Beltane saw 86x more Wikipedia readers than usual

What this article is

Beltane or Bealtaine is the Gaelic May Day festival, marking the beginning of summer. It is traditionally held on 1 May, or about midway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Historically, it was widely observed in Ireland, Scotland, Galicia and the Isle of Man. In Ireland, the name for the festival in both Irish and English is Lá Bealtaine. In Scottish Gaelic it is Là Bealltainn, and in Manx Gaelic Boaltinn or Boaldyn. It is one of the four main Gaelic seasonal festivals—along with Samhain, Imbolc, and Lughnasadh—and is similar to the Welsh Calan Mai.

Summary text from the Wikipedia article "Beltane", available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article.

Where editors were working

Wikipedia editors made 4 edits to this article on 2026-05-01, concentrated in these sections. This is evidence about the surge, not an explanation of it.

• Bonfires
• Historical customs

What changed that day

The article grew by 1,406 characters that day. The largest single addition was 1,406 characters to Historical customs. See everything that changed on 2026-05-01 in Wikipedia's own diff view — that is where the reason for a surge is usually visible, written and sourced by the editors who were following the story.

Rose at the same time

3 other articles that this one is connected to surged alongside it. What they have in common is left to you — the pageview record shows that attention moved together, not why.

• Labour Day Annual holiday to celebrate the achievements of workers
• International Workers' Day Annual celebration of workers and the labour movement
• May Day Festival marking the beginning of summer

How this was measured

Views are Wikimedia's own pageview counts for en.wikipedia, filtered to agent=user so automated traffic is excluded. The baseline is the median of the previous 60 days, which is used instead of the mean so that an earlier surge cannot flatten a later one. The multiple is the day's views divided by that median.