpeakerGregoryDwyer]

Just got back from Dublin yesterday. Glad to find your channel.

[@traciemoore6445]

Would love to hear more about making protections and learn more about the Good Folk ❤

[@brianjohnson2422]

Great video! Love how much effort you put in, I’m just starting my path in Irish Paganism and this was super helpful

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Awesome, glad you found it helpful! Thank you!

[@pandemicpagan]

Back again a year later 💖 thanks again for the video!

[@jessgeoghegan]

What an excellent video!! 🤘🏻💜

[@mirbash8784]

Thank you so much for this informative video and links. I've been wanting to learn more about celtic and irish history. Can't wait to check out the rest of your videos. ❤️❤️

[@betsytrowell6191]

Thank you for another excellent video. I did not know of these traditional protective rituals, but perhaps some of them are in my ancestral memory. I was already planning to climb up and inspect our hillside orchard today--something I have not done for at least two months. I also already began cleaning the floors this morning, but if I leave flour or ash out near the door, there will be cat paw prints going in both directions, which would be confusing and, more importantly, mess up the clean floors, so I'll skip that bit. I'll try the yellow flowers, though. Thanks again!

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Thank you Betsy :) From what I've seen, a lot of magic practice was protective in nature and luck/prosperity based. I hear you with the cats, we won't be sprinkling ash or flour out but will be getting the yellow flowers and recharging boundary protections :)

[@lukehand4076]

Why were we never thought about this in school

[@davidnyc487]

Thank you I love your content, and you deserve a lot more subscribers.👍

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Awh thank you, that's very lovely of you to say! All in good time, my channel is still quite new :)

[@lizbeth6246]

Excellent vid

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Thank you 😊

[@aoryward]

Great video! Oíche Bealtaine shona duit!

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Agus tú féin! 😊

[@pandemicpagan]

I will definitely be walking my boundaries, spreading yellow flowers around my boundaries and along windowsills, and not giving away anything. Thank you for all this accessible info and knowledge! 💖💖 I'd love for a video on important pronunciations in Irish that messing them up would lead you to saying a totally different word/phrase. I tend to enjoy those videos in other languages, but since I'm actually trying to learn Irish I figure it'd be important to have in my back pocket! GRMA 💖

[@TheCraftyCailleach]

Grma 😁 🥰 Oooh thank you for the suggestion! Planning some Gaeilge content so Will stick this on the list 😁

[@sartarisbeanagh5300]

[@AnGhaeilge]

Maith thú :)

[@user-gd2tg1yt7q]

Beltane is a Scots-language word. It's not an anglicization of Bealtaine. Scottish people have told me they see Beltane as a natural morphology of the Gàidhlig word "Bealltainn" rather than an appropriation. It entered the Scots language from Gàidhlig centuries ago at a time in the political history of that country when it was independent from English rule, and long before there was official state-backed discrimination against Gàidhlig speakers. I would even argue that "Bell-tayn" may be the fossilized pronunciation of that word in the Gàidhlig dialects of that time. Given that it's so prevalent a word in Scottish folk poetry throughout the centuries, I think it's hard to argue that it's appropriative. It's part of that culture. And as I said, the Scottish people I've spoken to use Beltane freely. Take the Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh. So, if someone is planning a May Day event that isn't specifically Irish and perhaps more pan-Gaelic, Beltane is probably a fine name to use. I know Manx people have no problem calling it by that name either. As Morgan Daimler wrote in 2015, "After so many centuries Bell-tayn is obviously a perfectly legitimate way to say it, particularly by non-Irish pagans." However, that is the thing: I would think it odd if someone said they were celebrating a specifically Irish May Day event and insisted on calling it Beltane. That would be weird.

[@Wotsitorlabart]

This from Professor Ronald Hutton's 'The Stations of the Sun - A History of the Ritual Year in Britain': 'Out of a dozen different spellings, the very influential scholar Sir James Frazer selected one Scottish example which, being itself an Anglicised version,was best for English readers. In popular literature in the English language it has thus, ever since, been Beltane'.

[@user-gd2tg1yt7q]

​@@Wotsitorlabart sounds like he's suggesting anything that entered the Scots language from Gàidhlig is therefore "Anglicised", which I'm sure a lot of Scots speakers (and Scottish people in general) would completely bristle at. I'll also say, if there's nothing Gaelic about your celebration (nothing Irish, Manx or Scottish about it), I'm not even sure why you'd use Bealtaine or Beltane... May Day is perfectly fine.

[@Wotsitorlabart]

​​@@user-gd2tg1yt7q Frazer was bound to upset someone no matter which version he picked. And, it's definitely May Day for me as 'Beltane' has the ring of the deliberately archaic about it. Just like 'Yule' in fact.