Beltaine Well, Fire and Tree

The Hawthorn Tree

At the edge of the hedge is a Hawthorn Tree

And its blossoms are sweet as sweet can be

And the bees are humming there all the day

And these are the words that I hear them say

Sweet sweet is the Hawthorn Tree

All the breezes that breathe o er those blossoms

A burden of perfume happily bear

And the songsters revel there all day long

And these are the words of their merry song

Sweet sweet is the Hawthorn Tree

And a maid and her lover wander by

As the twilight glories fade and die

And they pause neath the fragrant boughs to rest

And above them sways the robin’s nest

Sweet sweet is the Hawthorn Tree

We too they whisper shall soon build a home

Neath the azure arch of the infinite dome

And we all the day shall sing like the birds

But with deeper meaning in music and words

Sweet sweet is the Hawthorn Tree

– Nathan Haskell Dole

With this Invocation, let this tree become the Cosmic Tree, the Gateway to the Ways between the Worlds!

The Fountain of the Fairies

There is a fountain in the forest call’d

The Fountain of the Fairies: when a child

With delightful wonder I have heard

Tales if Elfin tribe who on its banks

Hold midnight revelry. An ancient oak;

The goodliest of the forest, grows beside;

Alone it stands, upon a green grass plat,

By the woods bounded like some little isle.

It ever hath been deem’d their favorite tree,

They love to lie and rock upon its leaves,

And bask in moonshine. Here the woodman leads

His boy, and showing him the green-sward mark’d

With darker circlets, says the midnight dance

Hath traced the rings, and bids him spare the tree.

Fancy had cast a spell upon the place

Which made it holy; and the villagers

Would say that never evil thing approach’d

Unpunish’d there. The strange and fearful pleasure

Which fill’d me by that solitary spring,

Ceased not in riper years; and now it wakes

Deeper delight, and more mysterious awe.

– Robert Southey

With this Invocation, let this well become the Deep Cauldron, the Gateway to the
Underworld, the Ancestors and the nourishing waters of the Earth!

Beltaine Fire

The morrow was May and on the green

They’d lit the fire of Beltan E’en,

And danced around, and piled it high

With peat and heather, and pine logs dry.

A piper play’d a lightsome reel,

And timed the dance with toe and heel;

While wives look’d on, as lad and lass

Trod it merrily o’er the grass.

– Exerpt from The Kelpie of Corryevreckan by Charles MacKay

With this Invocation, let this fire become the Sacrificial Fire, the Gateway to
the Realms of the Mighty Ones, carrying our Offerings to Them and filling us
with the fires of Joy and Inspiration!