Samhuinn Fire Festival

Last night, Samhuinn brought the old turning of the seasons to the top of Calton Hill. The Neid Fire opened the evening with a great ephemeral blaze. Smoke drifted across the hillside as the first performers emerged into the firelight. Soon the drumming rang out from all sides of the hill, a call to winter that set the procession in motion.

Samhuinn is the Beltane Fire Society’s modern reimagining of an ancient Celtic festival marking summer’s end and winter’s arrival. This year’s theme, Walk Beside the Darkness, placed the Cailleach, the ancient Crone and Goddess of Winter, at its centre. Her story invited us to walk alongside darkness and accept endings as part of the natural cycle of renewal.

The performers were a pleasure to follow around the hill, clearly relishing their roles. The Reds, painted as devils and cast as summer’s last embers, brought a final flush of wildness and mischief; the Cailleach’s slow circuit around the bonfire embers was suitably eerie and subdued. The drumming rolled across the hill from neighbouring performance spaces, sometimes claiming the air from the gentler traditional music, whose melodies offered a welcome change of pace. The final court ritual took its time, and a few spectators had already begun their descent before the Cailleach’s unveiling and dance. Following the performers did mean picking a very careful way over grass, gravel and uneven paths; finding your way by distant firelight was as much a part of the night's magic.

While Edinburgh’s lights spread out in every direction below, the fire and procession drew us into the old Celtic turning of the year, as we became revellers as much as witnesses. It was a strange pleasure to have both so close.

Samhuinn Fire Festival by Beltane Fire Society.