To BELT, v. n. To come forward with a sudden spring, S.
Isl. bilt-a, bilt-ast, signifies, to tumble headlong.
BELT, part. pa. Built.
Douglas.
BELTANE, BELTEIN, s. The name of a sort of festival observed on the first day of May, O. S.; hence used to denote the term of Whitsunday.
Peblis to the Play.
This festival is chiefly celebrated by the cow-herds, who assemble by scores in the fields, to dress a dinner for themselves, of boiled milk and eggs. These dishes they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and having small lumps in the form of nipples, raised all over the surface. The cake seems to have been an offering to some Deity in the days of Druidism.—In Ireland, Beltein is celebrated on the 21st June, at the time of the solstice. There, as they make fires on the tops of hills, every member of the family is made to pass through the fire; as they reckon this ceremony necessary to ensure good fortune through the succeeding year.—The Gael. and Ir. word Beal-tine or Beil-tine signifies Bel's Fire; as composed of Baal or Belis, one of the names of the sun in Gaul, and tein signifying fire. Even in Angus a spark of fire is called a tein or teind.
BELTH, s.
Douglas.
This word may denote a whirlpool or rushing of waters. I am inclined, however, to view it, either as equivalent to belch, only with a change in the termination, metri causa; or as signifying, figure, image, from A. S. bilith, Alem. bilid, bileth, id.
To BEMANG, v. a. To hurl, to injure; to overpower, S. B.
Minstrelsy Border.
To BEME, v. n.
1. To resound, to make a noise.
Douglas.
2. To call forth by sound of trumpet.
Gawan and Gol.
Germ. bomm-en, resonare; or A. S. beam, bema, tuba. It is evident that beme is radically the same with bommen, because Germ. bomme, as well as A. S. beam, signifies a trumpet.