A branch of May I bring to you,
Before your door it stands.[19]
The custom was so universal as to give rise to proverbial expressions.
Thus, in Italy, "to plant a May at every door" meant to be very
susceptible; and in France, to "esmayer" a girl was to court her.
Some of our readers may be surprised to learn that an offshoot of
this usage still exists in the United States; the custom, namely, of
hanging "May baskets." A half-century since, in Western Massachusetts,
a lad would rise early on May-morning, perhaps at three o'clock,
and go into the fields. He gathered the trailing arbutus (the only
flower there available at the season), and with his best skill made a
"basket," by the aid of "winter-green" and similar verdure. This he
cautiously affixed to the door of any girl whom he wished to honor.
She was left to guess the giver. The practice is still common in many
parts of the country, but in a different form. Both boys and girls
make "May baskets," and on May-eve attach them to each other's doors,
ringing at the same time the house-bell. A pursuit follows, and whoever
can capture the responsible person is entitled to a kiss. We do not
venture to assert that the latter usage is entirely a corruption of the
former.[20]
The term "May-baskets" is no doubt a modernized form of the old English
word "May-buskets," employed by Spenser.[21] _Buskets_ are no more
than _bushes_--that is, as we have already explained, the flowering
branches of hawthorn or other tree, picked early on the May-morn, and
used to decorate the house. It seems likely that a misunderstanding of
the word changed the fashion of the usage; the American lad, instead of
attaching a bough, hung a basket to his sweetheart's door.
A French writer pleasantly describes the customs of which we are
speaking, as they exist in his own province of Champagne: "The hours
have passed; it is midnight; the doors of the young lads open. Each
issues noiselessly. He holds in his hand branches and bouquets,
garlands and crowns of flowers. Above the gate of his mistress his
hand, trembling with love, places his mysterious homage; then, quietly
as he came, he retires, saying, 'Perhaps she has seen me.' ... The day
dawns. Up! boys and girls! up! it is the first of May! up, and sing!
The young men, decked out with ribbons and wild-flowers, go from door
to door to sing the month of May and their love."
Of the morning song and dance about the "bush," or branches of trees
planted as we have described, we have evidence in the words of American
rhymes. Thus--
As we go round the _mulberry-bush_,
_All on a frosty morning_.
In one or two instances, a similar refrain figures in the childish
sports of little girls, who have probably got it by imitation; in
others, it is the sign of an old May game.[22] An English writer of the
sixteenth century alludes to the morning dance in a way which proves
that these songs really represent the practice of his time.[23]
The playing of May games was by no means confined to the exact date of
the festival. The sign of a country tavern in England was a thorn-bush
fixed on a pole, and about this "bush" took place the dance of wedding
companies who came to the tavern to feast, whence this post was called
the _bride's stake_. Whether the thorn-bush was introduced into the
"New English" settlements we cannot say; but the dancing at weddings
was common, at least among that portion of those communities which was
not bound by the religious restraint that controlled the ruling class.
There were, as a French refugee wrote home in 1688, "all kinds of life
and manners" in the colonies. In the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 7th
May, 1651, the General Court resolved, "Whereas it is observed that
there are many abuses and disorders by dauncinge in ordinaryes, whether
mixt or unmixt, upon marriage of some persons, this court doth order,
that henceforward there shall be no dauncinge upon such occasion, or at
other times, in ordinaryes, upon the paine of five shillings, for every
person that shall so daunce in ordinaryes." While youth in the cities
might be as gay as elsewhere, in many districts the Puritan spirit
prevailed, and the very name of dancing was looked on with aversion.
But the young people met this emergency with great discretion; they
simply called their amusements _playing games_, and under this name
kept up many of the rounds which were the time-honored dances of the
old country.
The French writer whom we have already had occasion to quote goes
on to speak of the customs of the younger girls of his province--the
_bachelettes_, as they are called. "On the first of May, dressed in
white, they put at their head the sweetest and prettiest of their
number. They robe her for the occasion: a white veil, a crown of white
flowers adorn her head; she carries a candle in her hand; she is their
queen, she is the _Trimouzette_. Then, all together, they go from door
to door singing the song of the _Trimouzettes_; they ask contributions
for adorning the altar of the Virgin, for celebrating, in a joyous
repast, the festival of the Queen of Heaven."
This May procession, which has been the custom of girls for centuries,
from Spain to Denmark, existed, perhaps still exists, in New England.
Until very recently, children in all parts of the United States
maintained the ancient habit of rising at dawn of May-day, and sallying
forth in search of flowers. The writer well remembers his own youthful
excursions, sometimes rewarded, even in chilly Massachusetts, by
the early blue star of the hepatica, or the pink drooping bell of
the anemone. The maids, too, had rites of their own. In those days,
troops of young girls might still be seen, bareheaded and dressed in
white, their May-queen crowned with a garland of colored paper. But
common-sense has prevailed at last over poetic tradition; and as an act
of homage to east winds, a hostile force more powerful at that period
than the breath of Flora, it has been agreed that summer in New England
does not begin until June.
These May-day performances, however, were originally no children's
custom; in this, as in so many other respects, the children have only
proved more conservative of old habit than their elders. There can be
no doubt that these are the survivals of the ancient processions of
Ceres, Maia, Flora, or by whatever other name the "good goddess," the
patroness of the fertile earth, was named, in which she was solemnly
borne forth to view and bless the fields. The queen of May herself
represents the mistress of Spring; she seems properly only to have
overlooked the games in which she took no active part.[24]
A writer of the fifteenth century thus describes the European custom of
his day: "A girl adorned with precious garments, seated on a chariot
filled with leaves and flowers, was called the queen of May; and the
girls who accompanied her as her handmaidens, addressing the youths
who passed by, demanded money for their queen. This festivity is still
preserved in many countries, especially Spain." The usage survives in
the dolls which in parts of England children carry round in baskets of
flowers on May-day, requesting contributions.
Of this custom a very poetical example, not noticed by English
collectors, has fallen under our own observation. We will suppose
ourselves in Cornwall on May-day; the grassy banks of the sunken lanes
are gay with the domestic blooms dear to old poetry; the grass is
starry with pink and white daisies; the spreading limbs of the beech
are clad in verdure, and among the budding elms of the hedge-rows
"birds of every sort" "send forth their notes and make great mirth."
A file of children, rosy-faced boys of five or six years, is seen
approaching; their leader is discoursing imitative music on a wooden
fife, to whose imaginary notes the rest keep time with dancing steps.
The second and third of the party carry a miniature ship; its cargo,
its rigging, are blooms of the season, bluebells and wall-flowers;
the ship is borne from door to door, where stand the smiling farmers
and their wives; none is too poor to add a penny to the store. As the
company vanishes at the turn of the lane, we feel that the merriment of
the children has more poetically rendered the charm of the season than
even the song of the birds.
There is in America no especial song of the festival, though children
at the May parties of which we have spoken still keep up the "springing
and leaping" which mediæval writers speak of as practised by them at
this occasion. Popular songs are, however, still remembered in Europe,
where their burden is, May has come! or, Welcome to May! Pleasing and
lyric is the song of the "Trimazos," the lay of the processions of
girls to which we have alluded, though its simplicity becomes more
formal in our version of the provincial French:
It is the merry month of May, Winter has taken flight;
I could not keep my heart at home that bounded for delight:
And as I went, and as I came, I sang to the season gay,
It is the May, the merry May, the merry month of May!
E'en as I came the meadows by, the wheat-fields have I seen,
The hawthorn branches all a-flower, the oat-fields growing green;
O Trimazos!
It is the May, the merry May, the merry month of May!
Madam, I thank you for your coin, and for your courtesy;
It is for Mary and her Babe, and it is not for me:
But I will pray the Child for you to whom your gift is given,
That he return it you again more royally in heaven.
So, in the Vosges, young girls fasten a bough of laurel to the hat of a
young man whom they may meet on the way, wishing
That God may give him health and joy,
And the love that he loves best:
Take the May, the lovely May.
They ask a gift, but not for themselves:
It shall be for the Virgin Mary,
So good and so dear:
Take the May, the lovely May.
Corresponding to the French song from which we have quoted is the
English May carol, similarly sung from dwelling to dwelling:
Rise up the mistress of this house, with gold along your breast,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
And if your body be asleep, we hope your soul's at rest,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
God bless this house and harbor, your riches and your store,
For the summer springs so fresh, green, and gay;
We hope the Lord will prosper you, both now and evermore,
Drawing near to the merry month of May.
The frequent allusions of the earlier English poets to "doing May
observance," or the "rite of May," show us how all ranks of society, in
their time, were still animated by the spirit of those primitive faiths
to which we owe much of our sensibility to natural impressions. Milton
himself, though a Puritan, appears to approve the usages of the season,
and even employs the ancient feminine impersonation of the maternal
tenderness and bounty of nature, invoking the month:
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
Time, and the changes of taste, have at last proved too strong for the
persistency of custom; the practices by which blooming youth expressed
its sympathy with the bloom of the year have perished, taking with
them much of the poetry of the season, and that inherited sentiment
which was formerly the possession of the ignorant as well as of the
cultivated class.