Fire Festivals at Dawn

The feast of summer-come-again in the Celtic calendar was the springtime fire festival held in honour of the sun at Beltane. It divided the Celtic year equally into two: Samhuinn (Halloween) on 31 October when fires were lit at sundown in graveyards and sacred places, Beltane on 1 May when fires were lit on hilltops at sunrise. Though the Christian church established Christmas and Easter as their most important feasts, in the nature-worshipping Celtic calendar the most important feasts have always been at these emotional times when the earth’s rhythm changed.