British Folk Customs: May Day
May Day
Long before official May Bank holidays the year was marked out with special days. Whether they were rent days, hiring fairs, or customary events, they all signified special dates and marked the time of the passing year. These were days to celebrate, days when people would do things, eat things, or make things that they wouldn’t normally do.
In Britain, as in most parts of Western Europe, May Day marked the end of the harsh Winter months, and optimistically looked forward to the bright and productive Summer. For our ancestors, largely in rural areas, it was the major annual festival, especially on the first of May with music, dancing, and games.
The richness and variety of British traditions may sometimes be surprising and it is often too easy to ignore the effect of exposure to European and foreign influence brought to these islands over centuries. We know, for instance, the Romans had Floralia celebrations and it is thought that May Day could have its origin in the ancient festival dedicated to Flora, the goddess of fruit and flowers.
In Celtic Britain, the festival of Beltane (on the eve of May Day) celebrated the coming Spring and its associations of new growth and fertility. A key point of the agricultural year, Beltane meant “Bright fire” and bonfires were lit at night and animals sacrificed to the sun god. In later centuries people would celebrate by dancing round the fires and would walk through the dying embers for luck – not forgetting to drive their cattle through as well. The lighting of such fires survived in Scotland until about 150 years ago and in Wales up to the beginning of this century.
Although these traditions were well established, the early Christian Church did much to tame them. It saw them as unruly and pagan. The first of May was appointed the feast of St. Philip and St. James, but in spite of this attempt to displace the older feasts May Day continued to flourish and proved to be the most resilient of festivals. It was Puritanism which had the greatest effect on the traditional calendar. All customs were seen by them as “sinful,” particularly those of Maying.
Generally, our view of customs owes more to Victorian sentimentality. Reformers, parsons, and school teachers reorganised and restructured May Day to create a vanished and cosy “Merrie England”. May Day was stripped of its roughness and replaced by a more sanitised, charming event – ‘a pretty affair for children’.
For example, the school girl May Queen deposed earlier May Kings, and Maypoles were refurbished (or recreated) and children were to dance around them with ribbons. These are now our principal images of a typical May Day. In fact, dancing with plaited ribbons dates from only the 19th century. Its widespread familiarity is due to its being introduced into the school curriculum by John Ruskin in 1892.
Pageants, generally set in Medieval costume, with a multitude of Robin Hoods and King Arthurs, were staged all over the country. Ripon, Lichfield, Knutsford, and Sherbourne were major ones and these further reinforced the illusion of “Ye Olde Englande.”
The month of May does have a great number of traditions and customs. For the convenience of the general public, many May Day activities have now been moved to the new May Day holiday (or the Saturday nearest). Ascensiontide and Whit Monday events have also transferred to the late Spring Bank Holiday.
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