"Walpurgis Night was when, according to the belief of millions of people, the devil was abroad—when the graves were opened and the dead came forth and walked. When all evil things of earth and air and water held revel." ~ Bram Stoker, "Dracula's Guest"

The other Halloween - exactly six months from All Hallow's Eve - is known as May Eve. April 30 is also known as Walpurgis Night. Beltane, which also corresponds to April 30/May 1, is one of eight solar Sabbats observed by pagans. The holiday incorporates traditions from the Gaelic Bealtaine, such as the bonfire, but it bears more relation to the Germanic May Day festival.

Ancient Celts recognized only two seasons of the year, summer and winter, and their pivotal dates, Beltane and Samhain, were very important for the world, both seen and unseen.

As with Halloween, the veil separating the world of the living and the dead was supposed to wear particularly thin at this time of year. In Medieval Christendom, it was not only Hallowe'en or All Souls' Day when a spooky atmosphere was cultivated, but on May Eve, among other nights of the year, it also was believed that the world of ghosts and fairies, and witches and shapeshifters, could spill over to our own.

The ancient Germans believed Walpurgisnacht (eve of the feast day of St Walpurga, 8th-century abbess in Germany) to be the night of a witches' sabbath on the Brocken, in the Harz Mountains. The Bram Stoker short story "Dracula's Guest" takes place on Walpurgisnacht. So does the horror of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch House." It features prominently in Goethe's Faust, and the children's book, The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs.

Like many once-popular traditions, dancing around the Maypole on May Day began to die out. In Celtic times, young people would spend the entire night in the woods 'A-Maying,' and then dance around the somewhat suggestive Maypole the next morning. Older married couples were allowed to remove their wedding rings for this one night.

In the mid-nineteenth century, May Day made a comeback, according to Stephen D. Winick in his Huff Post Holidays blog entry "The Faerie Month of May: Faerie Festivals and May Celebrations." This time, it was imagined as a tame but enjoyable frolic. People dressed in elaborate costumes as kings, queens, Robin Hood and fairies, re-imagining older May Day celebrations. "The lust, for the most part, was out, and family-friendly activities were in." From 1928 until 1960, Mayday was celebrated as Child Health Day, allowing schools and communities to promote health and exercise through the folk dancing and outdoor play already associated with the date

Rehearsing the maypole dance for May Day, health day excercises. Gees Bend, Alabama, 1939. Library of Congress Photo

You don't have to look too far to find a good family-friendly May Day celebration. The world-renowned quilters at Gee's Bend hold a May Day Festival at the beginning of May each year in a big open area not far from the old Boykin Mercantile Store and the post office. The festival includes quilting, along with other crafts, food, a parade, music and the maypole dance. Women from Gee's Bend in rural Wilcox County have been piecing together some of the world's most beautiful patchwork quilts and passing their skills down for generations.