Beltaine (CTD)

Beltaine is a Festival of the Kithain that traditionally celebrates the beginning of the Seelie half of the year.

Overview

Beltaine is one of the two Great Festivals of the changeling calendar. It is a nighttime, Spring, fertility festival celebrating life and love. In the past the fae would go out into the fields and formed tame chimerical creatures into a line between bonfires lit from the local freehold's balefire.

The celebration once marked the beginning of the Seelie half of the year when the Unseelie kings and queens would turn over their power to the opposite court. Because of this, Beltaine traditionally stands for peace and friendship. The Night of Iron Knives stands as the greatest abuse of the Beltaine peace.

Beltaine also tends to see the formation of new romances, notable between nobles and commoners. The bonfires become site where passions run uninhibited. Many childlings are conceived during the celebration and such a conception is considered particularly lucky or favorable.

In The Shadow Court

For the Unseelie, Beltaine, like Samhain, is both a celebration and a wake, a beginning and an end. While the Seelie light bonfires in celebration of the summer’s fertile fullness, the Unseelie kindle their fires like lampposts to light the way of those fleeing the darkness that has taken hold in Arcadia.

The Unseelie, especially the satyrs and the sidhe, engage in licentiousness and revelry, but within the Shadow Court, other, more serious concerns take precedence over such things. In the bonfires of Beltaine, the Unseelie cast away all they no longer need, be it outmoded concepts or fading relationships. Beltaine is a time when oaths are sworn that last for a year and a day, when links are forged between opposites, when their dark legacies begin to examine their lighter aspects, and to throw off those parts of their darkness that they have worked through. The Summer sun warms the Seelie portions of their natures and, like the Seelie who embrace their Unseelie natures for one night at Samhain, at Beltaine the Unseelie taste their opposite selves, if only for a brief moment during the turning of the wheel.

Some among the Shadow Court merely play along with the giving and taking of power as they learn what the Seelie know of Beltaine. Within the next few years, they plan to usurp power for the duration of each year.

Rule of Conjunction

On certain days, the Dreamstuff in some materials becomes more potent. It is a good idea to harvest materials according to these dates. The following chimerical Dreamstuffs are most potent when gathered on Beltaine.

• All phoenix parts
• Lynx fur
• Bark of rare trees
• River water
• Hail
• All trees struck by lightning
• Hooves of all rare animals
• Sea foam
• Clam shells
• Dragon teeth
• Squirrel fur
• Corn
• Volcanic glass
• Leaves of rare trees

References

1. CTD. Changeling: The Dreaming Second Edition, p. 82.
2. CTD. The Shadow Court, pp. 45-46.
3. CTD. Dreams and Nightmares, p. 121.