CHAPTER VIII

MAY CELEBRATIONS

In these days, when so much is done to equalise the seasons, when in the flower-shops spring treads on the heels of autumn, and Christmas windows are gay with tropical fruits, when fresh meat is always on the stalls, and the earth is tapped of its light and warmth to make up for the absent sun, it is difficult to realise the delight and enthusiasm with which our forefathers welcomed the yearly miracle of the spring. It meant so much to them,—release from the cold and the darkness that fell hardly on all but the rich; a feast of colour to eyes weary of winter grays; luscious, varied, and plentiful food to palates dulled by salt meat and pease-pudding. No wonder that the first hint of the sun’s return at Christmas, and the fulfilment of the promise of spring at May-day, were welcomed with an abandonment of joy to which our modern festivals offer but a pale parallel. It is doubtful, however, whether, even in the far-off days when the ceremonies possessed the highest religious sanction and significance, they were celebrated with a finer exuberance than in the comparatively recent times when this country was still “merrie England.” Fetching in the May or going a-Maying was then a most important festival, in which people of all ranks took part. Henry VIII. himself rode a-Maying with Queen Katharine and his Court. Every village had its May-pole, and the first of May was everywhere “the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year.” The celebration was recognised by the Roman Church, the note for the 30th of April in an old Calendar being, “The boys go out and seek May-trees.”[325] Chaucer represents the whole Court as going into the fields “on May-day when the lark begins to rise”—

To fetch the floures fresh and branch and blome. And namely hawthorne brought both page and grome, With freshë garlants party blew and white, And than rejoysen in their great delight.[326]

The poet makes the whole Court pelt each other with flowers, “the primerose, the violete and the gold,” but the general custom was to bring home the branches and flowers as an adornment for the house. Even the barns and the cow-byres were carefully decorated, long after the primitive intention of the ceremony had been forgotten, and it had degenerated into a licensed opportunity for revelry and love-making.

The two aspects of the celebration, the decorative and the amatory, are charmingly illustrated in this lyric of Herrick’s:—

Come, my Corinna, come; and coming mark How each field turns a street, each street a park, Made green and trimmed with trees: see how Devotion gives each house a bough Or branch: each porch, each door ere this An ark, a tabernacle is, Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove, As if here were those cooler shades of love. Can such delights be in the street And open fields and we not see’t? Come, we’ll abroad; and let’s obey The proclamation made for May: And sin no more, as we have done by staying; But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

The lover of old customs owes little to the Puritans, for they did their best to root them out, but he is certainly indebted to them incidentally for some valuable evidence as to those same customs, not otherwise attainable. Stubbs, a Puritan writer of the time of Elizabeth, thus describes the setting up of the Maypole in his time:—“But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence (the woods) in their Maie Poole, whiche they bring home with greate veneration as thus: They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole (this stinckyng idoll rather) which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from top to bottome, and sometimes painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up with handkercheifes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up sommer-haules, bowers, and arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself.”[327]

“What adoe make our yong men at the time of May?” cries another Puritan writer. “Do they not use night-watchings to rob and steale young trees out of other men’s grounde, and bring them home into their parishe, with minstrels playing before: and when they have set it up they will decke it with floures and garlands and daunce rounde (men and women togither, moste unseemley and intolerable, as I have proved before) about the tree, like unto the children of Israell that daunced about the golden calfe that they had set up.”[328]

Thomas Hall, another author of the same class, was also moved to eloquence on the subject: “Had this rudeness been acted only in some ignorant and obscure parts of the land I had been silent; but when I perceived that the complaints were general from all parts of the land, and that even in Cheapside itself the rude rabble had set up this ensign of profaneness, and had put the Lord Mayor to the trouble of seeing it pulled down, I could not, out of my dearest respects and tender compassion to the land of my nativity, and for the prevention of like disorders (if possible) for the future, but put pen to paper, and discover the sinful use and vile profaneness that attend such misrule.”[329]

As every one knows, the Puritans had their will of the May-poles, and the Long Parliament in April 1644 decreed their removal as “a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickednesse.” They were indeed reinstated after the Restoration and the old festivities revived, but the Puritan epoch had left its mark upon the spirit of the people, and May-day was never again quite what it had been, so that the following lament by a writer of Cromwell’s time was not quite out of date even when King Charles had again come to his own:—

Happy the age and harmlesse were the dayes (For then true love and amity was found) When every village did a May-pole raise, And Whitsun-ales and May-games did abound, And all the lusty yonkers in a rout With merry lasses daunc’d the rod about. Then Friendship to their banquets bid the guests And poor men far’d the better for their feasts. * * * * * But since the Summer poles were overthrown, And all good sports and merriments decayed, How times and men are chang’d so well is knowne, It were but labour lost if more were said.

In England the once universal joy-making on the first of May has dwindled into a mere eleemosynary device, and every year takes away something even from this poor survival. We are only reminded of the day in London by here and there a peripatetic Jack-in-the-Green with his retinue of begging clowns, by the gay ribbons on a few draught horses, and by the newspaper reports of the election of Mr. Ruskin’s May-queen at Whitelands College. But in many old-world towns and villages throughout the country the children still carry round wands, with bunches of flowers tied to them, or garlands, consisting of a little bower fashioned out of two crossed hoops, hidden in flowers, with a doll seated in the centre. The obvious intention of this pretty custom is the collection of coppers, which no one will grudge. It is, so to say, a religious ceremony, whereof only the collection has survived, as the following old rhyme sufficiently illustrates:—

Gentlemen and ladies! We wish you happy May; We’ve come to show our garlands, Because it is May-day; Come, kiss my face, and smell my mace, And give the lord and lady something.[330]

In place of the final couplet it was sometimes the custom of one of the bearers to say, “Please to handsel the lord and lady’s purse.”

The practice once current in the North of England of going into the woods on the first of May, “when the day begins to break,” and bringing home “knots of flowers and buds and garlands gay” wherewith to adorn the windows and doors of the houses at sunrise, is illustrated in the following doggrel, which used to be sung in the streets of Newcastle-on-Tyne:[331]—

Rise up, maidens, fie for shame! For I’ve been four long miles from hame; I’ve been gathering my garland gay, Rise up, fair maids, and take in your May.

It now remains to trace back these ceremonies—these survivals—to their origin, and to show how once they were the essential outcome of a living creed, and had a serious, and, so to speak, sacramental significance.[332] The May-day celebrations combined three different usages. _First_, the bringing in of the May and the decoration of the homestead. _Secondly_, the planting of the May-pole and the dancing around it. _Thirdly_, the selection of some youth or maiden as King or Queen of the May.

(1) The custom of going to the woods to fetch in the May is not by any means peculiar to England. It was until recently very general throughout Europe, and still survives in many districts, though sometimes Whitsuntide or Midsummer is the date chosen for the ceremony. This wide distribution at once stamps it as an ancient observance, and indeed it was already represented as such so long ago as the thirteenth century.[333] In some districts the branches that were brought in were fastened over the house door or upon the roof, or planted in front of the cattle stalls, a separate bush being attached for each head of cattle. Here the acknowledged purpose was to make the cows good milkers. “They fancy,” says a writer on the manners of the Irish, “that a green bough fastened on May-day against the house will produce plenty of milk that summer.”[334] In other districts the May-bushes were decorated with nosegays and ribbons and carried in solemn procession from house to house, the bearers singing a song and collecting their recompense in a basket. In some parts of Sweden on May-day eve boys still go round at the heels of the village fiddler, each with a bunch of freshly-gathered birch-twigs, singing songs in which fine weather, good harvests, and other blessings are entreated. At every cottage where they are duly compensated for their pains they adorn the door with one of their birch-sprays. In Stockholm on St. John’s eve miniature May-poles, known as Majstänger, are sold by the thousand.[335] In Russia the custom of decking the houses with branches at Whitsuntide is universal.[336] Similar instances might be multiplied indefinitely.

Much light has been thrown on these May-day ceremonies by the study of many cognate observances met with amongst different nations and at different periods. In Western Germany and over the greater part of France it is customary at harvest-time to select a green sapling or branch, adorn it with flowers, ribbons, and coloured paper, and hang it with harvest fruits, eggs, cakes, and sweetmeats, and sometimes even with sausages, rolls of tobacco, rings, needles, etc. Often bottles of wine or beer are also suspended to it. It is known as the May, harvest-May, _bouquet de la moisson_, and it is frequently set up in the field which is in process of cutting. When the reaping is over it is brought home on the last sheaf or on the last load, or is borne by a harvestman seated on the waggon or walking before it. On its arrival at the homestead it is solemnly welcomed by the farmer, and attached to some conspicuous spot on the barn or house. Here it remains for a year until replaced by its successor. Another feature of the ceremony, which is no doubt of the nature of a rain charm, consists in the drenching of the May and its bearers with water, or in the sprinkling of them with wine. A variant of this observance is met with in other parts of Europe, where at some date after harvest the farmer causes a lofty pole, dressed with ribbons and hung with handkerchiefs, articles of clothing, cakes, fruit, etc., to be erected in his field. The labourers then climb or race for the prizes.[337]

There can be no question as to the antiquity of these customs. Mannhardt, who has carefully studied the subject, finds a most remarkable similarity between the harvest festivals of ancient Greece and those of modern Europe. The _eiresione_ or harvest-bush of the Greeks, which is reproduced “with almost photographic exactness” in the harvest-May above described,[338] was a branch of olive or laurel, bound with red and white wool, and hung with ribbons, the finest harvest-fruits, cakes, and jars of honey, oil, and wine. It was carried in solemn procession with choral songs, at the Thargelia or feast of first-fruits in the late spring, and at the Pyanepsia or true harvest-festival in the early autumn, its destination at the former festival being the temple of Athena Polias, at the latter that of Apollo. It was planted before the door of the temple, the contents of the jars attached to it were poured over it, and the following lines were sung: “_Eiresione_ brings figs and plump loaves, and honey in jars, and oil wherewith to anoint yourself, and cups of wine unwatered, that you may drink yourself to sleep.”[339] In addition to this official ceremony each landowner who grew corn and fruit held his own festival, the _eiresione_ in that case being suspended or fastened before his house-door, or placed inside the house beside the ancestral images. There it remained for a twelve-month, until on the bringing home of the next year’s branch it was taken down and burnt. It was to this private _eiresione_ that the familiar passages in Aristophanes allude. Demos hearing a noise at his front door, jumps to the conclusion that a street brawl is imminent: “Who’s making that hullaballoo?” he cries; “away from my door. What, will ye tear down my _eiresione_?”[340] His dread is that his harvest-branch will be requisitioned as a weapon of offence, a possible application of it also alluded to by the poet in another passage.[341] Elsewhere it is jestingly said of a dried-up old woman, that if a spark fell on her, she would burn up like an old _eiresione_,[342] a comparison which throws light on the mode of disposing of the last year’s branch.

The _Oschophoria_, or carrying in procession of the _oschos_, a vine-branch with the ripe grapes upon it, was another of the Athenian harvest festivals, and is interesting in the present connection from its being associated, like some modern harvest observances, with a racing competition.

These festivals, which were probably of prehistoric origin, were in classical times sanctified for the popular mind by being linked with and accounted for by some legendary event which appealed to the patriotic sentiment. But in spite of this they would appear in course of time to have undergone something of the same debasement as our own May observances, and degenerated into a begging procession from door to door. At any rate the word _eiresione_, originally applied to the festival hymn as well as to the branch, became in later times the general name for all begging-songs. Initially, however, the _eiresione_ was, no doubt, a symbolical representation of the genius of vegetation, and as such was addressed as a person.[343]

Traced to its remote origin, there can be little doubt that the ceremony of bringing in the May arose from a similar process of reasoning. The gods or spirits of those far-off times had their habitation, or at least manifested their activity, in the tree. The gifts of rain and sunshine were in their hands. They made the crops to grow, the herds to multiply, and women to give increase. According to Aeneas Sylvius, the Lithuanians believed that their sacred groves were the house of the god who gave them rain and sunshine.[344] In Circassia the pear-tree is still regarded as the protector of cattle, and in the autumn is cut down, carried home, and worshipped as a god.[345] In many countries trees are held to have the power of helping women in childbirth.[346] It was therefore no more unnatural for an ignorant peasantry to believe that the same power and influence existed in the cut branches of trees than it is for a modern uncultured Catholic to expect help from sacred relics. In each case the process of thought is the same. Eventually the ceremony of carrying the branch round the village, the primitive purpose of which was to make each house a sharer in the benevolent offices of the tree-spirit, degenerated into a meaningless observance, a pretext for indulging in festivities and levying contributions. But there can be no doubt that the securing of fertility and abundance, together with the supply of rain and sunshine necessary thereto, was originally the root-idea of the worldwide spring observances.

(2) The custom of setting up the May-pole on the village green had, no doubt, a similar genesis. It represented for the community what the May-day decoration of the house represented for the family. In parts of Europe the pole is sometimes planted in front of the Mayor’s or Burgomaster’s house.[347] The intention, evidently, was to bring to the village as a whole the newly-quickened generative spirit resident in the woods. The custom of cutting down a tree, decorating it with garlands and ribbons, re-erecting it, and fêting it with dance and song, has prevailed in almost every country in the world. In some instances it is further dressed as a mortal, or a human image is attached to it, as in the Attis rites, testifying to the anthropomorphic conception of the tree-spirit. The doll placed in the centre of the children’s May garlands would seem to be a survival of this custom. The same feature of the celebration is illustrated most clearly in the Greek festival of the little Daedala, which may be regarded as “a classical equivalent of an English May-day in the olden time.”[348] The festival was inaugurated in an ancient oak-forest. Cooked meat was placed upon the ground and the movements of the birds which came to feed upon it were carefully observed. The tree upon which a bird was first observed to alight with the meat in its bill was cut down, carved into the image of a woman, and dressed as a bride. It was then placed upon a cart and drawn in procession with singing and dancing. It must be added that Mr. Farnell regards this festival as a survival from prehistoric times of the processional ceremony of the “sacred marriage” between Zeus and Hera, which may possibly have been symbolical of the marriage of earth and heaven in spring.[349]

In the case of our own May-pole, it was originally, no doubt, the custom to erect a fresh tree every year, in order that the newly-awakened energy of the forest might be communicated to the village, and in many parts this feature of the custom appears to have survived, as we may gather from the Puritan accounts above quoted. Elsewhere, as the intention of the ceremony was lost sight of, a permanent May-pole was substituted for the annual tree, and was converted on May-day, by means of garlands and flowers, into the semblance of a living growth. The May-tree of the German village, for instance, is a permanent construction, made up of several tall trunks.[350] On May-day, cakes, sausages, eggs, and other desirable things are hung upon it, the villagers dance around it, and the young men climb it to secured its gifts. In some parts the May-pole is surmounted by a cross, and the symbol of a dead faith is consecrated by that of a living one.

Yet the old faith long left its traces in several quaint observances. Amongst the Wends of the Elbe the cattle were driven every year round the village tree. The bride imported from another village must dance around it and pay it her footing. The wounded villager also gave it money and got himself healed by rubbing himself against it.[351] Such usages are only intelligible on the theory that the tree was once seriously believed to be the local habitation of a spirit, who concentrated in himself the marvellous fruitfulness and healing beneficence of nature.

The custom so often met with on the Continent[352] of attaching a young sapling or a branch to the roof of a house newly built, or in process of erection, is another survival, descended, no doubt, from the ancient belief in the benign influence of the tree-inhabiting spirit. In some places it is usual to decorate the bough with flowers, ribbons, and strings of eggs, which last are clearly intended to symbolise the life-giving power assumed to be the spirit’s special attribute.

(3) But the conception which underlay and actuated the May celebrations is illustrated still more clearly by their third feature—the choice of a youth or maiden, or both, to personify the reawakened and rejoicing nature. A great deal of evidence on this subject has been collected by Mannhardt and Frazer, which can only be briefly summarised here. In the case of the begging processions with May-trees or May-boughs from door to door, it was once really believed that the good genius of growth was present unseen in the bough. But often he was represented in addition by a man dressed in green leaves and flowers, or by a girl similarly adorned, who being looked upon as an actual representative of the spirit of vegetation, was supposed to produce the same beneficial effects on the fowls, the fruit-trees, and the crops as the presence of the deity himself. “The names May, Father May, May Lady, Queen of the May, by which the anthropomorphic spirit of vegetation is often denoted, show that the conception of the spirit of vegetation is blent with a personification of the season at which his powers are most strikingly manifested.”[353]

In some cases the human representative of the tree-spirit goes hand in hand with his vegetable representative, the tree or branch. The former may be merely a doll or puppet, as in the Lady of the May of our own May garlands, or it may be a chosen youth or girl, who carries a miniature May-tree, or is throned beside the May-pole, or dances around it, clad in leafy garments. Sometimes the chief actor in the ceremony is ducked in a pond or drenched with water, or, as is still the case in some parts of Ireland, carries a pail of water and a mop to distribute its contents, with the idea of ensuring rain by a sort of sympathetic magic. In other cases the tree disappears from the celebration, and the whole burden of representing its indwelling spirit falls upon its human substitute, who in such event is almost always swathed in leaves or flowers. The Green George of Carinthia[354] and our own Jack-in-the-Green are instances of this custom. The pence collected no doubt represent what was once a willing contribution for services presumably useful and worthy of reward.

The custom of electing a King or Queen of the May is very general throughout Europe.[355] The original purpose was, no doubt, to personify the regal character of the spirit who ruled the woods, but in other cases the representative is termed a Bridegroom or Bride, emphasising another attribute of the deity. In England the crowning of the May-queen closed the long day’s ceremonies, and the young people who had been up before sunrise to bring in the May, and had danced all day upon the village green, ended their pleasant labours at sundown with this graceful observance.

In some instances _two_ representatives of the spirit of vegetation were chosen, under the names of King and Queen, or Prince and Princess, or Lord and Lady. The King and Queen are mentioned in an English document of the thirteenth century, and there is evidence to show that Robin Hood and Maid Marian were originally representatives of the vegetation spirit, for the former is spoken of in an old book of 1576 as King of the May, while Marian or May-Marian, as she was sometimes called, was certainly a Queen of May, and as such was represented wearing a golden crown and carrying in her hand a red pink, the emblem of summer.[356]

At the time when we first encounter them in history these celebrations had already lost their religious significance and passed into graceful observances, the excuse for innocent mirth. But if we trace them back into the gloom in which they arose we come upon evidence which seems to show that they were not always so innocent. It is quite probable that in very early times the human representative of the spirit of vegetation was actually sacrificed, in order that the divine spirit incarnate in him might be transferred in unabated vigour to his successor,[357] just as the old May-pole was destroyed and a new one set up in its place. Herein was typified the annual death and resurrection of the spirit of vegetation, a conception which has given rise to many celebrations, not always free from bloodshed, in different parts of the world. The rites by which in Egypt and Western Asia the death and resurrection of Osiris, Adonis, Tammuz, Attis, and Dionysus were solemnised find their parallels not only in the barbarous usages once current in Mexico, but also in certain spring and summer celebrations of the peasants of Europe.

The Mexican god of the plant-world was Huitzilopochtli, and at the feast of Teteionan, mother of the gods, a woman clothed as the goddess was sacrificed, her head cut off, and her skin used to dress a youth, who was then taken to the god’s temple, accompanied by a large crowd of worshippers.[358] That is to say, the old embodiment of plant life was killed, and its personality, typified by the skin, was given to a youthful successor, who, doubtless, was sacrificed in his turn when it was considered necessary for the health of the plant-world.

In some modern European spring observances the actual putting to death of the spirit of vegetation survives in symbol. “In Lower Bavaria, the Whitsuntide representative of the tree-spirit—the Pfingstl, as he is called—was clad from top to toe in leaves and flowers. On his head he wore a high pointed cap, the ends of which rested on his shoulders, only two holes being left for his eyes. The cap was covered with water-flowers and surmounted with a nosegay of peonies. The sleeves of his coat were also made of water-plants, and the rest of his body was enveloped in alder and hazel leaves. On each side of him marched a boy, holding up one of the Pfingstl’s arms. These two boys carried drawn swords, and so did most of the others who formed the procession. They stopped at every house where they hoped to receive a present, and the people in hiding soused the leaf-clad boy with water. All rejoiced when he was well drenched. Finally he waded into the brook up to his middle, whereupon one of the boys, standing on the bridge, pretended to cut off his head.”[359]

“At Wurmlingen in Swabia a score of young fellows dress themselves on Whit-Monday in white shirts and white trousers with red scarves round their waists, and swords hanging from the scarves. They ride on horseback into the wood, led by two trumpeters blowing their trumpets. In the wood they cut down leafy oak branches, in which they envelope from head to foot him who was the last of their number to ride out of the village. His legs, however, are encased separately, so that he may be able to mount his horse again. Further, they give him a long artificial neck, with an artificial head and a false face on the top of it. Then a May-tree is cut, generally an aspen or beech about ten feet high; and being decked with coloured handkerchiefs and ribbons, it is entrusted to a special ‘May-bearer.’ The cavalcade then returns, with music and song, to the village. Amongst the personages who figure in the procession are a Moorish king with a sooty face and crown on his head, a Dr. Iron-Beard, a corporal, and an executioner. They halt on the village green, and each of the characters makes a speech in rhyme. The executioner announces that the leaf-clad man has been condemned to death, and cuts off his false head. Then the riders race to the May-tree, which has been set up a little way off. The first man who succeeds in wrenching it from the ground as he gallops past keeps it with all its decorations. The ceremony is observed every second or third year.”[360]

In Saxony and Thuringia, at Whitsuntide, the Wild Man, a person disguised in branches and moss, was chased through the woods. On being overtaken he was shot at with blank cartridge and pretended to fall down dead. A mock doctor then bled him and he soon came to life again. The rejoicing people placed him in a waggon, and led him about in procession, to receive gifts at the houses of the village.[361]

The common feature in all these apparently senseless observances is the symbolical sacrifice of the human representative of the spirit of vegetation, and they drive us to the conclusion that there was a time when the victim was sacrificed in reality. In the same way the custom still current in Belgium and French Flanders at the summer festival of drawing in procession large wicker figures enclosing living men, recalls the gigantic images of ozier-work, covered with leaves, in which the Druids confined the victims destined for their fiery sacrifices.[362]

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