May Day.................

May the first, May Day. The beginning of summer, or at least the beginning of the season. Going back to when I was in school beginning around age five I suppose I have memories of May Day. I remember my Dad working diligently on a costume for me to wear in the parade. I was a ladybug. We would parade through the village to the Village Green. There we would have a fete and there would be a maypole. Kids would dance around the Maypole and they would choose and crown a May Queen. A long and timeless tradition.


The Maypole.....the Ribbon dance


Dancers gather in a circle, each holding a coloured ribbon attached to a much smaller pole. As the dance commences the ribbons are intertwined and plaited either on to the pole itself or into a web around the pole. The dancers may then retrace their steps exactly in order to unravel the ribbons.



Queen Guinevere being Queen of the May

The traditional folk dancers, the Morris men. They are witty, funny and very clever. English records date back to 1448 for the payment of Morris dancers. Traditionally they were also mumming plays especially at court.


May Blossoms, the whole country is full of blossoms when the May is out.

Bringing in the May and crowning the May Queen.


The traditions are of course Pagan. They go back to before Christianity and although Pagan, are not Satanic. They stem from the desire for all things new. For fertility and on May Day anything goes. The maidens could mate with whom ever they chose on that day. They could go to the woods and have anyone they desired. The whole idea being that procreation was the thing. For birds, beasts and people alike. They did so for the crops to thrive. Now we as Christians do not believe in such things, but we can remember. We can look back on those days with maybe a little melancholy.

These people worshiped nature, they saw spirits in all things. They believed the trees, the plants all living things had spirits. I believe so as well. They deserve our respect. These people needed to respect nature it was what kept them alive. God created all things and Pagans saw God in all things.
They believed on May 1st Beltane that the veil between the worlds was thinner. That we could see the Fae, the Fairy folks. Who is to say?



Happy May Day.

May Day...........

May Day is celebrated in England and other countries in Europe and around the world. Some have made it into a military celebration, showing off their "wealth in arms". I think of it as a day to celebrate Spring. I suppose in many ways the scene in the movie "Camelot" would be how I think of it. The blossoms are out in the hedgerows. The trees are blooming, Apple and Cherry blossoms and the Blackthorn and Hawthorne. The earth awakens and renews. The birds are nesting and the babies are being born in the woods and forests. Baby bunnies, the fawns and the kits in the Fox's den. Such beauty and renewal. No wonder the old Pagan religions dwelt so much upon the Springtime. (john colliers Queen Guinevres Maying) May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane. It marks the end of the unfarmable winter half of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers and so it stands to reason that flowers are a huge part of it. Roodmas was a Christian Mass celebrated in England at midnight on May 1. In our village we celebrated the crowning of the Queen of the May. She would be paraded through the village with her attendants and be crowned on the village green. It is celebrated with Morris Dancers and the Maypole dancing Much of this tradition derives from the pagan and Anglo-Saxon customs and many Celtic traditions. May blossom, the flower of the May tree. May Day has been a traditional day of festivities throughout the centuries. It is most associated with towns and villages celebrating springtime fertility and revelry with village fetes and community gatherings. Since the reform of the General Roman Catholic Calendar, May 1st is the Feast of St Philip & St James, they became the patron saints of workers. Seeding has been completed by this date and it was convenient to give farm labourers a day off. Perhaps the most significant of the traditions is the Maypole, around which traditional dancers circle with ribbons. Morris Dancers are a rather strange and an olde worlde sort of thing. They are funny and clever and usually do their dances outside a pub from what I have seen. Although I admit often on the village green when the Fete is in progress I hope this ancient tradition does not go the way of so many others. Its such a shame to see things pass away after centuries of enjoyment. I love tradition when its good and pretty and brings a community together for fun and fellowship as does May Day.