Beltane and the veil between the worlds

"Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight. On Beltane Eve fires are lit on hillsides to welcome the summer and to ensure a bountiful harvest and fertility for the clan. Druids would lead the people and animals between the fires as a purification ritual. Many would jump over the fire or circle it three times to honor the Horned God.

Couples would often pair up and spend the night together in the greening woods on this night when time stands still and the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. Marriage vows were suspended for the month of May commencing again on June 1st as June brides once again."

The pictures are from a previous year's Beltane Fires Festival in Edinburgh.Sort of makes our Bavarian maypole celebrations look a bit pedestrian, no?

While in Hamburg they seem to have understood the role that fire can play... it seems to me they've got it all wrong. Sensual couplings in greening woods sounds much more fun!