May 1 is the mid-point of spring and is the main fire festival of the year when pagans celebrate the coming of summer.

In Irish mythology, the beginning of the summer season for the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Milesians started at Beltane.

Great bonfires would mark a time of purification and transition, heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year, and were accompanied with ritual acts to protect the people from any harm by Otherworldly spirits, such as the Aos Sí.

Like the festival of Samhain, opposite Beltane on October 31, Beltane was also a time when the Otherworld was seen as particularly close at hand.

To this day Beltane is a key date for Pagan weddings, or handfastings, where Pagans pledge their love and committment to each other.

One Lancashire pagan said: "In the old Celtic calendar there were only two seasons – summer and winter. Halloween would have been the start of one year and May Day the midpoint.

"It is a time when Pagans traditionally jump the bonfire or broom as a sign of their committment to each other. There will be Pagan weddings taking place this year."

In a handfasting ceremony a couple's clasped hands are tied together with cord or ribbon hence the term tying the knot.

Vows can be made for a year and a day, a lifetime, for all eternity or for as long as love shall last.

According to Lancashire Folklore 1882, Beltane was traditionally celebrated across the North of England and beyond as a season of "hilarity, merry-making and good humour".

Lancashire Pagans will travel to Thornborough Henge in North Yorkshire for a festival of music and celebrations as they celebrate the coming in of summer and the "beauty and magic of the land we live in."

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