Lá Bealtaine: Walk Me out in the Morning Dew

The start of Bealtine - the Celtic Festival of welcoming in the Summer (astronomically 5th May this year)  which now coincides with May Day . A day of potency and magic, starting with the essential washing of the face in the dew - see extra for proper dew, I didn't actually immerse myself in dandelion heads.
This is why:

Those who worked charms were understood to be older women with supernatural powers, gained from invoking the devil or associating with the Good People. 

They obtained assistance from the Otherworld by crawling naked on May morning under an arch of briar then bathed naked in dew. 
Washing the face or rolling naked in May dew bestowed beauty as well as giving a resistance 
to sunburn, freckles, chapping and wrinkling of the skin in the following year. 
Dew was collected before sunrise by shaking long grass or herbs into a dish or by placing a clean cloth on the grass and wringing it out when soaked.




You will be relieved to hear only my face was naked.
For more visit this this excellent blog

Walk me out in the Morning Dew - heck, that was 1972!