BELTANE, BELTENE, BELTINE or BEAL-TENE (Scot.Gael. bealltain), the Celtic name for May-day, on which was held a festival originally common to all the Celtic peoples. The most important ceremony in later centuries was the lighting of the bonfires known as "beltane fires," which is believed to repre sent the Druidical worship of the sun-god. He who had the mis fortune to get the charcoal-blackened bit of the cake cooked at the fire became cailleach bealtine (the beltane carline)—a term of great reproach. In the north-east of Scotland beltane fires were still kindled in the latter half of the i8th century. Cormac, arch bishop of Cashel about the year 908, furnishes in his glossary the earliest notice of beltane. (See Trans. Irish Acad. xiv. pp. Ioo, 122, I 23.) The Highlanders have a proverb, "He is between two beltane fires." The derivation of the word beltane is obscure. Following Cor mac, it has been usual to regard it as a combination of the name of the god Bel or Baal or Bil with the Celtic teine, fire. Theories thereby connecting the Semitic Baal with Celtic mythology are now repudiated by scientific philologists, and the New English Dictionary accepts Dr. Whitley Stoke's view that beltane can have no connection with teine, fire. Beltane, Hallowmas, Candle mas, and Lammas were in ancient Scotland four quarter days.
For a full description of the beltane celebration in the Highlands of Scotland during the i8th century, see John Ramsay, Scotland and Scotsmen in the r8th Century (1888) ; also J. Robertson in Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, xi. 62o ; Thomas Pennant, Tour in Scotland (1769-7o) ; W. Gregor, "Notes on Beltane Cakes," Folklore, vi. (1895) , p. 2 ; and "Notes on the Folklore of the North-East of Scotland," p. 167 (Folklore Soc. vii. 1881) ; A. Bertrand, La Religion des Gaulois (1897) ; Jamieson, Scottish Dictionary (18o8) ; A. Mac bain, Celtic Mythology and Religion (1917) ; Cormac's Glossary has been edited by O'Donovan and Stokes (1862) .