Beltane & the Ring of Brodgar – Moonshine Mohair at Keldaby Farm

Sun, April 30

Today begins grimly. I have no email whatsoever. Verizon has dropped my account without the notification that I was lead to believe I would receive before I could proceed to opt for either a new address or stay with my current Verizon address to be administered through AOL. Jill and Jen have had a most unpleasantly cold and smelly night so another email is sent off to Rosemary. Soon her plumber cum handyman Jason arrives, diagnoses the problem as a clogged pipe due to the street construction just outside our door, covers the shower drain in the lower bathroom and, as all the stores are closed, promises to return the next day with the necessary parts. A good breakfast puts us all in a better mood.

A few views of our cottage

We spend the morning settling in and by the time we make our long-anticipated BLTs (Orkney bacon is to die for!) for lunch, the house is warm and cozy and the smell is gone; we are at last ready to begin our adventure.

In the afternoon Jill, Jen and I drive to the Tesco (supermarket) in Kirkwall to complete our shopping while Lynn stays home to learn how to knit netzpatent in the round (perhaps it is also called double brioche stitch??) with Michael.

Ever since we had set the dates for our stay in Stromness we have known that we would arrive in time for a Beltane ceremony at the Ring of Brodgar so just before 6 o’clock we head off for the Ring. Want to know more about Beltane, also called May Day or Walpurgis Night, see the link below.

https://www.goddessandgreenman.co.uk/beltane

This ceremony is meant to usher in the fertile, warm late spring season, halfway as it is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, but it is quite cold and so windy we expect to be blown at any moment straight off the hill and all the way to the Stones of Stenness. We number about three dozen brave souls! We lean into this frigid wind and try to hear what the priest and priestess are saying. Part of ceremony is to leap over a bonfire but we have to make do with a couple of candles in jars, which is probably a wise idea since a fire once started on this windy hilltop of dry heather would quickly rage out of control. Still, “leaping” between two jars with candles is a bit of a letdown!