May Eve

The Roman name for the May Queen was "Maia", her name was thought to be derived from maius, maior, "larger, greater" signifying growth. She was explicitly identified with Terra (Earth) and the Bona Dea. Her identity became theologically intertwined also with the goddesses Fauna, Magna Mater, Ops, Juno, and Carna, probably under the influence of the 1st-century BCE scholar Varro, who tended to resolve a great number of goddesses into one original Mother Earth. In the late Imperial era, the neoplatonist author Macrobius identifies the universal earth-goddess as Maia, Terra, Magna Mater, Ops, Bona Dea, Fauna and Fatua. The Romans celebrated the earth-goddess as Bona Dea on the 1st of May at her Aventine temple. When the Romans converted to Christianity, May became the month the Virgin Mary, and she is called "Queen of the May".

Invocation to the May Queen

 May Queen, almighty and divine, 

Come, blessed maiden, and to these rites incline,

 Only-begotten Horned One's honoured wife, 

O venerable Goddess, source of life,

O, vernal queen, whom grassy plains delight,
Sweet to the smell, and pleasing to the sight,

Whose holy form in budding fruits we view,
Earth's vigorous offspring of a various hue,

Bright Goddess, much-producing queen,
All flowers are thine and fruits of lovely green.

The Gaelic name for the month of May is Bealtaine (Irish) or Bealltainn (Scottish). The name is derived from Celtic *belo-te(p)niâ, meaning "bright fire". The beginning of May was celebrated as the start of the summer half of the year. The current calendar months that we use have changed depending on the calendar, from Julian to Gregorian, but originally people would have observed the sun and moon. The year can be divided into 12 equal months according to the sun, or 13 irregular months according to the moon. The solar months and lunar months are of different duration, so they don't correlate. If you want to celebrate according to the moon, then you might choose the first appearance of a new crescent, or the light of the full moon. For a solar date, we can determine the half way point between equinox and solstice, which would be 5th May.

Great bonfires would mark a time of purification and transition, heralding in the season in the hope of a good harvest later in the year. Excavations at Uisnech in the 20th century provided evidence of large fires taking place. The lighting of bonfires on Oidhche Bhealtaine ('the eve of Bealtaine') on mountains and hills of ritual and political significance was one of the main activities of the festival. In modern Scottish Gaelic, Latha Buidhe Bealltainn or Là Buidhe Bealltainn ('the yellow day of Bealltain') is used to describe the first day of May. In Ireland it is referred to in a common folk tale as Luan Lae Bealtaine; the first day of the week (Monday/Luan) is added to emphasise the first day of summer. In Wales, the day is known as Calan Mai. Dawnsio haf, summer dancing, was a feature of the May Day celebration, as was carolau Mai, May carols, also known as carolau haf, summer carols or canu dan y pared, singing under the wall (songs being often of a bawdy or sexual nature). The singers would visit families on May morning accompanied by a harpist or fiddler, to wish them the greetings of the season and give thanks to "the bountiful giver of all good gifts." The tradition of lighting bonfires happened annually in south Wales until the middle of the 19th century.

The tradition of the Maypole may have been introduced to Britain by Germanic pagans. The Maypole tradition could be derived from the Irminsul (Old Saxon "great/mighty pillar" or "arising pillar") which was often topped with an idol of a god. The Romans erected Jupiter Columns in Germania, Gaul and Britain during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. The Egyptians erected Djed pillars, associated with Osiris. The Djed pillar was an important part of the ceremony called 'raising the Djed,' representing Osiris's triumph over Set. The ceremony took place during the period when fields were sown and the year's agricultural season would begin. The festival and its ceremonies can be seen as an appeal to Osiris, God of vegetation, to favour the growth of the seeds sown.

 
The earliest recorded evidence of the Maypole tradition in Britain comes from a Welsh poem written by Gryffydd ap Adda ap Dafydd in the mid-14th century, in which he described how people used a tall birch pole at Llanidloes, central Wales. The addition of intertwining ribbons seems to have been influenced by a combination of 19th century theatrical fashion and visionary individuals such as John Ruskin. Several villages in Dorset continue the Maypole tradition now. Dorset Folklorist, John Symonds Udal wrote in his book ‘Dorsetshire Folklore’ published in 1922 about May Day customs and traditions in the county: 

It was anciently the custom for all ranks of people to go out a-Maying early on the first of May” says Brand; but I do not think that there exist now in Dorsetshire many traces of the old merry dances and games, such as the Maypole dance, the Morris dancers, the milkmaids, the chimney-sweeps, the maidens’ garland or flower dances and processions, which used to be so prevalent in many parts of England on May Day. 

Flower and Maypole Dance, Chardstock

In some parts of Dorsetshire, however, some few such observances still take place. For instance, in the parish of Chardstock, on the Somerset and Devon border, according to the Dorset County Chronicle in May, 1884, the children of the parish brought round garlands as usual on May Day; in the afternoon upwards of seventy of them sat down to a feast at which the local squire, the vicar, and other gentlemen and ladies were present. “Dancing round the Maypole concluded the keeping up of this old English custom’ 

Crowning the May Queen and Maypole Dance (Bridport) 

The Dorset County Chronicle, in June, 1918, gives a very recent instance of this as occurring in the West Dorset town of Bridport: “On Thursday the girls of the National Schools had their annual festival of crowning the May Queen and dancing round the Maypole. There was a very good attendance of the general public, the ceremony taking place in the school-yard. Favoured with fine weather, the scene was a very picturesque one, and the proceedings were watched with the greatest interest and pleasure. The children, as is their custom, were dressed in white, and with their Queen (Vera Meech), who is elected by the votes of her schoolmates, they paraded the Rope Walks, St. Michael’s Lane, and Gundry Lane, and returned to the playground. Here the Maypole was set up and the Queen was then enthroned. She recited a verse of Tennyson’s May Queen, and then the Rector ‘ crowned ‘ her with a wreath of flowers. Some very pretty Maypole dances were then gone through, and some nicely rendered songs gave variety to the programme, while at the close a collection, which realized £4, was made to defray the cost of a new set of strings for the Maypole.” 

I have since been told that this is not a genuine folk-lore survival, but rather a sham revival, having been introduced from Whitelands College by the National Society of School teachers, taught by Ruskin. The recitation of Tennyson’s May Queen would seem to confirm this ; but even if this be so, it is a decided improvement upon the usual School Board methods of recent years, which tend to destroy all traces of local folk-lore in the young people of the present age. 

Maypole: Cattistock  

There is an interesting reference in H. N. Cox’s serial History of Cattistock, published in the Southern Times in 1886, to the ” old custom of the Maypole “, which would appear to have been regularly kept up in that village until 1835. Mr. Cox alludes to a decree of Parliament in 1644, which ordered every Maypole in England and Wales to be taken down and none afterwards to be erected. Presumably Cattistock obeyed the mandate, at all events until the Restoration. Mr. Cox goes on to say that probably as time passed on the Maypole festivities were bereft of many of their ancient customs, but even at the last there was an immense assemblage of people, and the merry dance around the gaily decked pole with its thousands of May flowers was indulged in by all parties. He remembers on one occasion the Maypole being “set up ” in the open space near to the main entrance to the church and rectory, but that generally it was opposite ” The Fox “, no doubt one of the principal hostelries in the village. Cattistock is still to this day an important hunting centre. Mr. Cox is of opinion that the custom was permitted to die out, not because the people disapproved of it, but that the expense of getting good music for the dance was not met by the subscriptions. 

Maypole: Cerne Abbas

Dr. Collcy March, F.S.A., in his paper on ”The Giant and the Maypole of Cerne ” in the Dorset Field Club’s Proceedings (1901), vol. xxii, p. 105, speaks of the ordinance of the Long Parliament in April, 1644, whereby all maypoles were to be taken down and removed by the constables, churchwardens, and other parish officers; but it met with no little resistance.(Dr. March states, p. 105 (n.), that the Cerne maypole was destroyed in 1635) After the advent of Charles II the Maypole was set up again, and had a long life. Dr. March quotes from an old sexton at Cerne, who well remembered it:  “It was made,” he said,” every year from a fir-bole, and was raised in a night. It was erected in the ring just above the Giant. It was decorated, and the villagers went up the hill and danced round the pole on the 1st of May.” 

This hill was Trendle Hill, situated about half a mile from the town, upon the steep southern declivity of which the famous figure of the giant was cut in the chalk. According to authorities cited by Dr. March, “the festival of the maypole” was not unattended by scenes that “called forth ample invective”. Philip Stubbes, in his Anatomic of Abuses, 1583, refers to a custom when “hundreds of men, women, and children go off to the woods and groves and spend all the night in pastimes, and in the morning they would return with birche boughes and branches of trees to deck their assembles withal. And they bring home with great veneration the Maie-pole, their stinking idol rather, covered all over with flowers and herbes, and then fall they to leaping and dancing about it, as the heathen people did. I have heard it crediblie reported by men of great gravity that, of an hundred maides going to the wood, there have scarcely the third part of them returned home again as they went.” 

Maypole: Shillingston

William Barnes in his Fore-say (ante) speaks of this decline in the old maypole customs. He says: “Dorset formerly had its maypoles, but Shillingston, clustering round its softly rising knap, may now be the only Dorset village which keeps up the tall token of a merry May Day.” In the Life of William Barnes, by his daughter, Mrs. Lucy E. Baxter, published in 1887 under the pseudonym of “Leader Scott “, she gives (p. 150) a poem of her father’s, hitherto unpublished, called ” Our Early Landscape “, in which the poet alludes to the maypole at Shillingston in the following lines : “And Shillingston, that on her height Shows up her tower to op’ning day, And high-shot Maypole, yearly dight With flow’ry wreaths of merry May.” 

Stocking of Poundbury Field, Dorchester

William Barnes in the above Fore-say also refers to the annual stocking of Poundbury Field, near Dorchester, on May Day under the head of customs at set times or given days of the year. The field is now enclosed, but ” Dorchester folk were wont in olden time, it is said, to go forth to its flowery and airy sward a-maying and to drink syllybub of fresh milk”. 

Flower Service: Bridport 

The town of Bridport in West Dorset has for many years been prominent in keeping up an old flower custom on May Sunday, the first Sunday in May. The Bridport News in May, 1885, gave an interesting account of the ceremony, where on “May Sunday ” the children, to the number of 312, assembled at the schools in Gundry Lane, and having been duly marshalled in procession, marched to the parish church, carrying flowers. They came up South Street as far as the old castle, and going down the east side of the street crossed again by the rectory, and entered the church by the west door, occupying seats in the nave, which were given up to them for the occasion by the parishioners who generally used them. The children were accompanied by their superintendent and also by their teachers. Divine service followed, and in the afternoon the usual children’s service was held. The bells were rung spiritedly at intervals during the day and a flag was hoisted, as usual, on the church tower. Again, in May, 1890, the Bridport News recorded that, in accordance with the usual custom, the first Sunday in May was kept by the scholars of the Bridport Parish Church Sunday Schools by the usual special and joyous services. Shortly after 7 a.m. the bells of the parish church (St. Mary’s) pealed forth to herald in the school anniversary, and at 8 o’clock there was a full choral celebration of the Holy Communion. 

In his sermon the Rector, the Rev. E. J. B. Henslowe, alluded to the origin of May Sunday celebrations in Bridport, and to the fact that it was an institution not celebrated to his knowledge in any other town, but was peculiar to Bridport. He said that years ago there was no proper school, but classes were held by different people in their own houses’; these classes used to meet once a year, and have a procession and go to church. In the afternoon the usual flower service was held. The scholars formed in procession and again marched to the church. The rector officiated. The service commenced with a hymn, and then the scholars passed up to the chancel steps and presented their floral offerings. While another hymn was being sung flowers were presented by members of the congregation. The service was then proceeded with. The flowers were afterwards packed and forwarded to London for some of the hospitals. 

Again, in May, 1905, the Bridport News contributed a long leading article on the subject which it styled ” May Sunday : A Link with the Past”. It dealt fully with the origin of the present flower-custom in Bridport, and referred to the institution of Sunday Schools in Bridport in connexion with St. Mary’s Church in 1788. At that time the procession formed almost a complete “perambulation” of the parish boundaries, and many visitors would come in from the country “to see the children walk”. The writer of the article thinks that this “walking” may have been but a survival of a much older custom — that of “beating the bounds ” — which prevailed in many parishes at Rogation-tide ; and that “May Sunday” occurring near the same time of the year the one custom had at the end of the eighteenth century merged into the other. As we have seen, the custom of “walking” still continues, but only to a very limited extent.”