Astronomy roots of May Day

Why do we celebrate May Day?
May 01, 2015
by Deborah Byrd in Blogs, FAQs » Human World, Science Wire

Happy May Day! A few words about this annual celebration, whose roots are in astronomy.

May Day. May 1 on the calendar.

May Day is an ancient spring festival in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s an astronomical holiday, one of the year’s four cross-quarter days, or day that falls more or less midway between an equinox and solstice – in this case the March equinox and June solstice. The other cross-quarter days are Groundhog Day on February 2, Lammas on August 1 and Halloween on October 31. May Day also stems from the Celtic festival of Beltane, which was related to the waxing power of the sun as we move closer to summer. At Beltane, people lit fires through which livestock were driven and around which people danced, moving in the same direction that the sun crosses the sky.