The Beltane Fire Festival is a beautifully crafted theatrical procession that ushers in the summer half of the year, and symbolically burns out the dark and dank remains of winter.     The May Queen, Maiden of Spring and Summer treads back upon the earth,  and Spring emerges.   Her consort, The Green Man dies with the winter and is re-born like the spring.   (Beautiful carvings of the Green Men in different stages of life can be found at the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel close by).    

Drums beaten by the lascivious red men beasties sound like thunder, the hill is ablaze with fire bearing elementals and the tension mounts from moment to moment.   Calton Hill becomes a vortex to another world.   Four hand maidens symbolically kill the Green Man, and remove his old winter garb.   The Green Man resurrects as a fresh green sapling.   The May Queen and the transformed Green Man wed.

The May Queen and the Red Men finally light the dual bonfires for all attending so they may pass between them for ritual cleansing and offerings for Spring.