May Day in Padstow, on the north Cornish coast, is celebrated by an
ancient custom of peculiar interest. The whole town is _en fete_, the
ships in the harbour decked with flags, the people adorned with flowers.
The feature of the day's celebrations is the Hobby Horse Dance, or
procession, to two very old tunes. Until comparatively recent times the
Maypole was still erected each year in the town.
Padstow's two old May songs date from the Middle Ages, but they have
suffered much corruption in the course of time. Words and music have
been altered, but the version given here is from an old source, and,
owing to the irregularity of the metre of the lines, as in all
traditional songs, a considerable amount of ingenuity is called for on
the part of the singer to fit the words of the second and subsequent
verses--particularly of the Day Song--to the tune. But it can be done.
The May Morning Song has eighteen or more verses--each followed by the
chorus--all of which obviously cannot be printed here. There are a dozen
that begin "Rise up...," the name of the person before whose house it
is being sung being inserted.
The reference to "Un Ursula Bird" in the second verse of the Day Song
has a traditional reference to an old dame who, it is said, led a party
of Cornish women in red cloaks, headed by the Hobby Horse, in procession
round the cliffs in days gone by and so frightened away a hostile French
ship, whose captain mistook the women for soldiers. A similar story is
told of Fishguard in South Wales in Legend Land Leaflet No. 11.
[Illustration: THE MAY MORNING SONG (Sheet Music Page 1)]