MAY CELEBRATIONS
In these days, when so much is done to equalise the seasons, when in the
flower-shops spring treads on the heels of autumn, and Christmas windows
are gay with tropical fruits, when fresh meat is always on the stalls,
and the earth is tapped of its light and warmth to make up for the
absent sun, it is difficult to realise the delight and enthusiasm with
which our forefathers welcomed the yearly miracle of the spring. It
meant so much to them,—release from the cold and the darkness that fell
hardly on all but the rich; a feast of colour to eyes weary of winter
grays; luscious, varied, and plentiful food to palates dulled by salt
meat and pease-pudding. No wonder that the first hint of the sun’s
return at Christmas, and the fulfilment of the promise of spring at
May-day, were welcomed with an abandonment of joy to which our modern
festivals offer but a pale parallel. It is doubtful, however, whether,
even in the far-off days when the ceremonies possessed the highest
religious sanction and significance, they were celebrated with a finer
exuberance than in the comparatively recent times when this country was
still “merrie England.” Fetching in the May or going a-Maying was then a
most important festival, in which people of all ranks took part. Henry
VIII. himself rode a-Maying with Queen Katharine and his Court. Every
village had its May-pole, and the first of May was everywhere “the
maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year.” The celebration was
recognised by the Roman Church, the note for the 30th of April in an old
Calendar being, “The boys go out and seek May-trees.”[325] Chaucer
represents the whole Court as going into the fields “on May-day when the
lark begins to rise”—
To fetch the floures fresh and branch and blome.
And namely hawthorne brought both page and grome,
With freshë garlants party blew and white,
And than rejoysen in their great delight.[326]
The poet makes the whole Court pelt each other with flowers, “the
primerose, the violete and the gold,” but the general custom was to
bring home the branches and flowers as an adornment for the house. Even
the barns and the cow-byres were carefully decorated, long after the
primitive intention of the ceremony had been forgotten, and it had
degenerated into a licensed opportunity for revelry and love-making.
The two aspects of the celebration, the decorative and the amatory, are
charmingly illustrated in this lyric of Herrick’s:—
Come, my Corinna, come; and coming mark
How each field turns a street, each street a park,
Made green and trimmed with trees: see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch: each porch, each door ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is,
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street
And open fields and we not see’t?
Come, we’ll abroad; and let’s obey
The proclamation made for May:
And sin no more, as we have done by staying;
But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.
The lover of old customs owes little to the Puritans, for they did their
best to root them out, but he is certainly indebted to them incidentally
for some valuable evidence as to those same customs, not otherwise
attainable. Stubbs, a Puritan writer of the time of Elizabeth, thus
describes the setting up of the Maypole in his time:—“But their cheefest
jewell they bring from thence (the woods) in their Maie Poole, whiche
they bring home with greate veneration as thus: They have twentie or
fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed
on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole
(this stinckyng idoll rather) which is covered all over with flowers and
hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from top to bottome, and
sometimes painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men,
women, and children followyng it with greate devotion. And thus beyng
reared up with handkercheifes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they
strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up
sommer-haules, bowers, and arbours hard by it. And then fall they to
banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people
did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect
patterne, or rather the thyng itself.”[327]
“What adoe make our yong men at the time of May?” cries another Puritan
writer. “Do they not use night-watchings to rob and steale young trees
out of other men’s grounde, and bring them home into their parishe, with
minstrels playing before: and when they have set it up they will decke
it with floures and garlands and daunce rounde (men and women togither,
moste unseemley and intolerable, as I have proved before) about the
tree, like unto the children of Israell that daunced about the golden
calfe that they had set up.”[328]
Thomas Hall, another author of the same class, was also moved to
eloquence on the subject: “Had this rudeness been acted only in some
ignorant and obscure parts of the land I had been silent; but when I
perceived that the complaints were general from all parts of the land,
and that even in Cheapside itself the rude rabble had set up this ensign
of profaneness, and had put the Lord Mayor to the trouble of seeing it
pulled down, I could not, out of my dearest respects and tender
compassion to the land of my nativity, and for the prevention of like
disorders (if possible) for the future, but put pen to paper, and
discover the sinful use and vile profaneness that attend such
misrule.”[329]
As every one knows, the Puritans had their will of the May-poles, and
the Long Parliament in April 1644 decreed their removal as “a heathenish
vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickednesse.” They were
indeed reinstated after the Restoration and the old festivities revived,
but the Puritan epoch had left its mark upon the spirit of the people,
and May-day was never again quite what it had been, so that the
following lament by a writer of Cromwell’s time was not quite out of
date even when King Charles had again come to his own:—
Happy the age and harmlesse were the dayes
(For then true love and amity was found)
When every village did a May-pole raise,
And Whitsun-ales and May-games did abound,
And all the lusty yonkers in a rout
With merry lasses daunc’d the rod about.
Then Friendship to their banquets bid the guests
And poor men far’d the better for their feasts.
* * * * *
But since the Summer poles were overthrown,
And all good sports and merriments decayed,
How times and men are chang’d so well is knowne,
It were but labour lost if more were said.
In England the once universal joy-making on the first of May has
dwindled into a mere eleemosynary device, and every year takes away
something even from this poor survival. We are only reminded of the day
in London by here and there a peripatetic Jack-in-the-Green with his
retinue of begging clowns, by the gay ribbons on a few draught horses,
and by the newspaper reports of the election of Mr. Ruskin’s May-queen
at Whitelands College. But in many old-world towns and villages
throughout the country the children still carry round wands, with
bunches of flowers tied to them, or garlands, consisting of a little
bower fashioned out of two crossed hoops, hidden in flowers, with a doll
seated in the centre. The obvious intention of this pretty custom is the
collection of coppers, which no one will grudge. It is, so to say, a
religious ceremony, whereof only the collection has survived, as the
following old rhyme sufficiently illustrates:—
Gentlemen and ladies!
We wish you happy May;
We’ve come to show our garlands,
Because it is May-day;
Come, kiss my face, and smell my mace,
And give the lord and lady something.[330]
In place of the final couplet it was sometimes the custom of one of the
bearers to say, “Please to handsel the lord and lady’s purse.”
The practice once current in the North of England of going into the
woods on the first of May, “when the day begins to break,” and bringing
home “knots of flowers and buds and garlands gay” wherewith to adorn the
windows and doors of the houses at sunrise, is illustrated in the
following doggrel, which used to be sung in the streets of
Newcastle-on-Tyne:[331]—
Rise up, maidens, fie for shame!
For I’ve been four long miles from hame;
I’ve been gathering my garland gay,
Rise up, fair maids, and take in your May.
It now remains to trace back these ceremonies—these survivals—to their
origin, and to show how once they were the essential outcome of a living
creed, and had a serious, and, so to speak, sacramental
significance.[332] The May-day celebrations combined three different
usages. _First_, the bringing in of the May and the decoration of the
homestead. _Secondly_, the planting of the May-pole and the dancing
around it. _Thirdly_, the selection of some youth or maiden as King or
Queen of the May.
(1) The custom of going to the woods to fetch in the May is not by any
means peculiar to England. It was until recently very general throughout
Europe, and still survives in many districts, though sometimes
Whitsuntide or Midsummer is the date chosen for the ceremony. This wide
distribution at once stamps it as an ancient observance, and indeed it
was already represented as such so long ago as the thirteenth
century.[333] In some districts the branches that were brought in were
fastened over the house door or upon the roof, or planted in front of
the cattle stalls, a separate bush being attached for each head of
cattle. Here the acknowledged purpose was to make the cows good milkers.
“They fancy,” says a writer on the manners of the Irish, “that a green
bough fastened on May-day against the house will produce plenty of milk
that summer.”[334] In other districts the May-bushes were decorated with
nosegays and ribbons and carried in solemn procession from house to
house, the bearers singing a song and collecting their recompense in a
basket. In some parts of Sweden on May-day eve boys still go round at
the heels of the village fiddler, each with a bunch of freshly-gathered
birch-twigs, singing songs in which fine weather, good harvests, and
other blessings are entreated. At every cottage where they are duly
compensated for their pains they adorn the door with one of their
birch-sprays. In Stockholm on St. John’s eve miniature May-poles, known
as Majstänger, are sold by the thousand.[335] In Russia the custom of
decking the houses with branches at Whitsuntide is universal.[336]
Similar instances might be multiplied indefinitely.
Much light has been thrown on these May-day ceremonies by the study of
many cognate observances met with amongst different nations and at
different periods. In Western Germany and over the greater part of
France it is customary at harvest-time to select a green sapling or
branch, adorn it with flowers, ribbons, and coloured paper, and hang it
with harvest fruits, eggs, cakes, and sweetmeats, and sometimes even
with sausages, rolls of tobacco, rings, needles, etc. Often bottles of
wine or beer are also suspended to it. It is known as the May,
harvest-May, _bouquet de la moisson_, and it is frequently set up in the
field which is in process of cutting. When the reaping is over it is
brought home on the last sheaf or on the last load, or is borne by a
harvestman seated on the waggon or walking before it. On its arrival at
the homestead it is solemnly welcomed by the farmer, and attached to
some conspicuous spot on the barn or house. Here it remains for a year
until replaced by its successor. Another feature of the ceremony, which
is no doubt of the nature of a rain charm, consists in the drenching of
the May and its bearers with water, or in the sprinkling of them with
wine. A variant of this observance is met with in other parts of Europe,
where at some date after harvest the farmer causes a lofty pole, dressed
with ribbons and hung with handkerchiefs, articles of clothing, cakes,
fruit, etc., to be erected in his field. The labourers then climb or
race for the prizes.[337]
There can be no question as to the antiquity of these customs.
Mannhardt, who has carefully studied the subject, finds a most
remarkable similarity between the harvest festivals of ancient Greece
and those of modern Europe. The _eiresione_ or harvest-bush of the
Greeks, which is reproduced “with almost photographic exactness” in the
harvest-May above described,[338] was a branch of olive or laurel, bound
with red and white wool, and hung with ribbons, the finest
harvest-fruits, cakes, and jars of honey, oil, and wine. It was carried
in solemn procession with choral songs, at the Thargelia or feast of
first-fruits in the late spring, and at the Pyanepsia or true
harvest-festival in the early autumn, its destination at the former
festival being the temple of Athena Polias, at the latter that of
Apollo. It was planted before the door of the temple, the contents of
the jars attached to it were poured over it, and the following lines
were sung: “_Eiresione_ brings figs and plump loaves, and honey in jars,
and oil wherewith to anoint yourself, and cups of wine unwatered, that
you may drink yourself to sleep.”[339] In addition to this official
ceremony each landowner who grew corn and fruit held his own festival,
the _eiresione_ in that case being suspended or fastened before his
house-door, or placed inside the house beside the ancestral images.
There it remained for a twelve-month, until on the bringing home of the
next year’s branch it was taken down and burnt. It was to this private
_eiresione_ that the familiar passages in Aristophanes allude. Demos
hearing a noise at his front door, jumps to the conclusion that a street
brawl is imminent: “Who’s making that hullaballoo?” he cries; “away from
my door. What, will ye tear down my _eiresione_?”[340] His dread is that
his harvest-branch will be requisitioned as a weapon of offence, a
possible application of it also alluded to by the poet in another
passage.[341] Elsewhere it is jestingly said of a dried-up old woman,
that if a spark fell on her, she would burn up like an old
_eiresione_,[342] a comparison which throws light on the mode of
disposing of the last year’s branch.
The _Oschophoria_, or carrying in procession of the _oschos_, a
vine-branch with the ripe grapes upon it, was another of the Athenian
harvest festivals, and is interesting in the present connection from its
being associated, like some modern harvest observances, with a racing
competition.
These festivals, which were probably of prehistoric origin, were in
classical times sanctified for the popular mind by being linked with and
accounted for by some legendary event which appealed to the patriotic
sentiment. But in spite of this they would appear in course of time to
have undergone something of the same debasement as our own May
observances, and degenerated into a begging procession from door to
door. At any rate the word _eiresione_, originally applied to the
festival hymn as well as to the branch, became in later times the
general name for all begging-songs. Initially, however, the _eiresione_
was, no doubt, a symbolical representation of the genius of vegetation,
and as such was addressed as a person.[343]
Traced to its remote origin, there can be little doubt that the ceremony
of bringing in the May arose from a similar process of reasoning. The
gods or spirits of those far-off times had their habitation, or at least
manifested their activity, in the tree. The gifts of rain and sunshine
were in their hands. They made the crops to grow, the herds to multiply,
and women to give increase. According to Aeneas Sylvius, the Lithuanians
believed that their sacred groves were the house of the god who gave
them rain and sunshine.[344] In Circassia the pear-tree is still
regarded as the protector of cattle, and in the autumn is cut down,
carried home, and worshipped as a god.[345] In many countries trees are
held to have the power of helping women in childbirth.[346] It was
therefore no more unnatural for an ignorant peasantry to believe that
the same power and influence existed in the cut branches of trees than
it is for a modern uncultured Catholic to expect help from sacred
relics. In each case the process of thought is the same. Eventually the
ceremony of carrying the branch round the village, the primitive purpose
of which was to make each house a sharer in the benevolent offices of
the tree-spirit, degenerated into a meaningless observance, a pretext
for indulging in festivities and levying contributions. But there can be
no doubt that the securing of fertility and abundance, together with the
supply of rain and sunshine necessary thereto, was originally the
root-idea of the worldwide spring observances.
(2) The custom of setting up the May-pole on the village green had, no
doubt, a similar genesis. It represented for the community what the
May-day decoration of the house represented for the family. In parts of
Europe the pole is sometimes planted in front of the Mayor’s or
Burgomaster’s house.[347] The intention, evidently, was to bring to the
village as a whole the newly-quickened generative spirit resident in the
woods. The custom of cutting down a tree, decorating it with garlands
and ribbons, re-erecting it, and fêting it with dance and song, has
prevailed in almost every country in the world. In some instances it is
further dressed as a mortal, or a human image is attached to it, as in
the Attis rites, testifying to the anthropomorphic conception of the
tree-spirit. The doll placed in the centre of the children’s May
garlands would seem to be a survival of this custom. The same feature of
the celebration is illustrated most clearly in the Greek festival of the
little Daedala, which may be regarded as “a classical equivalent of an
English May-day in the olden time.”[348] The festival was inaugurated in
an ancient oak-forest. Cooked meat was placed upon the ground and the
movements of the birds which came to feed upon it were carefully
observed. The tree upon which a bird was first observed to alight with
the meat in its bill was cut down, carved into the image of a woman, and
dressed as a bride. It was then placed upon a cart and drawn in
procession with singing and dancing. It must be added that Mr. Farnell
regards this festival as a survival from prehistoric times of the
processional ceremony of the “sacred marriage” between Zeus and Hera,
which may possibly have been symbolical of the marriage of earth and
heaven in spring.[349]
In the case of our own May-pole, it was originally, no doubt, the custom
to erect a fresh tree every year, in order that the newly-awakened
energy of the forest might be communicated to the village, and in many
parts this feature of the custom appears to have survived, as we may
gather from the Puritan accounts above quoted. Elsewhere, as the
intention of the ceremony was lost sight of, a permanent May-pole was
substituted for the annual tree, and was converted on May-day, by means
of garlands and flowers, into the semblance of a living growth. The
May-tree of the German village, for instance, is a permanent
construction, made up of several tall trunks.[350] On May-day, cakes,
sausages, eggs, and other desirable things are hung upon it, the
villagers dance around it, and the young men climb it to secured its
gifts. In some parts the May-pole is surmounted by a cross, and the
symbol of a dead faith is consecrated by that of a living one.
Yet the old faith long left its traces in several quaint observances.
Amongst the Wends of the Elbe the cattle were driven every year round
the village tree. The bride imported from another village must dance
around it and pay it her footing. The wounded villager also gave it
money and got himself healed by rubbing himself against it.[351] Such
usages are only intelligible on the theory that the tree was once
seriously believed to be the local habitation of a spirit, who
concentrated in himself the marvellous fruitfulness and healing
beneficence of nature.
The custom so often met with on the Continent[352] of attaching a young
sapling or a branch to the roof of a house newly built, or in process of
erection, is another survival, descended, no doubt, from the ancient
belief in the benign influence of the tree-inhabiting spirit. In some
places it is usual to decorate the bough with flowers, ribbons, and
strings of eggs, which last are clearly intended to symbolise the
life-giving power assumed to be the spirit’s special attribute.
(3) But the conception which underlay and actuated the May celebrations
is illustrated still more clearly by their third feature—the choice of a
youth or maiden, or both, to personify the reawakened and rejoicing
nature. A great deal of evidence on this subject has been collected by
Mannhardt and Frazer, which can only be briefly summarised here. In the
case of the begging processions with May-trees or May-boughs from door
to door, it was once really believed that the good genius of growth was
present unseen in the bough. But often he was represented in addition by
a man dressed in green leaves and flowers, or by a girl similarly
adorned, who being looked upon as an actual representative of the spirit
of vegetation, was supposed to produce the same beneficial effects on
the fowls, the fruit-trees, and the crops as the presence of the deity
himself. “The names May, Father May, May Lady, Queen of the May, by
which the anthropomorphic spirit of vegetation is often denoted, show
that the conception of the spirit of vegetation is blent with a
personification of the season at which his powers are most strikingly
manifested.”[353]
In some cases the human representative of the tree-spirit goes hand in
hand with his vegetable representative, the tree or branch. The former
may be merely a doll or puppet, as in the Lady of the May of our own May
garlands, or it may be a chosen youth or girl, who carries a miniature
May-tree, or is throned beside the May-pole, or dances around it, clad
in leafy garments. Sometimes the chief actor in the ceremony is ducked
in a pond or drenched with water, or, as is still the case in some parts
of Ireland, carries a pail of water and a mop to distribute its
contents, with the idea of ensuring rain by a sort of sympathetic magic.
In other cases the tree disappears from the celebration, and the whole
burden of representing its indwelling spirit falls upon its human
substitute, who in such event is almost always swathed in leaves or
flowers. The Green George of Carinthia[354] and our own
Jack-in-the-Green are instances of this custom. The pence collected no
doubt represent what was once a willing contribution for services
presumably useful and worthy of reward.
The custom of electing a King or Queen of the May is very general
throughout Europe.[355] The original purpose was, no doubt, to personify
the regal character of the spirit who ruled the woods, but in other
cases the representative is termed a Bridegroom or Bride, emphasising
another attribute of the deity. In England the crowning of the May-queen
closed the long day’s ceremonies, and the young people who had been up
before sunrise to bring in the May, and had danced all day upon the
village green, ended their pleasant labours at sundown with this
graceful observance.
In some instances _two_ representatives of the spirit of vegetation were
chosen, under the names of King and Queen, or Prince and Princess, or
Lord and Lady. The King and Queen are mentioned in an English document
of the thirteenth century, and there is evidence to show that Robin Hood
and Maid Marian were originally representatives of the vegetation
spirit, for the former is spoken of in an old book of 1576 as King of
the May, while Marian or May-Marian, as she was sometimes called, was
certainly a Queen of May, and as such was represented wearing a golden
crown and carrying in her hand a red pink, the emblem of summer.[356]
At the time when we first encounter them in history these celebrations
had already lost their religious significance and passed into graceful
observances, the excuse for innocent mirth. But if we trace them back
into the gloom in which they arose we come upon evidence which seems to
show that they were not always so innocent. It is quite probable that in
very early times the human representative of the spirit of vegetation
was actually sacrificed, in order that the divine spirit incarnate in
him might be transferred in unabated vigour to his successor,[357] just
as the old May-pole was destroyed and a new one set up in its place.
Herein was typified the annual death and resurrection of the spirit of
vegetation, a conception which has given rise to many celebrations, not
always free from bloodshed, in different parts of the world. The rites
by which in Egypt and Western Asia the death and resurrection of Osiris,
Adonis, Tammuz, Attis, and Dionysus were solemnised find their parallels
not only in the barbarous usages once current in Mexico, but also in
certain spring and summer celebrations of the peasants of Europe.
The Mexican god of the plant-world was Huitzilopochtli, and at the feast
of Teteionan, mother of the gods, a woman clothed as the goddess was
sacrificed, her head cut off, and her skin used to dress a youth, who
was then taken to the god’s temple, accompanied by a large crowd of
worshippers.[358] That is to say, the old embodiment of plant life was
killed, and its personality, typified by the skin, was given to a
youthful successor, who, doubtless, was sacrificed in his turn when it
was considered necessary for the health of the plant-world.
In some modern European spring observances the actual putting to death
of the spirit of vegetation survives in symbol. “In Lower Bavaria, the
Whitsuntide representative of the tree-spirit—the Pfingstl, as he is
called—was clad from top to toe in leaves and flowers. On his head he
wore a high pointed cap, the ends of which rested on his shoulders, only
two holes being left for his eyes. The cap was covered with
water-flowers and surmounted with a nosegay of peonies. The sleeves of
his coat were also made of water-plants, and the rest of his body was
enveloped in alder and hazel leaves. On each side of him marched a boy,
holding up one of the Pfingstl’s arms. These two boys carried drawn
swords, and so did most of the others who formed the procession. They
stopped at every house where they hoped to receive a present, and the
people in hiding soused the leaf-clad boy with water. All rejoiced when
he was well drenched. Finally he waded into the brook up to his middle,
whereupon one of the boys, standing on the bridge, pretended to cut off
his head.”[359]
“At Wurmlingen in Swabia a score of young fellows dress themselves on
Whit-Monday in white shirts and white trousers with red scarves round
their waists, and swords hanging from the scarves. They ride on
horseback into the wood, led by two trumpeters blowing their trumpets.
In the wood they cut down leafy oak branches, in which they envelope
from head to foot him who was the last of their number to ride out of
the village. His legs, however, are encased separately, so that he may
be able to mount his horse again. Further, they give him a long
artificial neck, with an artificial head and a false face on the top of
it. Then a May-tree is cut, generally an aspen or beech about ten feet
high; and being decked with coloured handkerchiefs and ribbons, it is
entrusted to a special ‘May-bearer.’ The cavalcade then returns, with
music and song, to the village. Amongst the personages who figure in the
procession are a Moorish king with a sooty face and crown on his head, a
Dr. Iron-Beard, a corporal, and an executioner. They halt on the village
green, and each of the characters makes a speech in rhyme. The
executioner announces that the leaf-clad man has been condemned to
death, and cuts off his false head. Then the riders race to the
May-tree, which has been set up a little way off. The first man who
succeeds in wrenching it from the ground as he gallops past keeps it
with all its decorations. The ceremony is observed every second or third
year.”[360]
In Saxony and Thuringia, at Whitsuntide, the Wild Man, a person
disguised in branches and moss, was chased through the woods. On being
overtaken he was shot at with blank cartridge and pretended to fall down
dead. A mock doctor then bled him and he soon came to life again. The
rejoicing people placed him in a waggon, and led him about in
procession, to receive gifts at the houses of the village.[361]
The common feature in all these apparently senseless observances is the
symbolical sacrifice of the human representative of the spirit of
vegetation, and they drive us to the conclusion that there was a time
when the victim was sacrificed in reality. In the same way the custom
still current in Belgium and French Flanders at the summer festival of
drawing in procession large wicker figures enclosing living men, recalls
the gigantic images of ozier-work, covered with leaves, in which the
Druids confined the victims destined for their fiery sacrifices.[362]