So, today is May Day, a celebration in England and the anglicised parts of Wales and Scotland [1] and hence I’m making this post.
Origins: The first mention of May Day is in 1240, when Robert Grossteste, Bishop of Lincoln, complained about people celebrating it [2]. It was common for clergy to complain about it, but, despite what you might think, it was rarely accused of being pagan – the standard complaints were that it was idle and self-indulgent, that it included mixed-gender dancing (which might lead to fornication) and that it encouraged people to spend Sunday partying rather than going to church. It was suppressed by Puritans when they took power after the English Civil War for the above reasons, and so it became popular again when the monarchy took power again [3]. However, it declined again after that, got revived in the Victorian era due to romanticisation of the past and concerns about declining community bonds [4], and declined again after that due to modern holidays giving people other fun things to do [5].
May Eve: On the night before, it was common for groups of young men to leave branches by the houses of young women in the village to express their feelings. Often, it was based on rhyming code: for example, in Cheshire it was nut for a slut, pear for fair, plum for glum, bramble for ramblers, etc. [6] and in Lancashire it was holly for folly, thorn for scorn, briar for liar, etc. In other places that wasn’t the case, such as Northamptonshire, where hawthorn was a compliment and elder, sloe, crab apple, nettle and thistle were insults [7]. The date was also associated with faeries, and hence people sleeping under hawthorn on that night risked abduction by them [8].
Foliage Decoration: The beginning of May Day was young people collecting flowers to use as decoration and, in some areas, nettles to beat people who annoyed them [9], while in other areas the beating with nettles happened on the 3rd May [10]. What plants were used were very variable: bluebells and primroses were the most popular in Hertfordshire [11], marigolds and birch in Wales and the Welsh Border [12], sycamore in Cornwall and ribbons in industrialised areas (such as Preston and Manchester in Lancashire) without access to flowers, but hawthorn blossoms were by far the most common [13]. Some of these decorations had magical purposes; for example, the aforementioned birch branches were hung over stables to protect horses from witches [14], rowans and primroses were used for the same purpose in Wales and parts of Britain with Celtic influence such as Cumberland and Herefordshire, and in Somerset parsons burnt rue, hemlock and rosemary to ward off malign influences [15].
However, because the first days of May were generally cold and thus bad for the sick and elderly, such decorations were very unlucky to bring inside [16] and in the Cotswolds the belief was extended to white flowers in general [17]
Maypoles: The most famous thing associated with May Day, with poles covered in ribbons and flowers that people danced around. The first unambiguous reference to one is a mid-14th-century Welsh poem that describes a tree used for this purpose; while they’re often claimed to be symbols of phalluses or tree spirits from pagan times, there’s no evidence for this. The local maypole was a locus of community pride, and so people often tried to steal other villages’ maypoles, which sometimes led to brawls [18].
May Processions: One of the staples of May Day was processions with stock characters, such as Mad Moll and Her Husband (two men with soot-blackened faces, one with a birch broom and a hump, the other in a ragged dress and straw bonnet and carrying a ladle), the Lord and Lady (a woman in a muslin dress and a man with a sword, both of them covered in colourful ribbons and handkerchiefs) [19], woman dancing with milk pails on their heads [20] and Jack in the Green, a man covered in foliage. Jack in the Green was proposed by folklorist Lady Raglan to be a legacy of a pagan fertility deity, but we now know he was invented by chimney sweeps in order to attract donations [21] since May Day was their festival and the coming summer meant they would be out of work for a long stretch of time; other gimmicks to attract donations included morris dancing and blackface [22]. The most important procession figure was the May King, the leader of the festivities, who was later replaced by Robin Hood [23], along with other figures from the lore such as Maid Marian, Friar Tuck and Little John. The tradition eventually died away, but Maid Marian remained, played by a burly bearded man in drag for comedy [24]. In poorer communities, the above figures were often effigies in displays rather than people in costume [25].
Maying: This tradition consists of children walking around carrying flower garlands and miniature maypoles and lead by a May Queen in a white dress, hoping to attract donations of food from rich households [26] while singing songs. A survey of sixty May songs from thirty villages in the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland found very few duplicates, and that most of them began in the nineteenth century with a few older ones. While full of Christian piety, their fundamental theme was asking for food or celebrating love, growth and the turn of the year [27]. The tradition was popularised by schools organising it, and was most popular in the East Midlands [28], but was also found elsewhere, such as the Welsh Border [29]. was a mostly female activity, since boys begged on Guy Fawkes’ Night [30].
May Dew: May Day dew was credited with various magical powers if used to wash the face: bestowing beauty in Cornwall [31], Hertfordshire [32] and the Welsh Border [33], curing tuberculosis in Wiltshire [34] and warding off witchcraft on the Isle of Man [35]. As late as 1888, Edgmond, Shropshire, a mother tried to cure a boy unable to walk by rubbing his back with May dew nine mornings in a row [36].
Other May Day Magic: In the 1940s, a boy in Brenhill, Wiltshire was cured of rupture by being passed through a slit ash tree with his head towards the sun on May Day; an older child passed through the same tree did not heal, which was blamed on the tree being cut down before the healing was complete [37]. In Mid-Cornwall on May Day, horseshoes nailed to doors for protection were taken down and turned around without touching the ground in order to renew the magic [38]. Spells to divine a girl’s future husband were a major part of British folk magic, and that was the case here; for example, if a snail was placed in the fire in May Day and the mark left the next day was an “L” (for “lucky”) the girl would be romantically lucky [39]. Another such ritual from the Scottish Borders (also practiced on Halloween, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and Midsummer Eve) was to take three pails of water, put them on the bedroom floor, pin three holly leaves about her heart and go to sleep. She would wake up to hear three yells like those of a bear, then three laughs, and then see the vision of your future husband. If the man was in love with her, he would rearrange the pails, and if not, he would leave them alone. A woman once did this and was left a noose by the apparition, which she hung herself with shortly after marriage while drunk [40].
May Day Wells: Wishing wells and healing wells were common across Britain, and some were said to be particularly effective, such as wishing wells at Wooler, Northumberland [41] and Holyrood, Edinburgh [42] and the healing lake of Llyn Ffynnon Foer in Caernarfonshire [43].
Faeries and May Day: In Scotland, May Day was said to be one of the four “quarter days” – along with Candlemas (2nd February), Lammas (1st August) and Halloween – that faeries used to migrate between barrows [44], and hence on those days people took their cattle inside and went to church and “cunning folk”, such as Edinburgh cunning woman Jonet Boyman and Orkney cunning woman Isobel Sinclair communed with faeries [45]. Some such traditions emphasise May Day as a time of changing seasons, such as a Scottish one that the Cailleach (the Celtic goddess of winter) threw her staff under a gorse or holly bush and turned to stone on that date [46] and in Wales on that date Gwynn ap Nudd (the king of the faeries, said to go hunting in winter) fights with Gwythyr ap Greidiawl for Creiddylad ferch Lludd Llaw Ereint, the most beautiful woman in the land, after Arthur decreed that the two should fight for her for eternity [47].
May Day Today: One of the major current May Day festivals is in Knutsford, Cheshire, which has been going on since 1864 [48]. Maypole dancing continues in the Devon villages of Lustleigh and Kinsteignton [49], Chiselhurst and Offham in Kent, Welford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, Temple Sowerby in Cumbria and Barnet-in-Elmet, Yorkshire. Maying persists at Montrose in Angus, Wick in Caithness, Eyemouth in Berwickshire, Ickwell in Bedfordshire and Ossett in Yorkshire, and an adult procession is held in Rochester, Kent [50].
Ronald Hutton, 2002, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain and Ireland, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p.233
Jacqueline Simpson, 1976, The Folklore of the Welsh Border, London: Batsford, pp.148-149
Doris Jones-Baker, 1977, The Folklore of Hertfordshire, London: Batsford, p.136
Marc Alexander, 2002, A Companion to the Folklore, Legends and Customs of Britain, Sutton Publishing Ltd., p..124
Ralph Whitlock, 1977, The Folklore of Devon, London: Batsford, p.146
Jones-Baker 1977 pp.141-142
Katherine Briggs, 1976, A Dictionary of Fairies, Penguin Books Ltd., p.159
Katherine Briggs,1974, The Folklore of the Cotswolds, London: Batsford, p.119
Jones-Baker 1977 pp.136-137
Tony Deane and Tony Shaw, 1975, The Folklore of Cornwall, London: Batsford, p.172
Ralph Whitlock, 1976, The Folklore of Wiltshire, London: Batsford, p.168
Colin Bord and Janet Bord, 1985, Sacred Waters: Holy Wells and Water Lore in Britain and Ireland, Granada Publishing Ltd., p.86
Deane and Shaw 1975 p.172
T. F. Thistelton-Dyer, 1878, English Folklore, London: Hardwicke and Bogue, p.121
William Henderson, 1879, Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders, London: Nichols and Sons, pp.99-100.
Kirk, R., 1692 (ed. pub. 1893), The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, Andrew Lang, p.7
Jeremy Harte, 2004, Explore Fairy Traditions, Heart of Albion Press, p.136-137
T. F. Gwynn-Jones, 1970, Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom, Redwood Burn Ltd., p.153
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