England Day Six: Beltane at Thornborough Henge

Well my dearies, the good luck couldn’t last forever, and eventually rain always must fall in England. Beltane’s formal date might have been Friday, but Sunday was the day we were heading to Thornborough Henge, a series of three 5,000-year-old circular henges that felt very familiar, since my very own city has a World Heritage site of ancient mounds: Circle Mound and Octagon Mound.

I do find it ironic that we are hopping from one of the days I took the most pictures (Forbidden Corner) to the day I very much took the least.

And yet my trip souvenir haul has the most items from this day. In part because the Beltane festival had tents set up around a quarter or so of the perimeter with artists and vendors selling goods. Some wasn’t handmade, but plenty was, and very beautiful. I wound up buying a wooden vase and a pottery bowl as well as a metal clay pendant and honey from a local mead seller.

We arrived about an hour before the opening ritual, and it was raining quite steadily. I was so pleased with my outfit for this day, and it wound up buried under my raincoat. But I cheekily insisted on sticking my flower crown atop my hooded head anyway. (See above image from after the events of the day)

Hot beverages were in order first thing, and then we wandered the tents, in part to get out of the rain.

The ritual itself was lovely. First there was a troupe of female dancers doing an interesting blend of Morris and belly dance styles. Then there was the opening of the circle, as we turned in the four cardinal directions and welcomed the spirits of the land. After, the event host led us in some chants, including “hail Brigantia,” an ancient Celtic goddess of the north.

It took some time to get the Beltane fire lit in the wet, but honestly I couldn’t feel that any of it was less than exactly right. It was such a perfectly British sort of way to celebrate a sabbat. Bryony quipped the brilliant motto of the day: “Blessed Be-draggled.”

As much as I felt this way, we didn’t stick around long after walking between the Beltane fires. The original plan had been to go to Hackfall Woods, but the weather really wasn’t on our side. Instead, Bryony suggested we go to the town of Masham.

In Masham, we popped in and out of a few sweet little local shops, where I picked up a tiny clay bowl and copper spoon for salt, and a pair of lovely wooden bookmarks depicting hawthorn and oak. (Now in little salt shaker vases on my hall table display for summer…I’ll share photos of that sometime soon.)

After a very satisfying meal at Johnny Baghdad’s Cafe, (the cocoa was so GOOD) we walked around the cemetery outside St Mary the Virgin, a Norman and medieval parish church. We very nearly went in, and then remembered it was Sunday and they were using the building for something beyond the architectural ogling we wanted to indulge in.