THE HISTORY OF MAY DAY
Its the first of May today, traditionally whats known as May Day, or the First Day of Spring.
But did you know, May festivities were first recorded in Ancient Roman times.
The Floralia ~ the Festival of Flora ~ took place between 28th April and 3rd May, in honour of the goddess of flowers, fertility and spring.
It involved athletic games and theatrical performances.
In the Gaelic world, the opening of the summer pastures for grazing, was marked by the Beltane festival.
Wild blossoms decorated the doors and windows of houses, while great bonfires were built on the last night of April ~ to bestow their protective powers on livestock and their herders.
In Wales, where the first day of May is known as the Calan Mai or Calan Haf, these customs have never died out.
From the medieval period, the first of May emerged as a day of feasting and dancing, in towns and villages across the British Isles.
Chimney sweeps wearing gaudy clothes would make mischief on the street and hustle for coins.
Milkmaids would dance for pennies, while balancing towers of borrowed silverware on their heads.
For the Tudors, ‘The Merry Month of May’ was considered the first step towards summer, and the end of the long winter months.
To welcome the better weather, and hopefully an abundance of crops, both wealthy and poor Tudors would mark May Day with much merrymaking, including eating, drinking and games.
May Day was especially important to the poorest Tudors.
Farm labourers were given the day off to join in the festivities.
Choosing the May Queen, dancing around the Maypole, musical processions and mummers plays that went from door to door performing, were the highlight of the holiday.
As well as the festivities, a number of superstitions surrounded the month of May.
One of these was if you collected the early morning may dew from a May blossom, and rubbed it on your face, it would cure freckles!
Like many other festivals, May Day was a topsy-turvy affair.
A ‘lord and lady’ would be chosen from among the ordinary people of the community, to preside over the day.
Eventually the focus shifted completely onto the woman and she became known as the May Queen.
The May Queen reached the height of her importance in the late Victorian and Edwardian periods.
By this time, she was embodied by a pretty young girl decorously dressed in white, and crowned with flowers.
Accompanied by a ‘court’ of other girls, the May Queen had become a symbol of purity, and the promise of spring.
The quintessential image of May Day is of dancers weaving long ribbons around a maypole, into intricate patterns.
This practice was first recorded in mid-14th-century Wales but eventually spread far and wide.
💐 Queen Guinevere as Queen of the May by John Collier c1900
