  May 1.] MAY DAY. The festival of May Day has existed in this country, though its form has often changed, from the earliest times, and we find abundant traces of it both in our poets and old chroniclers. Tollet imagines that it originally came from our Gothic ancestors; and certainly, if this is to be taken for a proof, the Swedes and Goths welcomed the first of May with songs and dance, and many rustic sports; but there is only a general, not a particular, likeness between our May-day festivities and those of our Gothic ancestors. Others again have sought for the origin of our customs in the Floralia, or rather the Maiuma, of the Romans, which were established at a later period under the Emperor Claudius, and differed perhaps but little from the former, except in being more decent. But though it may at first seem probable that our May-games may have come immediately from the Floralia or Maiuma of the Romans, there can be little question that their final origin must be sought in other countries, and far remoter periods. Maurice says (Indian Antiquities, vol i. p. 87) that our May-day festival is but a repetition of the phallic festivals of India and Egypt, which in those countries took place upon the sun entering Taurus, to celebrate Nature’s renewed fertility. Fa???? (phallos) in Greek signifies a pole, in addition to its more important meaning, of which this is the type; and in the precession of the Equinoxes and the changes of the calendar we shall find an easy solution of any apparent inconsistencies arising from the difference of seasons. That the May-festival has come down to us from the Druids, who themselves had it from India, is proved by many striking facts and coincidences, and by none more than the vestiges of the god Bel, the Apollo, or Orus, of other nations. The Druids celebrated his worship on the first of May, by lighting immense fires in honour of him upon the various carns, and hence the day is called by the aboriginal Irish and the Scotch Highlanders—both remnants of the Celtic stock—la Bealtine, Bealtaine or Beltine, that is, the day of Belen’s fire, for, in the Cornish, which is a Celtic dialect, we find that tan is fire, and to tine signifies to light the fire. The Irish still retain the Phoenician custom of lighting fires at short distances, and making the cattle pass between them. Fathers, too, taking their children in their arms, jump or run through them, thus passing the latter as it were through the flames—the very practice so expressly condemned in Scripture. But even this custom appears to have been only a substitute for the atrocious sacrifice of children as practised by the elder Phoenicians. The god Saturn, that is, Moloch, was represented by a statue bent slightly forward, and so placed that the least weight was sufficient to alter its position. Into the arms of this idol the priest gave the child to be sacrificed, when, its balance being thus destroyed, it flung or rather dropt, the victim into a fiery furnace that blazed below. If other proofs were wanting of Eastern origin, we might find them in the fact that Britain was called by the earlier inhabitants the Island of Beli, and that Bel had also the name of Hu, a word which we see again occurring in the Huli festival of India.—New Curiosities of Literature, vol. i. p. 229. See Higgins’ Celtic Druids, chap. v. sect. 23, p. 181; Household Words, 1859, vol. xix. p. 557; Tolan’s History of the Druids, 8vo, p. 115; Celtic Researches, 1806, 8vo, p. 191; Vossius, On the Origin of Idolatries: Essai sur le Culte des DivinitÉs GÉnÉratrices. Going a-Maying.—Bourne (Antiquitates Vulgares, chap. xxv.) describes this custom as it existed in his time:—On the calends, or first of May, commonly called May-day, the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn themselves with nosegays and crowns of flowers; when this is done they return with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph with their flowery spoils. In Chaucer’s Court of Love we read that early on May-day “Fourth goth al the court, both most and lest, to fetche the flowris fresh and blome.” In the old romance, too, La Morte d’Arthur, translated by Sir Thomas Maleor, or Mellor, in the reign of Edward IV., is a passage descriptive of the customs of the times. “Now it befell in the moneth of lusty May, that Queene Guenever Shakespeare likewise, alluding to this custom, says (Henry VIII. Act v. sc. 3), it was impossible to make the people sleep on May-morning, and (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act i. sc. 1) that they rose up early to observe May day. “If thou lovest me then, Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena, To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee.” And again: “No doubt they rise up early to observe The rite of May.”—Act. iv. sc. 1. May-dew.—This was held of singular virtue in former times, and thus in the Morning Post of 2nd May, 1791, we are told that the day before, being the First of May, according to annual and superstitious custom, a number of persons went into the fields and bathed their faces with the dew on the grass, under the idea that it would render them beautiful. Pepys on a certain day in May makes this entry in his Diary: “My wife away, down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash her face with.” May-games.—When Christianity, says Soane (Curiosities of Literature, p. 230), found its way into Britain, the same mode would seem to have been adopted in regard to the May-games by the wise liberality of the first missionaries that we see them employing in so many other cases. Conceding to the prejudices of the people, they did not attempt to root out long established characters, but invested them with another character as bees close in with wax the noxious substance they are Stow, too, in his Survey of London (1603, 4to, p. 99) has the following:—“In the moneth of May, namely on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweete meadows and greene woods, there to rejoyce their spirites with the beauty and savour of sweete flowers, and with the harmony of birds praysing God in their kind; and for example hereof Edward Hall hath noted that K. Henry the Eighth, as in the 3 of his reigne and divers other years, so namely on the seventh of his reigne on May day in the morning, with Qween Katheren his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies, rode a-maying from Greenwitch to the high ground of Shooter’s hill, where as they passed by the way they espied a company of tall yeomen clothed all in greene, with greene whoodes and with bowes and arrowes, to the number of 100. One being their chieftaine was called Robin Hoode, who required the king and his companie to stay and see his men shoote, whereunto the king graunting, Robin Hoode whistled, and all the 200 archers shot off, losing all at once, and when he whistled againe, they likewise shot againe; their arrowes whistled by craft of the It may seem strange, remarks Soane, that Robin Hood should be so prominent a figure in a festival which originated long before he was born, since we first find mention of him and his forest companions in the reign of King John, while the floral games of England, as we have seen, had their rise with the Druids. The sports of Robin Hood were most probably first instituted for the encouragement of archery, and it is not surprising if a recreation so especially connected with summer and the forest, was celebrated at the opening of the year—the opening, that is, so far as it related to rural sports and pleasures. By degrees it would become blended with the festival already existing, and in a short time, from its superior attraction, it would become the principal feature of it. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakespeare (vol. ii. p. 454), says the introduction of Robin Hood into the celebration of May probably suggested the addition of a king or lord of May. Soane, however, takes a very different view, being of opinion that the custom of electing a Lord and Lady of the May in the popular sports existed at a far earlier period—long indeed before the time of Robin Hood’s introduction—at the same time supporting his statement from a command given in the synod at Worcester, A. D. 1240, Canon 38, “Ne intersint ludis inhonestis, nec sustineant ludos fieri de rege et regina.” For an interesting account of the Robin Hood games see Strutt’s novel, Queen Hoo Hall (quoted in Book of Days, vol. i. p 580). Consult also Ritson’s Collection of Poems relating to Robin Hood (1853), and Brand’s Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. pp. 247-272. Morris-dance.—It is supposed to be of Moorish origin, and to be derived to us from Spain. Hence its name. The principal characters of it generally were Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Scarlet, Stokesley, Little John, the Hobby Horse, the Bavian or Fool, Tom the Piper with his pipe and tabor, the Dragon, of which we have no mention before 1585. The number of characters varied much at different times and places. See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. pp. 247-270, and Book of Days, vol i. pp. 630-633. Maypoles.—The earliest representation of an English maypole is that published in the Variorum Shakespeare, and depicted on a window at Betley in Staffordshire, then the property of Mr. Tollet, and which he was disposed to think as old as the time of Henry VIII. The pole is planted in a mound of earth, and has affixed to it St. George’s red-cross banner, and a white pennon or streamer with a forked end. The shaft of the pole is painted in a diagonal line of black colour upon a yellow ground, a characteristic decoration of all these ancient maypoles, as alluded to by Shakespeare in his Midsummer Night’s Dream, where it gives point to Hermia’s allusion to her rival Helena as, “a painted maypole.”—Book of Days, vol. i. p. 575.—See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. 1849, pp. 234-247. It was, says Hone (Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 556), a great object with some of the more rigid reformers to suppress amusements, especially maypoles; and these idols of the people were taken down as zeal grew fierce, and put up as it grew cool, till, after various ups and downs, the favourites of the populace were by the Parliament, on the 6th April, 1644, thus provided against: “The Lords and Commons do further order and ordain that, all and singular maypoles that are or shall be erected, shall be taken down and removed by the constables, bossholders, tithing-men, petty constables, and churchwardens of the parishes where the same be, and that no maypole be hereafter set up, erected, or suffered to be set up within this kingdom of England or dominion of Wales; the said officers to be fined five shillings weekly till the said maypole be taken down.” Accordingly down went all the maypoles that were left. The restoration of Charles II. however was the signal for their revival. On the very 1st of May afterwards, in 1661, the maypole in the Strand was reared with great ceremony and rejoicing. A contemporary writer (in Cities Loyalty Displayed, 1661, 4to) speaking of it, says, “This tree was a most choice and remarkable piece; ’twas made below Bridge, and brought in two parts up to Scotland Yard, near the King’s Palace, and from thence it was conveyed, April 14th, to the Strand to be erected [nearly opposite Somerset House]. It was brought with a streamer flourishing before it, drums The author of a pamphlet entitled The Way to Things by Words, and Words by Things, considers the maypole in a curious light. We gather from him, says Brand (Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 245), that our ancestors held an anniversary assembly on May-day, and that the column of May (whence our maypole) was the great standard of justice in the Ey-commons, or fields of May. Here it was the people, if they A mayor, he says, received his name from this May, in the sense of lawful power; the crown—a mark of dignity and symbol of power, like the mace and sceptre—was also taken from the May, being representative of the garland or crown, which when hung on the top of the May or pole, was the great signal for convening the people; the arches of it, which spring from the circlet and meet together at the mound or round bell, being necessarily so formed, to suspend it to the top of the pole. The word maypole, he observes, is a pleonasm; in French it is called singly Mai. In front of the spot now occupied by St. Mary-le-Strand anciently stood a cross, at which, says Stow, “In the year 1294 and other times, the justices itinerant sat without London.” In the British Apollo (1708, vol. i.) a writer says: It was a custom among the ancient Britons, before converted to Christianity, to erect these maypoles, adorned with flowers, in honour of the goddess Flora. Keysler, says Mr. Borlase, thinks that the custom of the maypole took its origin from the earnest desire of the people to see their king, who, seldom appearing at other times, made his procession at this time of year to the great assembly of the states held in the open air.—Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 246. Chimney-sweepers.—How or when the chimney-sweepers contrived to intrude their sooty persons into the company of the gay and graceful Flora upon her high festival does not appear. It is certain, however, that in London they have long observed the early days of May as an established holiday, on which occasion they parade the streets in parties, fantastically tricked out in tawdry finery, enriched with strips of gilt and various coloured papers, &c. With their faces chalked, and their shovels and brushes in hand, they caper the “Chimney-sweeper’s Dance” to a well-known Milkmaid’s Dance.—On the first day of May, says a writer in the Spectator (vol. v.), “the ruddy milkmaid exerts herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and, like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her.” These decorations of silver cups, tankards, and salvers were borrowed for the purpose, and hung round the milk-pails, with the addition of flowers and ribbons, which the maidens carried upon their heads when they went to the houses of their customers, and danced in order to obtain a small gratuity from each of them. Of late years the plate, with the other decorations, was placed in a pyramidical form, and carried by two chairmen upon a wooden horse. The maidens walked before it, and performed the dance without any incumbrance. Sometimes in place of the silver tankards and salvers they substituted a cow. The animal had her horns gilt, and was nearly covered with ribbons of various colours, formed into bows and roses, and interspersed with green oaken leaves and bunches of flowers.—Strutt, Sports and Pastimes, 1801, b. iv. p. 266. [44] At Baslow, in the county of Derby, the festival of kit-dressing is, occasionally, observed. The kits or milk pails are fancifully and tastefully decorated with ribbons, and hung with festoons of flowers and ornaments of muslin and silk, and with gold and silver thread. The kits are carried on the heads of the young women of the village, who, attended by the young men and preceded by a band of music, parade the streets, and end the day’s proceedings by a dance. Jour. of Arch. Assoc. 1852, vol. vii. p. 208. Pepys in his Diary, May 1st, 1667, says, “To Westminster; on the way meeting many milkmaids, with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and saw pretty Nelly [Nell Gwynne] standing at her lodgings’ door in Drury Lane in her smock sleeves and In a set of prints called the Tempest Cryes of London, one is called the Merry Milkmaid, whose proper name was Kate Smith. She is dancing with her milk-pail on her head, decorated with silver cups, tankards, and salvers borrowed for the purpose, and tied together with ribbons, and ornamented with flowers. Misson, too, in his Observations on his Travels in England, alludes to this custom. He says: On the 1st of May, and the five and six days following, all the pretty young country girls that serve the town with milk dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow abundance of silver plate, whereof they make a pyramid, which they adorn with ribbons and flowers, and carry upon their heads instead of their common milk-pails. In this equipage, accompanied by some of their fellow milkmaids and a bag-pipe or fiddle, they go from door to door, dancing before the houses of their customers, in the midst of boys and girls that follow them in troops, and everybody gives them something.—Ozell’s Translation, 8vo, 1719, p. 307. In Read’s Weekly Times, May 5th, 1733, occurs the following:—On May-day the milk-maids who serve the Court danced minuets and rigadoons before the Royal family, at St. James’s House, with great applause. The following lines descriptive of the milkmaid’s garland are taken from Every Day Book, vol. i. pp. 569, 570:— “In London thirty years ago, When pretty milkmaids went about, It was a goodly sight to see Their May-day pageant all drawn out. Themselves in comely colours drest, Their shining garland in the middle, A pipe and tabor on before, Or else the foot-inspiring fiddle. They stopt at houses where it was Their custom to cry ‘milk below!’ And, while the music play’d, with smiles Join’d hands and pointed toe to toe. Thus they tripp’d on, till—from door to door The hop’d-for annual present sent— A signal came, to courtsey low, And at that door cease merriment. Such scenes and sounds once blest my eyes And charm’d my ears; but all have vanish’d. On May-day now no garlands go, For milkmaids and their dance are banish’d. See Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, 1855-9; also Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 1562. May-gosling.—A writer in the Gent. Mag. (1791, vol. lxi. p. 327) says a May-gosling, on the 1st of May, is made with as much eagerness in the north of England as an April noddy (noodle) or fool on the 1st of April. “U. P. K. spells May-goslings” is an expression used by boys at play as an insult to the losing party. U. P. K. is up-pick, that is, up with your pin or peg, the mark of the goal. An additional punishment was thus: the winner made a hole in the ground with his heel, into which a peg about three inches long was driven, its top being below the surface; the loser, with his hands tied behind him, was to pull it up with his teeth, the boys buffeting with their hats, and calling out, “Up-pick! you May gosling!” or “U. P. K., gosling in May.” Berkshire.At Abingdon the children and young people formerly went about in groups on May morning, singing the following carol:— “We’ve been a-rambling all the night, And sometime of this day; And now returning back again, We bring a garland gay. Why don’t you do as we have done On this first day of May? And from our parents we have come, And would no longer stay. A garland gay we bring you here, And at your door we stand; It is a sprout well budded out, The work of our Lord’s hand. Why don’t you do, &c. So dear, so dear as Christ loved us, And for our sins was slain; Christ bids us turn from wickedness Back to the Lord again. Why don’t you do,” &c.— N. & Q. 4th S. vol. iii. p. 401. Buckinghamshire.In a MS. in the British Museum entitled Status ScholÆ Etonensis, A.D. 1560, it is stated that on the day of St. Philip and St. James, if it be fair weather, and the master grants leave, those boys who choose it may rise at four o’clock, to gather May-branches, if they can do it without wetting their feet; and that on that day they adorn the windows of the bed-chambers with green leaves, and the houses are perfumed with fragrant herbs. Cambridgeshire.Some derive May from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom they offered sacrifices on the first day of it; and this seems to explain the custom which prevails on this day at Cambridge of children having a figure dressed in a grotesque manner, called a May-lady, before which they set a table having on it wine, &c. They also beg money of passengers, which is considered as an offering to the Maulkin; for their plea to obtain it is “Pray remember the poor May-lady.” Perhaps the garlands, for which they also beg, originally adorned the head of the goddess. The bush of hawthorn, or, as it is called, May, placed at the doors on this day, may point out the firstfruits of the spring, as this is one of the earliest trees which blossoms.—Audley, Companion to the Almanack, 1816, p. 71. Cheshire.In this county the young men formerly celebrated May-day by placing large bidden boughs over the doors of the houses where the young women resided to whom they paid their addresses; and an alder bough was often placed over the door of a scold.—Lysons’ Magna Britannia, 1810, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 462. Maypoles are also erected, and danced round in some villages with as much avidity as ever.—Jour. of Arch. Assoc., 1850, vol. v. p. 254. Washington Irving in his Sketch Book says, I shall never forget the delight I felt on first seeing a Maypole. It was on the banks of the Dee, close by the Cornwall.In Cornwall this day is hailed by the juveniles as “dipping-day.” On May-morning the children go out into the country and fetch home the flowering branches of the white-thorn, or boughs of the narrow-leaved elm, which has just put forth its leaves, both of which are called “May.” At a later hour all the boys of the village sally forth with their bucket, can, and syringe, or other instrument, and avail themselves of a licence which the season confers “to dip” or well nigh drown, without regard to person or circumstances, the passenger who has not the protection of a piece of “May” in his hat or button-hole. The sprig of the hawthorn or elm is probably held to be proof that the bearer has not failed to rise early “to do observance to a morn of May.”—N. & Q. 1st S. vol. xii. p. 297. Borlase, in his Natural History of Cornwall, tells us that an ancient custom still retained by the Cornish is that of decking their doors and porches on the 1st of May with green sycamore and hawthorn boughs, and of planting trees, or rather stumps of trees, before their houses. Bond, in his History of East and West Looe (1823, p. 38), says:—On May-day the boys dress their hats with flowers and hawthorn, and furnish themselves with bullocks’ horns, in which sticks of about two feet long are fixed, and with these instruments filled with water they parade the streets all day, and dip all persons who pass them if they have not what is called May in their hats, that is, a sprig of hawthorn. A writer also in Once a Week (Sept. 24th, 1870), speaking of certain Cornish customs, tells us that dipping was admitted by the boys of Looe to be very great fun, and a May-day “The First of May is dipping-day, The Sixth of May is Looe’s fair day.” On the 1st of May a species of festivity, Hitchins tells us, was observed in his time at Padstow: called the Hobby-horse, from the figure of a horse being carried through the streets. Men, women, and children flocked round it, when they proceeded to a place called Traitor Pool, about a quarter of a mile distant, in which the hobby-horse was always supposed to drink. The head after being dipped into the water, was instantly taken out, and the mud and water were sprinkled on the spectators, to the no small diversion of all. On returning home a particular song was sung, which was supposed to commemorate the event that gave the hobby-horse birth. According to tradition the French once upon a time effected a landing at a small cove in the vicinity, but seeing at a distance a number of women dressed in red cloaks, whom they mistook for soldiers, they fled to their ships and put to sea. The day generally ended in riot and dissipation.—Hitchins, History of Cornwall, 1824, vol. i. p. 720. On the first Sunday after May-day it is a custom with families at Penzance to visit Rose-hill, Poltier, and other adjacent villages, by way of recreation. These pleasure-parties generally consist of two or three families together. They carry flour and other materials with them to make the “heavy cake” Derbyshire.Maypoles are to be seen in some of the village-greens still standing, and adorned with garlands on May-day. On this morning, too, the young village women go out about sunrise for the purpose of washing their faces in the May-dew, and return in the full hope of having their complexions improved by the process.—Jour. of Arch. Assoc., 1852, vol. vii. p. 206. Devonshire.At the village of Holne, situated on one of the spurs of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the property of the parish, and called the Ploy (play) Field. In the centre of this stands a granite pillar (Menhir) six or seven feet high. On May-morning before daybreak the young men of the village used to assemble there, and then proceed to the moor, where they selected a ram lamb (doubtless with the consent of the owner), and after running it down, brought it in triumph to the Ploy Field, fastened it to the pillar, cut its throat, and then roasted it whole, skin, wool, &c. At midday a struggle took place, at the risk of cut hands, for a slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing year on the fortunate devourer. As an act of gallantry the young men sometimes fought their way through the crowd to get a slice for the chosen amongst the young women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attended the Ram Feast, as it was called. Dancing, wrestling, and other games, assisted by copious libations of cider during the afternoon, prolonged the festivity till midnight.—N. & Q. 1st S. vol. vii. p. 353. In some places it is customary for the children to carry about from house to house two dolls, a large and a small one—beautifully dressed and decorated with flowers. This custom has existed at Torquay from time immemorial. Essex.At Saffron-Walden, and in the village of Debden, an old May-day song (almost identical with that given under The garlands which the girls carry are sometimes large and handsome, and a doll is usually placed in the middle, dressed in white, according to certain traditional regulations.—Illustrated London News, June 6th, 1857, p. 553. Gloucestershire.In the village of Randwick, hard by the Stroud cloth-mills, at the appointed daybreak, three cheeses were carried upon a litter, festooned and garlanded with blossoms, down to the churchyard, and rolled thrice mystically round the sacred building; being subsequently carried back in the same way upon the litter in triumphal procession, to be cut up on the village-green and distributed piecemeal among the bystanders.—Household Words, 1859, vol. xix. p. 515. In this county the children sing the following song as they dance round the Maypole: “Round the Maypole, trit-trit-trot! See what a Maypole we have got; Fine and gay. Trip away, Happy is our new May-day.”— Aunt Judy’s Magazine, 1874, No. xcvii. p. 436. Hampshire.In the village of Burley, one of the most beautiful villages of the New Forest, a maypole is erected, a fÊte is given to the school-children, and a May-queen is chosen by lot; a floral crown surmounts the pole, and garlands of flowers hang about the shaft. Hertfordshire.At Baldock, in former times, the peasantry were accustomed to make a “my-lord-and-my-lady” in effigy on the first of May. These figures were constructed of rags, pasteboard, old masks, canvas, straw, &c., and were dressed up in the holiday habiliments of their fabricators—“my lady” in the best gown’d, apron, kerchief, and mob cap of the dame, The observance of this usage was exclusively confined to the wives of the labouring poor resident in the town, who were amply compensated for their pains-taking by the contributions, which generally amounted to something considerable. But these were not the only solicitors on May-day; the juveniles of Baldock constructed a garland of hoops transversed, decorated with flowers, ribbons, &c., affixed to the extremity of a staff, by which it was borne, similar to those at Northampton and Lynn.—Hone, The Year Book, 1838, p. 1593. The following amusing account of the manner in which May-day was formerly observed at Hitchin is given by a correspondent of Every Day Book, 1826, vol. i. p. 565: Soon after three o’clock in the morning a large party of the townspeople, and neighbouring labourers parade the town, singing the Mayer’s Song. They carry in their hands large branches of May, and they affix a branch either upon or at the side of the doors of nearly every respectable house in the town. Where there are knockers they place their branches within the handles. The larger the branch is that is placed at the door the more honourable to the house, or rather to the servants of the house. If in the course of the year a servant has given offence to any of the mayers, then, instead of a branch of May, a branch of elder, with a bunch of nettles, is affixed to her door: this is considered a great disgrace, and the unfortunate subject of it is exposed to the jeers of her rivals. On May-morning, therefore, the girls look with some anxiety for their May-branch, and rise very early to ascertain their good or ill-fortune. The houses are all thus decorated by four o’clock in the morning. Throughout the day parties of these mayers are seen dancing and frolicking in various parts of the town. The group that I The Mayer’s Song is a composition, or rather a medley of great antiquity, and is as follows:— “Remember us poor mayers all. And thus do we begin To lead our lives in righteousness, Or else we die in sin. We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day, And now returned back again We have brought you a branch of May. A branch of May we have brought you, And at your door it stands, It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out By the work of our Lord’s hands. The hedges and trees they are so green, As green as any leek, Our Heavenly Father, he watered them With his heavenly dew so sweet. The heavenly gates are open wide, Our paths are beaten plain, And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again. The life of man is but a span, It flourishes like a flower; We are here to day, and gone to-morrow, And are dead in an hour. The moon shines bright, and the stars give a light A little before it is day. So God bless you all, both great and small, And send you a joyful May.” Huntingdonshire.In the village of Glatton, May-day is observed by the election of Queen of the May, and the making of the garland. The garland is of a pyramidal shape, and in this respect resembles the old milk-maid’s garland; it is composed of crown-imperials, tulips, anemones, cowslips, kingcups, daffodils, meadow-orchis, wallflowers, primroses, lilacs, laburnums, and as many roses and bright flowers as the season may have produced. These, with the addition of green boughs, are made into a huge pyramidal nosegay, from the front of which a gaily-dressed doll stares vacantly at her admirers. This doll is intended to represent Flora. From the base of the nosegay hang ribbons, handkerchiefs, pieces of silk, and any other gay-coloured fabric that can be borrowed for the occasion. The garland is carried by the two maids of honour to the May queen who place their hands beneath the nosegay, and allow the gay-coloured streamers to fall towards the ground. The garland is thus some six feet high. The following song was sung by “the Mayers” on May-day, 1865, in the village of Denton and Chaldecote, when they went round with their “garland”:— “Here comes us poor Mayers all, And thus do we begin To lead our lives in righteousness, For fear we should die in sin. To die in sin is a dreadful thing, To die in sin for nought; It would have been better for us poor souls If we had never been born. Good morning, lords and ladies, It is the first of May; I hope you’ll view the garland, For it looks so very gay. The cuckoo sings in April, The cuckoo sings in May, The cuckoo sings in June, In July she flies away. Now take a Bible in your hand, And read a chapter through; And when the day of judgment comes The Lord will think of you.”— N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. vii. p. 373. It is the custom at Warboys for certain of the poor of the parish to be allowed to go into Warboys Wood on May-day morning for the purpose of gathering and taking away bundles of sticks. It may possibly be a relic of the old custom of going to a wood in the early morning of May-day for the purpose of gathering May-dew.—N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. xii. p. 42. Kent.Sir Dudley Diggs, by his will, dated 1638, left the yearly sum of £20 to be paid to two young men and two maids, who on May 19th yearly should run a tye at Old Wives Lees in Chilham and prevail; the money to be paid out of the profits of the land of this part of the manor of Selgrave, which escheated to him after the death of Lady Clive. These lands, being in three pieces, lie in the parishes of Preston and Faversham, and contain about forty acres, all commonly called the Running Lands. Two young men and two young maids run at Old Wives Lees in Chilham yearly on May 1st, and the same number at Sheldwich Lees on the Monday following, by way of trial; and the two who prevail at At Sevenoaks the children carry their tasteful boughs and garlands from door to door. The boughs consist of a bunch of greenery and wild flowers tied at the end of a stick, which is carried perpendicularly. The garlands are formed of two hoops interlaced cross-wise, and covered with blue and yellow flowers from the woods and hedges. Sometimes the garlands are fastened at the end of a stick carried perpendicularly, and sometimes hanging from the centre of a stick borne horizontally by two children. Either way the effect is pleasing, and fully worth the few pence which the appeal of “May-day, garland-day! please to remember the May-bough!” makes one contribute.—N. & Q. 4th S. vol. iii. p. 424. Lancashire.In most places it is customary for each driver of a team to decorate his horses with gaudy ribbons on May-day. In Liverpool and Birkenhead, however, where some thousands of men are employed as carters, this May-day dressing has grown into a most imposing institution. Every driver of a team in and around the docks appears to enter into rivalry with his neighbours, and the consequence is that most of the horses are gaily dressed and expensively decorated. The drivers put on their new suits, covered with white linen slops, and sport new whips in honour of the occasion. Some of the embellishments for the horses are of a most costly character; not a few are disposed in most admirable taste; and in several instances they amount to actual art-exhibitions, since the carts are filled with the articles in which their owners deal. Real and artificial flowers are disposed in wreaths and other forms upon different parts of the harness, and brilliant velvet cloths, worked in silver and gold, are thrown over the loins of the horses; and if their owners are of sufficient standing to bear coats-of-arms, these are emblazoned upon the cloths, surrounded with many curious and artistic devices. Not only are the men interested in these displays, but wives and daughters, mistresses and servants, vie with each other as to In the Life of Mrs. Pilkington (Gent. Mag. 1754, vol. xxiv. p. 354) allusion seems made to this custom. The writer says, They took places in the waggon, and quitted London early on May-morning; and it being the custom in this month for the passengers to give the waggoner at every inn a ribbon to adorn his team, she soon discovered the origin of the proverb, “as fine as a horse;” for before they got to the end of their journey the poor beasts were almost blinded by the tawdry party-coloured flowing honours of their heads. In connection with this custom may be mentioned one practised at Gilmerton, in the parish of Liberton, county of Edinburgh. The carters have friendly societies for the purpose of supporting each other in old age or during ill-health, and with the view partly of securing a day’s recreation, and partly of recruiting their numbers and funds, they have an annual procession. Every man decorates his cart, horse, and ribbons, and a regular procession is made, accompanied by a band of music. To crown all there is an uncouth uproarious race with cart-horses on the public road, which draws forth a crowd of Edinburgh idlers, and all ends in a dinner, for which a fixed sum is paid.—Stat. Acc. of Scotland, 1845, vol. i. p. 12. The maypole of Lostock, a village near Bolton, in Lancashire, Lincolnshire.Formerly it was customary in some parts of this county to change servants on May-day.—Time’s Telescope, 1823, p. 118. A peculiar rustic ceremony used annually to be observed at Horncastle towards the close of the last century. On the morning of May-day, when the young people of the neighbourhood assembled to partake in the amusements which ushered in the festival of the month, a train of youths collected themselves at a place called the May-bank. From thence with wands enwreathed with cowslips, they walked in procession to the maypole, situated to the west end of the town, and adorned on that morning with every variety in the gifts of Flora. Here, uniting in the wild joy of young enthusiasm, they struck together their wands, and, scattering around the cowslips, testified their thankfulness for that bounty which, widely diffusing its riches, enabled them to return home rejoicing at the promises of the opening year.—Weir, Sketches of Horncastle. Dr. Stukeley, in his Itinerarium Curiosum (1724, p. 29), alluding to this custom, says there is a maypole hill near Horncastle, where probably stood an Hermes in Roman times. The boys annually keep up the festival of the Floralia on May-day, making a procession to this hill with May-gads (as they call them) in their hands. This is a white willow wand, the bark peeled off, tied round with cowslips. At night they have a bonfire, and other merriment, which is really a sacrifice or religious festival. Isle of Man.May Day is ushered in with blowing of horns on the mountains, and with a ceremony which, says Waldron, has something in the design of it pretty enough. In almost all the great parishes they choose from among the daughters of the most wealthy farmers a young maid for the Queen of May. She is dressed in the gayest and best manner they can, and is attended by about twenty others, who are called maids of honour. She has also a young man, who is her captain, and has under his command a good number of inferior officers. In opposition to her is the Queen of Winter, who is a man dressed in woman’s clothes, with woollen hood, fur-tippets, and loaded with the warmest and heaviest habits one upon another. In the same manner are those, who represent her attendants, drest; nor is she without a captain and troop for her defence. Both being equipt as proper emblems of the Beauty of the Spring and the Deformity of the Winter, they set forth from their respective quarters, the one preceded by violins and flutes, the other with the rough music of the tongs and the cleavers. Both parties march till they meet on a common, and then their trains engage in a mock battle. If the Queen of the Winter’s forces get the better, so as to take the Queen of May prisoner, she is ransomed for as much as pays the expenses of the day. After this ceremony Winter and her company retire, and divert themselves in a barn, and the others remain on the green, where, having danced a considerable time, they conclude the evening with a feast, the queen at one table with her maids, the captain with his troop at another. There are seldom less than fifty or sixty at each board. For the seizure of her Majesty’s person that of one of her slippers was substituted more recently, which was in like manner ransomed to defray the expenses of the pageant. The procession of the Summer—which was subsequently composed of little girls, and called the Maceboard [47] The maceboard (probably a corruption of May sports) went from door to door inquiring if the inmates would buy the queen’s favour, which was composed of a small piece of ribbon. Middlesex.London boasted several maypoles before the days of Puritanism. Many parishes vied with each other in the height and adornment of their own. One famed pole stood in Basing Lane, near St. Paul’s Cathedral, and was in the time of Stow kept in the hostelry called Gerard’s Hall. “In the high-roofed hall of this house,” says he, “sometime stood a large fir pole, which reached to the roof thereof—a pole of forty feet long and fifteen inches about, fabled to be the justing staff of Gerard the Giant.” A carved wooden figure of this giant, pole in hand, stood over the gate of this old inn until March 1852, when the whole building was demolished for city improvements.—Book of Days, vol. i. p. 576. See Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 612. A maypole was annually erected on May-day morning in Leadenhall Street, then called Cornhill, before the south door of the church known as that of St. Andrew the Apostle; and, in order to distinguish this church from others dedicated to the same saint, it was termed in consequence St. Andrew’s-Under-Shaft. [48] This pole, when it was fixed in the ground, was higher than the church steeple; and it is to this that Chaucer the poet refers when he says, speaking of a vain boaster, that he bears his head “as he would bear the great shaft of Cornhill.”—Stow’s Survey, B. ii. p. 65; Godwin and Britton, Churches of London, 1839. [49] Pennant, London (5th edition, p. 587), says this shaft gave rise to the insurrection. Godwin and Britton deny this was the case. [50] Hall, in his Chronicle, says these foreigners “compassed the citie rounde aboute, in Southwarke, in Westminster, Temple Barre, Holborne, Sayncte Martynes, Sayncte John’s Strete, Algate, Toure Hyll, and Sainct Katherines.” [51] Cholmondeley, constable of the Tower, discharged some guns into the streets, while the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey, collecting the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, restrained the violence of the populace.—Lyttleton, History of England, vol. ii. p. 167. [52] Of the pent-house, or shelving roof projecting from the main wall, by which the shops at that period were ordinarily protected, many examples, Godwin and Britton say, existed in their time. Brayley in his Londiniana (vol. iv. p. 318) says, nearly opposite to Craven Buildings is a low public-house, bearing the sign of the Cock and Pye (a contraction for the Cock and Magpye), which two centuries ago was almost the only dwelling in the eastern part of Drury Lane, except the mansion of the Drewries. Hither the youths and maidens of the metropolis, who, in social revelry on May-day threaded the jocund dance around the maypole in the Strand, were accustomed to resort for cakes and ale and other refreshments. May Fair.—This saturnalia was held by a grant of the Abbot of Westminster, “with revelry for fourteen days.” It took place annually, commencing on the first of May. The locality was anciently called Brook Field, the site of which is now covered with Curzon Street, Hertford Street, and Chesterfield House. Frequent allusions to the fair are found in plays and pamphlets of Charles II.’s time, and hand-bills and advertisements of the reign of James II. and his successors are in existence. May Fair was granted by James II., in the fourth year of his reign, to Sir John Coell and his heirs for ever, in trust for Henry Lord Dover, and his heirs for ever. Before 1704 the ground became much built upon, as we learn from the old rate-books, and in November 1708 the gentlemen of the grand jury for the county of Middlesex and the city of Westminster made presentment of the fair, in terms of abhorrence, as a “vile and riotous assembly.” The Queen listened to a petition from the bench of justices for Middlesex, and a royal proclamation, dated April 28th, 1709, prohibiting the fair (at least as far as the amusements were concerned), “May Fair.—At the Ducking Pond on Monday next, the 27th inst., Mr. Hooton’s dog Nero (ten years old, with hardly a tooth in his head to hold a duck, but well known for his goodness to all that have seen him hunt), hunts six ducks for a guinea against the bitch called the Flying Spaniel, from the Ducking Pond on the other side of the water, which has beat all she has hunted against, excepting Mr. Hooton’s Good Blood. To begin at two o’clock. “Mr. Hooton begs his customers won’t take it amiss to pay twopence admittance at the gate, and take a ticket, which will be allowed as cash in their reckoning; no person admitted without a ticket, that such as are not liked may be kept out. “Note—Right Lincoln ale.” Mr. Morley, in his History of Bartholomew Fair (1859, p. 103), after noticing the presentment of the grand jury in 1708 and the prohibition of May Fair, tells us that the fair was revived, and “finally abolished in the reign of George II. after a peace-officer had been killed in the attempt to quell a riot.” The statement, however, of the fair having been finally abolished in the reign of George II. is perfectly gratuitous on the part of the historian of “Bartlemy,” as it existed until near the end of another reign. Carter the antiquary wrote an account of it in 1816, and he says that a few years previously it was much in the same state as it had been for fifty years. This description, full of curious interest, was communicated to the Gentleman’s Magazine for March 1816 (vol. lxxxvi. p. 228). It has been reprinted in Hone’s Every Day Book, 1826, vol. i. p. 572; See Soane’s New Curiosities of Literature, 1867, vol i. p. 250, &c.; N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. x. p. 358. Northamptonshire.On the morning of May-day the girls from the neighbouring villages of Kingsthorpe, &c., bring into Northampton their garlands, which they exhibit from house to house (to show, as the inhabitants say, what flowers are in season), and usually receive a trifle from each house. The skeleton of the garland is formed of two hoops of osier or hazel crossing each other at right angles, affixed to a staff about five feet long, by which it is carried; the hoops are twined with flowers and ribbons so that no part of them is visible. In the centre is placed one, two, or three dolls, according to the size of the garland and the means of the youthful exhibitors. Great emulation is excited amongst them, and they vie with each other in collecting the choicest flowers, and adorning the dolls in the gayest attire; ribbon streamers of the varied colours of the rainbow, the lacemakers adding their spangled bobbins, decorate the whole. The garlands are carried from house to house concealed from view by a large pocket-handkerchief, and in some villages it is customary to inquire if the inmates would like to see the Queen of the May. Wherever the young people receive a satisfactory contribution they chant their simple ditties, which conclude with wishing the inhabitants of the house “a joyful May,” or “a merry month of May.” The verses sung by the Dallington children are entirely different from those of any other village, and are here subjoined:— “The flowers are blooming everywhere, O’er every hill and dale; And oh! how beautiful they are, How sweetly do they smell! Go forth, my child, and laugh and play, And let your cheerful voice, With birds, and brooks, and merry May, Cry out, Rejoice! rejoice!” When the Mayers have collected all the money they can obtain, they return to their homes, and regale themselves, concluding the day with a merry dance round the garland.—Every Clare, “the Peasant Poet” of Northampton, in one of his MS. ballads, describes the manner in which May-day is observed in his native village, Helpstone, near Peterborough, and the neighbourhood. His delightful ballad is printed by Miss Baker in her work already quoted (vol. ii. p. 423). “How beautiful May and its morning comes in! The songs of the maidens, you hear them begin To sing the old ballads while cowslips they pull, While the dew of the morning fills many pipes full. The closes are spangled with cowslips like gold, Girls cram in their aprons what baskets can’t hold; And still gather on to the heat of the day, Till force often throws the last handful away. Then beneath an old hawthorn they sit, one and all, And make the May-garlands, and round cuck a ball Of cowslips and blossoms so showy and sweet, And laugh when they think of the swains they shall meet. Then to finish the garland they trudge away home, And beg from each garden the flowers then in bloom; Then beneath the old eldern, beside the old wall, They set out to make it, maid, misses and all. The ribbons the ploughmen bought maids at the fair Are sure to be seen in a garland so fair; And dolls from the children they dress up and take, While children laugh loud at the show they will make. Then they take round the garland to show at each door, With kerchief to hide the fine flowers cover’d o’er; At cottages also, when willing to pay, The maidens their much-admired garland display. Then at duck-under-water They run with their dresses all flying abroad; And ribbons all colours, how sweet they appear! May seems to begin the life of the year. Then the garland on ropes is hung high over all, One end to a tree, and one hooked to a wall; When they cuck the ball over till day is nigh gone, And then tea and cakes and the dancing comes on. And then, lawk! what laughing and dancing is there, While the fiddler makes faces within the arm-chair; And then comes the cushion, And fly to the door from the old fiddler’s squeak. But the doors they are fastened, so all must kneel down, And take the rude kiss from the unmannerly clown. Thus the May games are ended, to their houses they roam, With the sweetheart she chooses each maiden goes home.” [53] Duck-under-the-water. A game in which the players run, two and two, in rapid succession, under a handkerchief held up aloft by two persons standing apart with extended arms. Formerly in this northern part of Northamptonshire even married women on May-day played at this game under the garland, which was extended from chimney to chimney across the village street.—Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854, vol. i. p. 204. [54] The cushion dance appears to be of some antiquity: it is thus mentioned by Selden in his Table Talk, under “King of England”:—“The court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing, first you have the great measures, then the Corrantoes and the Galliards, and this is kept up with ceremony; at length to French-more [Frenchmore] and the cushion dance, and then all the company dance—lord and groom, lady and kitchen maid, no distinction. So in our court in Queen Elizabeth’s time gravity and state were kept up. In King James’ time things were very pretty well. But in King Charles’ time there was nothing but Frenchmore and the cushion-dance, omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoite come toite.” In Playford’s Dancing Master (1698, p. 7) it is described as follows:—“This dance is begun by a single person (either man or woman), who, taking a cushion in hand, dances about the room, and at the end of the tune stops and sings, ‘This dance it will no further go;’ the musician answers, ‘I pray you, good sir, why say you so?’ Man. ‘Because Jean Sanderson will not come to.’ Musician. ‘She must come to, and she shall come to, and she must whether she will or no.’ Then he lays down the cushion before a woman, on which she kneels, and he kisses her, singing, ‘Welcome, Joan Sanderson, welcome, welcome.’ Then she rises, takes up the cushion, and both dance, singing, ‘Prinkum prankum is a fine dance, and shall we go dance it once again?’ Then making a stop, the woman sings as before, ‘This dance it will no further go.’ Musician. ‘I pray you, madam, why say you so?’ Woman. ‘Because John Sanderson will not come to.’ Musician. ‘He must come to,’ &c. (as before). And so she lays down the cushion before a man, who, kneeling upon it, salutes her, she singing ‘Welcome, John Sanderson,’ &c. Then he taking up the cushion, they dance round, singing as before, and thus they do till the whole company are taken into the ring. Then the cushion is laid before the first man, the woman singing ‘This dance,’ &c. (as before), only instead of ‘not come to,’ they sing, ‘go fro;’ and instead of ‘Welcome, John Sanderson,’ ‘Farewell, farewell;’ and so they go out one by one as they came in.” This dance was well known in Holland in the early part of the seventeenth century, and an interesting engraving of it may be seen in the ‘Emblems of John de Brunnes,’ Amst. 1624.—Nares’ Glossary (Halliwell and Wright), 1859, vol. i. p. 219. A native of Fotheringhay, Mr. W. C. Peach, relates that he was formerly accustomed to go into the fields over-night and very early on May-day to gather cowslips, primroses, wood-anemones, blue bells, &c., to make the garlands. The garland, if possible, was hung in the centre of the street on a rope stretched from house to house. Then was made the trial of skill in tossing balls (small white leather ones) through the framework of the garland, to effect which was a triumph. Speaking of the May-bush (a large tree selected for being tall, straight, full of branches, and if possible flowers), Mr. W. C. Peach says, “I have been looking out for a pretty bush days before the time, and if hawthorn and in blossom, then it was glorious. I have seen them ten or twelve feet high, and many in circumference, and they required a stalwart arm to carry and put them into a hole in the ground before the front door, where they were wedged on each side so as to appear growing. Flowers were then thrown over the bush and around it, and strewn as well before the door. Pretty little branches of whitethorn, adorned with the best flowers procurable, were occasionally put up, unperceived by others if possible, against the bed-room of the favourite lass, to show the esteem in which she was held, and the girls accordingly were early on the alert to witness the respective favours allotted them. Elder, crab-tree, nettles, thistles, sloes, &c., marked the different degrees of respect in which some of them were held.”—Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, vol. ii. p. 427. At Nassington they carry garlands about, and beg for money; in the evening they tie them across the street from chimney to chimney, and dance under them. Formerly married women used to amuse themselves by playing under them at the game of Duck-under-the-water. At Nassington a curious pasture custom also takes place on May-day. There is a large tract of meadow-land lying on the side of the river Nen, which the inhabitants of the [56] Vide Bridge’s Hist. of Co. of Northampton, 1791, vol. ii. p. 468. At Morton-Pinkeney the following song is sung by the children on May-morning:— “I have a little purse in my pocket, All fixed with a silver pin; And all that it wants is a more little silver To line it well within. The clock strikes one, I must be gone, Or else it will be day; Good morning to you, my pretty fair maid, I wish you the merriment of May.”— Ibid. p. 426. At Polebrook, on the last few days of April, the Queen of May and her attendants gather what flowers they can from the surrounding meadows, and call at the houses of the principal inhabitants to beg flowers, the gift or the loan of ribbons, handkerchiefs, dolls, &c., with which to form their garland. This being arranged on hoops, the young maidens assemble on May-morning, and carry it round the village, preceded by a fiddler; and the following quaint song—very similar to the one used at Hitchin, and thought from its phraseology to have been written in the time of the Puritans—is sung by the Queen and her company at the different houses, and a gratuity is solicited. “Remember us poor mayers all, For now we do begin To lead our lives in righteousness, For fear we die in sin. To die in sin is a serious thing, To go where sinners mourn; ’Twould have been better for our poor souls If we had ne’er been born. Now we’ve been travelling all the night, And best part of this day; And now we’re returning back again, And have brought you a branch of May. A branch of May, which looks so gay, Before your door to stand; ’Tis but a sprout, but ’tis well spread out, The work of our Lord’s hand. Arise, arise, you pretty fair maid, Out of your drowsy dream, And step into your dairy-house For a sup of your sweet cream. O, for a sup of your sweet cream, Or a jug of your own beer; And if we tarry in the town, We’ll call another year. Now take the Bible in your hand, And read a chapter through, And when the day of judgment comes, The Lord will think of you. Repent, repent, ye wicked men, Repent before you die; There’s no repentance in the grave, When in the ground you lie. But now my song is almost done, I’ve got no more to say; God bless you all, both great and small, I wish you a joyful May.” The garland is afterwards suspended by ropes from the school-house to an opposite tree, and the mayers and other children amuse themselves by throwing balls over it. With the money collected tea and cakes are provided for the joyous party. The Queen of the May takes her seat at the head of the tea-table, under a bower composed of branches of may and blackthorn; a wreath of flowers is placed on her head, and she is hailed “Lady of the May.” The attendants wait round her, the party of mayers seat themselves at a long table below, and the evening concludes with mirth and merriment.—Glossary, &c., p. 424. NorthumberlandThe young people of both sexes go out early in the morning to gather the flowering thorn and the dew off the grass, which they bring home with music and acclamations; and having dressed a pole on the town-green with garlands, dance around it. A syllabub is also prepared for the May-feast, which is made of warm milk from the cow, sweet cakes, and wine; and a kind of divination is practised by fishing with a ladle for a wedding-ring which is dropped into it for the purpose of prognosticating who shall be first married.—Hutchinson, Hist. of Northumberland, 1778, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 14. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne it was formerly usual on May-mornings for the young girls to sing these lines in the streets, at the same time gathering flowers:— “Rise up, maidens, fie for shame! For I’ve been four long miles from hame, I’ve been gathering my garlands gay, Rise up, fair maids, and take in your May!”— Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 219. Nottinghamshire.The May-day customs observed in this county are in many respects similar to those of other counties, but Nottinghamshire has the honour of being the parent of most of the happy sports which characterise this joyous period of the year, from the fact of most of the May-day games having had their origin in the world famous Robin Hood, whose existence and renown are so intimately connected with this district. His connection with “Merry Sherwood” and the Sheriff of Nottingham have been universal themes for centuries; and these and the “Miller of Mansfield” and the “Wise Men of Gotham” have done more towards making this county famous than all the rest of the ballads and popular literature put together. Maypoles and morris-dances were formerly very general, and the characters of Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, and the Hobby-horse were well sustained. The maypoles were sometimes very elegantly ornamented, and surmounted by flags and streamers of various colours. “It was my hap of late by chance To meet a country morris-dance, When, chiefest of them all the foole Plaid with a ladle and a toole; When every younker shak’t his hels, And fine Maid Marian with her smoile, Showed how a rascal plaid the voile, And when the hobby horse did wihy, Then all the wenches gave a tihy,” &c. May-day, although a day of general holiday and rejoicing, is nevertheless considered, as is the whole of the month, unlucky for marriage, and few are celebrated on this day; more weddings being hastened, so as to be over before this day, than postponed until June. This does not apply to divinations for future partners, for in some parts of the county it is usual to prepare a sweet mixture on the first of May, composed of new milk, cakes, wine, and spice, and for the assembled company to fish with a ladle for a ring and a sixpence, which have been dropped into the bowl; the young man who gains the ring and the young woman the sixpence being supposed to be intended for each other.—Jour. of Arch. Assoc. 1853, vol. viii. p. 234. Oxfordshire.Previous to the Reformation a requiem mass is said to have been performed every May-morning at an early hour on the top of Magdalen tower, Oxford, for the repose of the soul of Henry VII., who had honoured that college with a visit in 1486-7. The choristers continue to execute in the same place, at five o’clock in the morning of the same day, certain pieces of choir-music, for which service the rectory of Slimbridge in Gloucestershire pays the yearly sum of £10. The ceremony has encouraged the notion that Henry The following hymn is sung on the occasion of this ceremony: “Te Deum Patrem colimus, Te laudibus prosequimur, Qui corpus cibo reficis Coelesti mentem gratia. Te adoramus, O Jesu! Te, Fili unigenite! Te, qui non dedignatus es Subire claustra Virginis. Actus in crucem factus es, Irato Deo victima; Per te, Salvator unice, VitÆ spes nobis rediit. Tibi, Æterne Spiritus, Cujus afflatu peperit Infantem Deum Maria, Æternum benedicimus! Triune Deus, hominum Salutis Auctor optime, Immensum hoc mysterium Ovanti lingua canimus.” A correspondent of N. & Q. (2nd S. vii. p. 446) thinks this hymn was composed by Dr. Thomas Smith, a very learned fellow of Magdalen College, soon after the Restoration, and that it was not sung till about the middle of the last century. [57] Whilst making some researches in the library of Christchurch, Oxford, Dr. Rimbault discovered what appeared to him to be the first draft of the hymn in question. It has the following note:—“This hymn is sung every day in Magdalen College Hall, Oxon, dinner and supper, throughout the year for the after-grace, by the chaplain, clerks, and choristers there. Composed by Dr. Benjamin Rogers, Doctor of Musicke, of the University of Oxon, 1685.” It has been popularly supposed, says Dr. Rimbault, to be the Hymnus Eucharisticus, written by Dr. Nathaniel Ingelo, and sung at the civic feast at Guildhall on the 5th of July, 1660, while the King and the other exalted personages were at dinner; but this is a mistake, for the words of Ingelo’s hymn, very different from the Magdalen hymn, still exist, and are to be found in Wood’s Collection in the Ashmolean Museum. Dr. Rimbault, in a communication to the Illustrated London News (May 17th, 1856), speaking of this custom, says:—In the year of our Lord God 1501, the “most Christian” King Henry VII. gave to St. Mary Magdalen College the advowsons of the churches of Slimbridge, county of Gloucester, and Fyndon, county of Sussex, together with one acre of land in each parish. In gratitude for this benefaction, the college was accustomed, during the lifetime of their royal benefactor, to celebrate a service in honour of the Holy Trinity, with the collect still used on Trinity Sunday, and the prayer, “Almighty and everlasting God, we are taught by Thy Holy Word that the hearts of kings,” &c.; and after the death of the king to commemorate him in the usual manner. The commemoration service ordered in the time of Queen Elizabeth is still performed on the 1st of May, and the Latin hymn in honour of the Holy Trinity, which continues to be sung on the tower at sun-rising, has evidently reference to the original service. The produce of the two acres above mentioned used to be distributed on the same day between the President and Fellows; it has however for many years been given up to supply the choristers with a festal entertainment in the college-hall. It was also the custom at Oxford a generation ago for little boys to blow horns about the streets early on May-day, which they did for the purpose of “calling up the old maids.” “I asked an aged inhabitant,” says a correspondent of N. & Q. (4th S. vol. vii. p. 430), “how long the horn-blowing had ceased, and he replied, ever since the Reform Bill came in; but that he remembered the time when the workhouse children were let out for May-day early in the morning with their horns and garlands, and a worthy alderman whom he named always kept open house on that day, and gave them a good dinner.” “Calling up the old maids” no doubt refers to the practice of calling up the maids, whether old or young, to go a-maying. Hearne, in his preface to Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, alluding to the custom (p. 18) says:—“’Tis no wonder, therefore, that upon the jollities on the first day of May formerly the custom of blowing with, and drinking in, horns so much prevailed, which, though it be now generally disused, yet the custom of blowing them Aubrey has this memorandum in his Remains of Gentilisme and Judaisme (MS. Lansd. 266, p. 5):—At Oxford the boys do blow cows’ horns and hollow canes all night; and on May-day the young maids of every parish carry about garlands of flowers, which afterwards they hang up in their churches. At Combe, in the same county, troops of little girls dressed up fantastically parade the village, carrying sticks, to the top of which are tied bunches of flowers, and singing the following song:— “Gentlemen and ladies, We wish you a happy May; We’ve come to show our garlands, Because it is May-day.” The same verse, substantially, is the May-day song at Wootton, an adjoining parish. The last two of the four lines are sometimes as follow:— “Come, kiss my face, and smell my mace, And give the lord and lady something.” N. & Q. 3rd S. vol. vii. p. 425. At Headington, about two miles from Oxford, the children gather garlands from house to house. Each garland is formed of a hoop for a rim, with two half hoops attached to it and crossed above, much in the shape of a crown; each member is adorned with flowers, and the top surmounted by a crown imperial or other showy bunch of flowers. Each garland is attended by four children, two girls dressed in all their best, who carry the garland, supported betwixt them by a stick passed through it between the arches. These are followed by the “lord and lady,” a boy and girl, who go from house to house and sing the same song as is sung at Combe. In the village are upwards of a dozen of these garlands, with their “lords and ladies,” which give to the place the most gay and animated appearance.—Literary Gazette, May 1847. At Islip the children, carrying May-garlands, go about in little groups, singing the following carol:— “Good morning, mi-sus and master, I wish you a happy day; Please to smell my garland, Because it is the first of May.” Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 219. Shropshire.It has been usual for the people in this neighbourhood to assemble on the Wrekin hill on the Sunday after May-day, and the three successive Sundays, to drink a health “to all friends round the Wrekin;” but as on this annual festival various scenes of drunkenness and licentiousness were frequently exhibited, its celebration has of late been very properly discouraged by the magistracy, and is going deservedly to decay.—Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 599. Somersetshire.At Minehead May-day is observed by the celebration of a custom called “Hobby-horsing.” A number of young men, mostly fishermen and sailors, having previously made some grotesque figures of light stuff, rudely resembling men and horses with long tails, sufficiently large to cover and disguise the persons who are to carry them, assemble together and perambulate the town and neighbourhood, performing a variety of antics, to the great amusement of the children and young persons. They never fail to pay a visit to Dunster Castle, where, after having been hospitably regaled with strong beer and victuals, they always receive a present in money. Many other persons, inhabitants of the places they visit, give them small sums, and such persons as they meet are also asked to contribute a trifle; if they are refused, the person of the refuser is subjected to the ceremony of booting or pursuing. This is done by some of the attendants holding his person while one of the figures inflicts ten slight blows on him with the top of a boot, he is then liberated, and all parties give three huzzas. The most trifling sum buys off this ceremony, and it is seldom or never performed but on Staffordshire.At Uttoxeter groups of children carry garlands of flowers about the town. The garlands consist of two hoops, one passing through the other, which give the appearance of four half circles, and they are decorated with flowers and evergreens and surmounted with a bunch of flowers as a sort of crown, and in the centre of the hoops is a pendent orange and flowers. Mostly one or more of the children carry a little pole or stick, with a collection of flowers tied together at one end, and carried vertically, and the children themselves are adorned with ribbons and flowers. Thus they go from house to house, which they are encouraged to do by the pence they obtain.—Redfern, History of Uttoxeter, 1865, p. 262. Suffolk.Formerly in this county it was the custom in most farm-houses for any servant who could bring in a branch of hawthorn in full blossom to receive a dish of cream for breakfast. To this practice the following rhyme apparently alludes:— “This is the day, And here is our May, The finest ever seen, It is fit for the queen; So pray, ma’am, give us a cup of your cream”— Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 229. Surrey.In the parish of St. Thomas, Southwark, says Allen (History of Surrey and Sussex, 1829, vol. i. p. 261), there was an ancient custom for the principal inhabitants to meet and dine together annually on the first of May. This was called the “May-feast.” The gentleman who presided on the Sussex.In very early times May-day was celebrated with great spirit in the town of Rye; young people going out at sunrise and returning with large boughs and branches of trees, with which they adorned the fronts of the houses. About three hundred years ago the Corporation possessed certain woodlands, called the common woods, whither the people used to go and cut the boughs, until at length they did so much damage that the practice was prohibited. A few years ago here and there a solitary may-bough graced a house, but they have now ceased to appear altogether. A garland or two carried by little children, and the chimney-sweepers in their ivy-leaves, representing “Jack of May,” are the only relics of these May-day sports, so characteristic of merry England in former times.—Holloway, Hist. of Rye, 1847, p. 608. Westmoreland.At a village called Temple Sowerby it is customary for a number of persons to assemble together on the green, and there propose a certain number as candidates for contesting the various prizes then produced, which consist of a grindstone as the head prize; a hone, or whetstone for a razor, as In this county it is the practice, every May-morning, to make folks May-goslings, Worcestershire.The dance round the Maypole is kept up, says Cuthbert Bede (N. & Q. 1st S. vol. x. p. 92), at the village of Clent, near Hagley. WALES.About a fortnight previous to May-day the question among the lads and lasses is, “Who will turn out to dance in the summer this year?” From that time the names of the performers are buzzed in the village, and rumour proclaims them throughout the surrounding neighbourhood. Nor is it asked with less interest, “Who will carry the garland?” and “Who will be the Cadi?” About nine days or a week previous to the festival a collection is made of the gayest ribbons that can be procured. During this time, too, the chosen garland-bearer is busily employed. Accompanied by one from among the intended dancers who is best known At Tenby, says Mason (Tales and Traditions of Tenby, 1858, p. 22), it was customary for the possessors of a maypole to try and pull down those set up in other places. A watch was therefore set up round each. SCOTLAND.In some parts of Scotland, says Pennant, there is a rural sacrifice on May-day. A cross is cut on some sticks, each of which is dipped in pottage, and the Thursday before Easter one of these is placed over the sheep-cote, the stable, or the cow-house. On the first of May they are carried to the hill, where the rites are celebrated, all decked with wild flowers, County of Edinburgh.At Edinburgh about four o’clock in the morning there is an unusual stir; and a hurrying of gay throngs through the King’s Park to Arthur’s Seat to collect the May-dew. In the course of half an hour the entire hill is a moving mass of all sorts of people. At the summit may be seen a company of bakers and other craftsmen, dressed in kilts, dancing round a maypole. On the more level part is usually an itinerant vendor of whisky, or mountain (not May) dew. These proceedings commence with the daybreak. About six o’clock the appearance of the gentry, toiling up the ascent, becomes the signal for servants to march home; for they know that they must have the house clean and everything in order earlier than usual on May-morning. About eight o’clock the fun is all over; and by nine or ten, were it not for the drunkards who are staggering towards the “gude town,” no one would know that anything particular had taken place.—See Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 609. Fergusson the Scottish poet thus describes this custom:— “On May-day in a fairy ring We’ve seen them, round St. Anthon’s spring, Frae grass the caller dew-drops wring, To wet their ein, And water clear as crystal spring, To synd them clean.” Formerly the magistrates of Canongate, Edinburgh, used to walk in procession to church upon the first Sunday after Beltane, carrying large nosegays. This observance was evidently a modified relic of the ancient festival of the sun; and the original meaning of the custom must have been an expression of gratitude to that luminary, deified under the name of Baal, for the first-fruits of his genial influence.—Household Words, 1859, vol. xix. p. 558. The Highlands.On the first of May the herdsmen of every village hold their Beltein, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground, leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal, and milk; and bring, besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky, for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation; on that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulder, says, This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; and so on. After that they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals. This I give to thee, O fox! spare thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded-crow! and this to thee, O eagle! When the ceremony is over they dine on the caudle, and, after the feast is finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but on the next Sunday they re-assemble, and finish the reliques of the first entertainment.—Pennant’s Tour in Scotland, 1790, vol. i. p. 112. Perthshire.In Sinclair’s Stat. Acc. of Scotland (1794, vol. xi. p. 620) the Minister of Callander says:—Upon the first day of May all the boys in a township or hamlet meet on the moors. They cut a table in the green sod of a round figure, by casting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk of the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in size and shape, as there are At Logierait the 1st of May, old style, is chiefly celebrated by the cowherds, 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 raised all over the surface.—Ibid. vol. v. p. 84. Western Isles of Scotland.Martin, in his Account of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703, p. 7), speaking of the Isle of Lewis, says that the natives in the village Barvas retain an ancient custom of sending a man very early to cross Barvas river every first day of May, to prevent any females crossing it first; for that they say would hinder the salmon from coming into the river all the year round. They pretend to have learned this from a foreign sailor, who was shipwrecked upon that coast a long time ago. IRELAND.In the south-eastern parts of Ireland (and no doubt all over the island) a custom used to prevail—perhaps so still—on May-day, when the young people of both sexes, and many old people too, collected in districts and localities, and selected the handsomest girl, of from eighteen to twenty-one years of age, as queen of the district for twelve months. She was then crowned with wild flowers; and feasting, dancing, In Ireland, says Mr. Crofton Croker, May-day is called La na Beal tina, and May-eve neen na Baal tina, that is, the day and eve of Baal’s fire, from its having been in ancient times consecrated to the god Beal, or Belus; whence also the month of May is termed in Irish Mi na Beal tine. May-day is the favourite festival of the mummers. They consist of a number, varying according to circumstances, of the girls and young men of the village or neighborhood, usually selected for their good looks, or their proficiency—the females in the dance, the youths in hurling and other athletic exercises. They march in procession, two abreast, and in three divisions: the young men in the van and the rear, dressed in white or other gay-coloured jackets or vests, and decorated with ribbons on their hats and sleeves. The young women are dressed also in light-coloured garments, and two of them bear each a holly-bush, on which are hung several new hurling balls, the May-day present of the girls to the youths of the village. The bush is decorated with a profusion of long ribbons, or paper cut in imitation, which adds greatly to the gay and joyous, yet strictly rural, appearance of the whole. The procession is always preceded by music, sometimes of the bagpipe, but more commonly of a military fife, with the addition of a drum or tambourine. A clown is of course in attendance: he wears a frightful mask, and bears a long pole, with shreds of cloth nailed to the end of it, like a mop, which ever and anon he dips in a pool of water or puddle, and besprinkles such of the crowd as press upon his companions, much to the delight of the younger spectators. County Down.On the first of May from time immemorial, until the year 1798, a large pole was planted in the market-place at Maghera, and a procession of May boys, leaded by a mock king and queen, paraded the neighbourhood, dressed in shirts over their clothes, and ornamented with ribbons of various colours. This practice was revived in 1813, and the May-boys collected about £17 at the different places where they called: this defrayed the expense of a public dinner next day. Circumstances, however, occurred soon after which induced one of the neighbouring magistrates to come into the town and cut down the pole, which had been planted in the market-place.—Mason, Stat. Acc. of Ireland, 1814, vol. i. p. 593. County Dublin.On the first day of May in Dublin and its vicinity it is customary for young men and boys to go a few miles out of town in the morning, for the purpose of cutting a May-bush. This is generally a white-thorn, of about four or five feet high, and they carry it to the street or place of their residence, in the centre of which they dig a hole, and having planted the bush, they go round to every house and collect money. They then buy a pound or more of candles, and fasten them to various parts of the tree or bush in such a manner as to avoid burning it. Another portion of “the collection” is expended in the purchase of a heap of turf sufficient for a large fire, and, if the funds will allow, an old tar-barrel. Formerly it was not considered complete without having a horse’s skull and other bones to burn in the fire. The depÔts for these bones were the tanners’ yards in a part of the suburbs, called Kilmainham; and on May morning groups of boys drag loads of bones to their several destinations. About two or three miles from Dublin on the great Northern road is a village called Finglass. A high pole is decorated with garlands, and visitors come in from different parts of the country, and dance round it to whatever music chance may have conducted there. The best male and female dancers are chosen king and queen, and placed on chairs. When the dancing is over they are carried by some of the party to an adjacent public-house, where they regale themselves with ham, beef, whisky-punch, ale, cakes, and porter, after which they generally have a dance indoors, and then disperse. There is an old song relating to the above custom, beginning “Ye lads and lasses all, to-day, To Finglass let us haste away, With hearts so light and dresses gay, To dance around the maypole.”— Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 595. On May-day also, or on the preceding night, women put a stocking filled with yarrow under their pillow, and recite the following lines:— “Good morrow, good yarrow, good morrow to thee; I hope ’gain [by] the morrow my lover to see, And that he may be married to me; The colour of his hair, and the clothes he does wear; And if he be for me may his face be turned to me; And if he be not, dark and surly he may be, And his back be turned to me.”— N. & Q. 4th S. vol. iv. p. 505. |
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