Beltain Celtic Fire Festival at Butser Ancient Farm

It's Beltain! The original May Day festival celebrated in the Iron Age, and our biggest event of the year!
Every year, we hold our Beltain Celtic Fire Festival to mark this ancient festival, complete with live music performances, morris dancing, incredible drumming, and of course the burning of a 30ft wickerman. We've been holding this celebration at Butser annually since the 80s, and this video captures the best bits of one of our favourite festivals -- 2022!
To everyone who joined us, thank you for making this event so special 💚 We hope to see you at Beltain in the future!
▬ About Butser ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Butser Ancient Farm is an open-air experimental archaeology museum and active research centre, learning about the past by recreating it.
Our experiments are world-renowned, and our buildings include a Roman villa, Celtic village, Stone Age farm, and Saxon halls - all reconstructed from real UK archaeology, and open to be explored!
We do everything we can do share our passion for the past, from visitor opening and school groups to filming our experiments for bitesize documentaries!
▬ Support Us ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
See behind-the-scenes of our experimental archaeology and help directly fund more research! For the price of a coffee, watch over 100 short documentaries and discover our ancient past. Visit www.butserplus.com to learn more!
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[@jeannerogers7085]

Now that's Burning Man!

[@jeannerogers7085]

I was at Butser Farm in 1982 - I believe there were three round houses on the site back then. Fascinating place - I am very glad it is thriving still

[@tezoodle]

Epic video! Beltane Blessings - thank you 🔥🌟🤩💓💫

[@Neilhuny]

What a superb video! It had everything - including the wonderful Ruth Goodman!

[@ellywilkins929]

Incredible video. loads of time for u all, such a great time every year x

[@yvonnemurray1253]

I'm going to go, wow so cool

[@Wotsitorlabart]

Beltane was a fire festival linked to those societies that practiced transhumance - the movement of livestock to summer pastures. It was found in Ireland and the western and northern areas of Britain. What evidence is there that it ever occured in Hampshire? Fertile lowland 'England' would have celebrated a form of May Day much more in keeping with the one found today - for instance in Padstow.

[@jamesswindley9599]

When will there be another Anglo-Saxon reenactment? I’d pay to go xxx❤❤❤❤ 🇬🇧😊

[@ButserAncientFarm]

Aren't they great! We often have reenactors on weekends -- you can see when they're next with us on our website www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/whats-on

[@williamwelbourn7932]

Was that social historian Ruth Goodman in the crowd at 7.18?

[@ButserAncientFarm]

It was! She visited with Rob and Dave Nicholson to film Channel 5's 'A Farm Through Time' with us 😊

[@giostisskylas]

In the Celtic culture, e.g. the Celtic tribes on Lake Chiemsee, who were robbed of their homeland by a fatal comet impact event around 2000 years ago, human sacrifices were burned in these large straw figures, which were intended to appease the Celtic gods. People tend to ignore the other side of this culture.

[@sandrakimball518]

Thank you for sharing that. ❤

[@danielshaolin6053]

Is this the council estate end of The Shire?

[@TheYzabreeze]

Awwww this pagan worship looks so innocent.

[@te9591]

Not all paganism is extreme debauchery and survivalism.

[@Wotsitorlabart]

​@@te9591 And in this case the 'Ancient Celtic Festival' is a modern made up nonesense.

[@jeannerogers7085]

Is now.

[@jeannerogers7085]

Aw, you burst my bubble there!