(Ger. Walpurgisnacht). The feast day of St. Walpurgis, an eighth-century English abbess, celebrated on May 1.

Halloweenlike Walpurgis Nights are celebrated at the reputed locale of the witches' sabbath, the peak of Mt. Brocken in the Harz Mountains. Faust attends one in Goethe's play, and FELIX MENDELSSOHN based his secular cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht in 1833 on this scene. HECTOR BERLIOZ presents a witches' sabbath in the final movement of his Symphonie fantastique. CHARLES GOUNOD includes a scene during Walpurgis Night in his opera FAUST.