The Ancient Romans and the Druids Are Partly Responsible for Some of the
Modern Methods of Celebrating the Festival of the Spring Deities Which
Are Now Represented by Youthful Queens and Kings.
Customs do not become established without reason. If no meaning is seen in
a popular superstition or an annual festival, the significance or the
apparent lack of significance, is simply that the ritual, as so often
happens, has long outlived the belief.
In many of our hereditary customs we bow down, unaware, before the gods of
our pagan ancestors. Thus May-Day rites, which have come to us through
Roman and Druidical channels, are remains of a very early worship.
The Druids, on May 1, lighted great fires in honor of Bel or Belen--the
Apollo, or Orus, of other nations. In Celtic centers of Great Britain the
day is still called _la Bealtine_, _Bealtine_, or _Beltine_, which means
"day of Belen's fire," since, in the Celtic language of Cornwall, _tan_
means "fire," and the verb _tine_ means to "light a fire."
In the Highlands of Scotland, as late as 1790, the Beltein, or rural
sacrifice on May 1, was fully observed. The herdsmen of every village
lighted a fire within a square outlined by cutting a trench in the turf.
Over the fire was dressed a caudle of eggs, milk, oatmeal, and butter.
Part was poured on the ground as a libation.
Then every one took a cake of oatmeal, upon which were nine knobs, each
dedicated to some divinity. Facing the fire, they broke off the knobs, one
at a time, throwing them over their shoulders and saying: "This I give to
thee. Preserve thou my horses." "This to thee; preserve thou my sheep,"
and so on. The caudle was then eaten.
Traces of fire sacrifice are found in Ireland, particularly in the custom
of lighting fires at short intervals and driving cattle between them, and
the custom of fathers jumping over or running through fires with their
children in their arms. Undoubtedly these singular forms of sport are
modifications of what was once real sacrifice.
Our commonest May-Day games, however, probably come from the Floralia, or
rather from the Maiuma, of the Romans, who, it is said, were but repeating
the festal customs of ancient Egypt and India. The Maiuma were established
under the Emperor Claudius, to take the place of the Floralia, from which
they seem to have differed little, except, perhaps, that they were not
made an occasion for so great license.
The May-festival, in its deepest meaning, is a recognition of the renewed
fertility of the earth with the returning spring. It is one of the oldest
of all festivals. The children who now go a Maying, or dance around the
Maypole, or choose a May Queen, are unconsciously imitating the joyous
ceremonies with which the ancients welcomed the new birth of Nature.
Fertility was among the earliest of religious ideas.
"Going a Maying" is a very ancient custom in England. Bourne, in his
"Antiquitates Vulgares," said:
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 neighboring 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 homeward, about the rising of the
sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph with their
flowery spoils.
In the "Morte d'Arthur" we find this passage:
Now it befell in the moneth of lusty May, that Queene
Guenever called unto her the Knyghtes of the Round Table,
and gave them warning that early in the morning she should
ride on Maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.
Shakespeare, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," alludes to the custom:
No doubt they rise up early to observe
The rite of May.
The Maypole is still common in many countries. It used to be general
throughout England, and the cutting and decorating of the pole was one of
the many reasons for going a Maying. Often the pole was left standing
until near the end of the year, and sometimes especially durable poles
remained erect in their places for many seasons and were used in
successive festivals.
The last Maypole erected in London was a hundred feet high and stood in
the Strand. Taken down in 1717, it was removed to Wanstead Park, in Essex,
where it was made part of the support for a large telescope which was set
up by Sir Isaac Newton.
The May Queen traditionally represents the Roman goddess Flora.