Origins

7. Beltane Rites, the Fifth Day of May

“Spring daisies and cornflowers,” Kyra said, climbing over some flat rocks to reach another patch of wildflowers. “With the early spring we’ve had this year, ’twill be one of the most colorful Beltane rites ever.”

As was our annual practice, Kyra and I had risen before dawn to creep into the woods on a quest for flowers. We would hang fresh flowers on the doors of our cottages and strew them about the circle in gay decoration for the night’s festivities. We would also make a crown of fresh flowers to be worn by the high priestess. Today I would make an extra crown—one for myself.

“I think Beltane is my favorite celebration of the year,” I said. “And this year ’twill be my most memorable.” I silently thanked the lilac bush for her offering, then used my bolline to cut off a fat bunch of fragrant flowers.

“Because you are in love?” Kyra asked.

I pressed the lavender blooms to my cheek. “Because I shall become a woman in love, in every rite.” When Kyra’s brows lifted in curiosity, I explained, “Diarmuid and I shall have our own maypole celebration tonight. Do you see the ribbons I took from the cottage?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out streamers of red and white ribbons.

“What?” Kyra’s mouth dropped open.

“Aye, red and white ribbons to signify the blood that flows from a woman when her purity is taken. For that’s how Diarmuid and I will celebrate Beltane.”

“This I cannot believe!” Kyra screeched. “Do you know what you’re doing, Rose?”

“Aye.” I twirled around in the field, letting the ribbons stream behind me. “I know quite well. I believe the Goddess has called us together for this. And Beltane is a festival of love and union, is it not?”

Kyra swallowed hard. “I don’t know that the Goddess intends us to take every detail so literally.”

I danced over to Kyra and tugged on her hand. “Don’t be an old toad in the mire! We’re seventeen years under the Goddess’s sky.”

“Aye, but there’s been no handfasting, no joining of the two of you in the circle.”

“That will come later,” I insisted, pulling her into my dance.

She dropped her basket and spun around with me, our eyes meeting in laughter until we grew dizzy and dropped to the grass.

“Oh, dear Goddess, now You’ve convinced me,” Kyra said, staring up into the clear blue sky. “Rose has lost her wits.”

“I have not!” I protested. “And I’ll wager that you’ll be telling me the same thing soon, about you and Falkner.”

“I can’t imagine it, though I am so in love.”

I rolled onto my side and squeezed her arm. “You must pretend that I’m with you, tonight after the circle.”

“Oh, Rose, you know I am a terrible teller of tales.”

“’Twill be nothing. The younger coveners always end up celebrating a bit on their own as the others dance by the light of the Beltane fires. Just tell Ma I am with you.”

“Lying to the high priestess,” she said. “Goddess, forgive me.”

“I knew I could rely on you.” I stood up and brushed grass from my hair. “We’d best go and see to the decorations.”

We filled our baskets until they were brimming over with blossoms, then headed back to our cottage. Ma looked on as we made bunches to hang on the doors, leaving aside other flowers to decorate the circle. Then Ma set some sage leaves afire in a clay pot, and we blew off the flames until the burning ashes produced a pungent smoke, which we spread through the cottage.

As we set about our tasks, Kyra spoke of Falkner, how he thought her the best baker in the Highlands, how he had come to visit her just the day before. Ma did not comment until we were finished smoking the house and ready to head over and do the same to Kyra’s cottage. That was when she brought out the sewing basket along with a few old snatches of cloth.

“Hearing you talk of young Falkner, I’ve come to think you should put your thoughts into action,” Ma told Kyra. “If you truly want to bring love into your life, it’s wrong to trap a particular person, as you did with the charmed moonstone.”

Kyra lowered her head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I know.”

“Trapping a person with a spell is dark magick,” Síle said. “It has the potential to harm someone by tinkering with their destiny and stripping away their free will. However,” Ma went on, “the Goddess can help you bring love into your life, as long as you’re not targeting a particular person and meddling with their destiny. You can work love magick through poppets.” She placed two pieces of cloth together and began to cut. As she trimmed away the cloth, the shape of a gingerbread man began to emerge. “You must make two small dolls—one to represent you, the other to represent the boy, or man, of your dreams.”

I watched carefully as Ma showed us how to make the poppets. She helped Kyra sew brown ribbon on the girl doll to make it resemble herself.

Then Ma handed Kyra the boy doll to decorate. “Make him handsome in your eyes, but don’t inscribe him with a name or a rune that points to a particular person.”

Kyra thanked Ma when we finished, then we raced off to decorate her cottage and our coven’s meeting place in the woods. It was afternoon when our work was done. Kyra headed home to bake some of the ceremonial cakes with her ma, and I headed off to decorate my own maypole. We were just about to go our separate ways, when a tall chestnut horse came trotting up the road. It was a majestic sight, the rider sitting tall.

“It’s Falkner,” Kyra said, patting down her hair.

“ ’Tis not,” I muttered, blinking into the sunlight. Kyra was right, though I had not expected this beanpole of a boy to be transformed into a knight.

“Good day!” Kyra called, waving wildly.

Falkner stopped his horse as it reached us, then swept down and landed at Kyra’s feet. “Would you like a ride?” he offered Kyra and me. “I’ve got to return the horse. Da just fixed his shoes, but you may ride along the way.”

“I’m headed off into the woods,” I said, “but Kyra has been afoot all day, preparing for tonight.”

“Are you tired, then?” he asked her, the fondness in his eyes unmistakable.

She nodded at him sweetly, and he boosted her up onto the horse’s back. “There you go.”

“Thank you.” Gazing down at him, Kyra seemed like a different person. Not the gawky braided girl who used to skip over stones in the brook, but. a woman.

The image stayed in my head as we parted ways. On my way through the woods I stopped by the brook and sat down at the water’s edge. Here the water slowed into a clear, still pool, where tiny minnows darted through the weeds and bugs skittered along the glassy surface. I reached down to cup a drink of water but stopped, startled. Staring back at me was the face of the Goddess.

No, ’twas but a reflection of a woman. Me.

I had grown in the ways of the Goddess, and I was ready to take the next step. For Beltane was not only a feast of love, it was a feast of fertility. It was a time for joining two halves to make a whole—the third entity. And although every young witch knew the spell to cast to close the door to the womb, I would not speak that spell. My lunar bleeding was but a week’s past, and my body was ripe for his seed.

Tonight we would make a child.

Laughter rumbled through the forest as the coven’s Beltane celebration wound down. Sitting on a log, Kyra’s father strummed a lute and another covener piped, making merry music for revelers to enjoy. In another part of the circle I sat with the young coveners, finishing up the last of the cakes and wine.

“There you are,” Falkner said to Kyra, who giggled behind her hand. “I tell you, it looks quite fine that way, unbridled and untethered.” He had removed one of the braids from her hair and was now combing through it intimately with his fingers.

Kyra pressed a fat flower into his face. “You are such a silly goose,” she teased.

As far as I was concerned, they were both quite silly, but perhaps I was just impatient to be off to my own Beltane celebration. And worried. What if Ma would not let me go? What if Diarmuid could not get away?

“ ’Tis time to leave the circle to the elders,” I told the others around me. Kyra agreed, and plans were made to head off to Falkner’s cottage. I crossed my fingers as we went to our parents for approval, but the festive, relaxed mood prevailed. “Just beware that you are not spotted traveling in a group,” my mother advised us. “ ’Tis a night to revel, but we must not let the Christians get wind of our celebration.”

I could hear my mother laughing with friends as we left the circle. Within minutes we were a distance away, and I was saying good-bye to Kyra.

“Be careful!” she whispered before Falkner pulled her away with the others.

I just smiled as I walked quickly through the dark night.

Diarmuid’s dark figure was unmistakable. Standing naked under the maypole tree, he was silhouetted by the small fire he had lit in the north quarter of the circle. Now my eyes feasted on what my hands had explored, his rounded muscles, long limbs, smooth skin. He was a god. The red and white ribbons fluttered in the air over his head; the same wind feathered the hair from his noble forehead. The night was dark, the new moon having just passed, but Diarmuid’s skin seemed to glow from across the clearing as I paused.

The space between us seemed alive with warmth. Around us the forest sang, its crickets and toads and swaying trees a symphony so clear and sweet, even a deaf man could hear its answer.

I loosened the girdle at my waist, then dropped my own gown to the ground so that I was wearing only a shift. The rustle of cloth made him turn my way, and he smiled. I ran across the clearing, and Diarmuid caught me in his arms against his warm body. We were meant to be together, to participate in this rite tonight. I noticed that he had already lit the candles, so I swept the circle while he called upon the four Watchtowers, drawing pentagrams in the air. Then we went to the maypole and each took a ribbon.

“’Tis a time for joy and a time for sharing,” I said as I started to walk around the tree. “The richness of the soil accepts the seeds. For now is the time that seed should be spilled.” I knew the words to most Greater Sabbats by heart, but today this particular ritual seemed so fitting! “Let us celebrate the planting of abundance,” I went on. “The turning of the Wheel, the season of the Goddess. Let us say farewell to the darkness and greet the light.”

“The Wheel turns,” Diarmuid said. He walked behind me, wrapping his ribbon over mine.

“Without ceasing, the Wheel turns.”

“And turns again,” he said as our ribbons twined as inexorably as our love.

When the tree was wrapped with a lovely weave of red and white, we went to the altar, where the crown of early red roses and daisies lay. Diarmuid lifted off my shift, then picked up the crown and held it over my head.

“The Goddess has brought us through the darkness to the light,” he said. He lowered the crown to my head, and I felt the heady fragrance of the roses surround me. “Now our Goddess is among us,” Diarmuid whispered, his eyes sparkling. “Speak, Lady.”

“I am the one who turns the Wheel,” I said evenly. I felt the pulse of the Goddess within me, steady and strong, hungry and ravenous. My body was ready to take on his seed, my spirit prepared to mingle with his. “When you thirst,” I said, “let my tears fall upon you as gentle rain. When you tire, pause to rest upon the earth that is my breast. Know that love is the spark of life, the fire within you. Love is the beginning and the end of all things.”

I opened my arms to Diarmuid, the light of the fire dancing over my naked body. “And I am love,” I whispered.

The next morning I left my bed at dawn to bathe in the spring. Most days I simply wash with a rag, but today I went to the deep part of the brook for a more thorough cleansing.

On the grassy bank I glanced around to make sure no one else was afoot. A peahen rushed through the bushes, but otherwise the woods were quiet. Quickly I slipped out of my robe and stepped into the brook. The water was cold, barely two lunar cycles away from the last winter snow, but I ventured all the way in, submerging myself to my neck, just below where my hair was knotted.

A cleansing.

And an offering.

I touched my belly, wondering at the tiny babe inside me. I had a new life to offer up to the Goddess—Diarmuid’s baby. Already I knew it to be true, but my secret would grow safe within my belly for a few months. There would be enough time to work on our two clans, time to help them accept Diarmuid and me as man and wife.

Waving my arms through the water, I smiled. My whole body felt aglow with the promise of motherhood. This child would tie us together in a physical way. I knew our baby was another part of the Goddess’s plan, which was slowly being revealed to us. I was eager to tell Diarmuid, but for now I would keep my secret as a delightful surprise to be enjoyed after our love was sanctioned by the clans.

Feeling cleansed and refreshed, I arose from the waters and climbed onto the muddy bank. Quickly I pulled on my robe and stepped into my sandals.

But what was that noise?

I peered out of the bushes, searching the path. There was no one in sight, though I felt a strong sense of another’s presence.

Had someone been watching me?