CHAPTER VIII

MAY CELEBRATIONS

Their ancient religious significance—The old English May-day—Fetching in the May—Puritan condemnation of the May-poles—Their removal “as a heathenish vanity”—Existing survivals of May customs—May-day rhymes.

Origin of the celebrations: 1. The bringing in of the May-bough—Wide distribution of the custom an evidence of its antiquity—Its original intention—“The May” related to the harvest-bush of France and Western Germany, and to the Greek _eiresione_—Their common purpose, to bring to the house a share of the blessings assumed to be at the disposal of the tree-inhabiting spirit.

2. The May-pole: its primitive intention to bring to the village, as the May-bough to the family, the newly-quickened generative potency resident in the woods—Wide prevalence of the custom—Association of the May-pole with a human image or doll, representing the vegetation spirit—The Greek festival of the little Daedala—The May-pole, originally renewed every year, became later a permanent erection, newly dressed on May-day—Assumed beneficent influence of the May-pole.

3. The May Queen, May Lady, or King and Queen of the May: Evidence that these personages were originally regarded as human representatives or embodiments of the generalised tree-soul—Often associated with its vegetable representative, the tree or bough; or clothed in leaves and flowers, _e.g._ the Green George of Carinthia and our Jack-in-the-Green—The custom general throughout Europe—Robin Hood and Maid Marian originally King and Queen of the May—In primitive times the human representative of the vegetation spirit probably sacrificed, in order that the spirit might pass to a more vigorous successor—Human sacrifice in Mexico—Survival in symbol of this ancient custom in Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony, etc. 144

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