Beltane cakes or bannocks, perhaps made of the grain of the sacred last sheaf from the previous harvest, and therefore sacramental in character, were also used in different ways in folk-survivals.  They were rolled down a slope—­a magical imitative act, symbolising and aiding the course of the sun.  The cake had also a divinatory character.  If it broke on reaching the foot of the slope this indicated the approaching death of its owner.  In another custom in Perthshire, part of a cake was thrown over the shoulder with the words, “This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; this to thee, O fox, preserve thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow; this to thee, O eagle.”  Here there is an appeal to beneficial and noxious powers, whether this was the original intention of the rite.[926] But if the cakes were made of the last sheaf, they were probably at one time eaten sacramentally, their sacrificial use emerging later.

The bonfire was a sun-charm, representing and assisting the sun.  Rain-charms were also used at Beltane.  Sacred wells were visited and the ceremony performed with their waters, these perhaps being sprinkled over the tree or the fields to promote a copious rainfall for the benefit of vegetation.  The use of such rites at Beltane and at other festivals may have given rise to the belief that wells were especially efficacious then for purposes of healing.  The custom of rolling in the grass to benefit by May dew was probably connected with magical rites in which moisture played an important part.[927]

The idea that the powers of growth had successfully combated those of blight may have been ritually represented.  This is suggested by the mimic combats of Summer and Winter at this time, to which reference has already been made.  Again, the May king and queen represent earlier personages who were regarded as embodying the spirits of vegetation and fertility at this festival, and whose marriage or union magically assisted growth and fertility, as in numerous examples of this ritual marriage elsewhere.[928] It may be assumed that a considerable amount of sexual licence also took place with the same magical purpose.  Sacred marriage and festival orgy were an appeal to the forces of nature to complete their beneficial work, as well as a magical aid to them in that work.  Analogy leads to the supposition that the king of the May was originally a priest-king, the incarnation of the spirit of vegetation.  He or his surrogate was slain, while his bodily force was unabated, in order that it might be passed on undiminished to his successor.  But the persistent place given to the May queen rather than to the king suggests the earlier prominence of women and of female spirits of fertility or of a great Mother-goddess in such rites.  It is also significant that in the Perthshire ritual the man chosen was still called the Beltane carlane or cailleach ("old woman").  And if, as Professor Pearson maintains, witch orgies are survivals of old sex-festivals, then the popular belief in the activity of witches on Beltane eve, also shows that the festival had once been mainly one in which women took part.  Such orgies often took place on hills which had been the sites of a cult in former times.[929]