Calan Mai, Hawthorn Blossom, and a Door Left Open
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Certain points in the old seasonal calendar feel less like dates and more like thresholds, and Calan Mai has always seemed to me to be one of the most enchanting of them.
Celebrated on the first day of May, Calan Mai marked the beginning of the bright half of the year in Wales - the loosening of winter’s hold, the return of warmth, and the full arrival of blossom, birdsong, and green growing things. Like Beltane elsewhere in the Celtic world, it was a fire festival and a liminal one, full of old customs designed both to welcome summer and to guard against whatever else might wander close on a night when the boundaries between worlds were said to thin.
Bonfires were lit on the hills. Cattle were driven through cleansing smoke. Yellow flowers were hung above doors for luck and protection. Maidens washed their faces in May dew. Hawthorn bloomed.
And threaded through all of that beauty was something just slightly more dangerous: the old folkloric understanding that liminal nights are never wholly tame, and that sweetness, in old stories, is often the first step toward enchantment.
That was the image that stayed with me while writing this year’s Calan Mai short story newsletter — moonlight in blossom-heavy branches, firelight on the hill, and the feeling of a gate standing briefly open between the mortal world and something older, stranger, and far more seductive.
The result is Where the Hawthorn Opens, a romantic fae folklore tale steeped in Welsh seasonal magic, hawthorn blossom, silver mist, and the perilous allure of stepping willingly into the unknown.
If that sounds like your kind of May Day enchantment, you can read the full story here:
I hope it brings a little blossom, wonder, and dangerous sweetness to your Calan Mai. 🌿✨
Here's to new chapters, ancient legends, and the stories that connect us all. Happy reading. 💙
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