THE WORD for May, Bealtine, originally meant bright fire. “During the May festival, a great fire was lit to encourage the sun, and greenery was brought into the house symbolising the desire for future prosperity...”; so begins a press release for a new book, The Lore of the Land, an encyclopaedia of Myth, Legend and Romance, by Dáithí Ó hOgáin, associate professor of Folklore at UCD.