The blue paint alludes to the woad used by Celtic warriors, but the Blue Man himself has come to act as the elder rather than the warrior archetype in Edinburgh’s Beltane Fire Festival.

The Blue Man’s role is both practical and spiritual. Queens come and go, the King is killed and reborn each year, but the Blue Man is constant. We keep the collected wisdom of the Court, the knowledge of the ritual, and maintain the order required by nature.

We lead the Court through a spiritual landscape primed with pitfalls to see the summer safely brought about with the death – and subsequent rebirth – of the Green Man.

Photo of Blues at a rehearsal by Ellen Duffy.