Today is Beltane, one of four “cross-quarter” days on the year’s calendar – halfway between the equinox and the solstice. Guy Ottewell’s Astronomical Companion says we can consider the date to be mid-spring. But others in our collective past regarded it as the first day of summer. The summer solstice, the sun’s highest point in the northern sky, marked mid-summer. Beltane was celebrated with bonfires, as were many Celtic festivals. May Pole dances and May Day marches followed.
