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May Day - May 1st
May Day celebrations and festivities were once the highlight of the year in every town and village through Britain. My mother remembers Maypole dancing and queen of the May celebrations in her home town of Taunton in the 1930s.
In Britain there have always been celebrations around the 1st of May, from Celtic times, when Beltaine, a celtic festival to mark the start of the summer and to honour the Celtic god of Light. May Day as it is celebrated in parts of Britain today is more of a European import believed to be from Italy. Ancient Romans honored Flora, the goddess of flowers and springtime, with a festival called Florialia. A small statue representing the godess was wreathed in garlands. A procession of singers and dancers carried the statue past a sacred blossom-decked tree. Festivals of this kind spread to other parts of the Roman Empire, including Britain where it was transformed into Mayday celebrations.
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On the first day of May, in villages across England, the villagers would collect blossoming flowers and branches from the countryside. A maypole was set up on the village green. This pole, usually made of the trunk of a tall birch tree and this was then decorated with wild flowers. Villagers then danced and sang around the maypole, accompanied by music. Often the prettiest young girl of the village was chosen to be Queen of the May. Sometimes a May King was also chosen. May Day festivals became so wild that in 1644 Puritans attempted to make the celebrations illegal. They especially wanted to stop the 'greenwood marriages' of villagers who spent the entire night in the forest together, staying out to greet the May sunrise, returning with boughs of flowers and garlands to decorate the village the next day.
One popular Mayday custom was the making of a maypole. Early in the day the villagers would go to the nearest woodland and cut down a young tree. The tree (usually a tall birch tree) would be stripped of its branches except at the top (where the leaves symbolized new life) and dragged or carried to an open space in the town square or village green. It was then decorated with garlands of flowers and ribbons. The cutting of the maypole symbolized the villager's right to cut wood freely from the forest.
Traditionally the dancing was done by women but has now become a popular children's activity. Each dancer holds a coloured ribbons and circles the maypole. One half of the dancers go clockwise, the other half anti-clockwise around the pole, plaiting their ribbons around the pole as they go. When the circle is as small as it can be, the dance is reversed and the ribbons unwind until the dancers come back to their starting places.
Other Traditions and Superstitions
Beating the bounds was traditionally carried out on May Day. It meant the owner of land or property would walk the boundary of their property to reaffirm their rights. This is still traditionally the day for repairing fences and boundary markers on the land.
The people of Padstow, in Cornwall, a peaceful fishing village on the North Cornish coast, celebrate May Day with an 'Obby 'Oss Carnival. The party starts at sunrise and continue until sunset, by which time everyone is worn out and all the pubs have run dry!
In Oxford there is one of the more popular and loveliest May Day ceremonies to date. The original buildings of the college itself have changed little since they were built at the end of the 15th century. The square tower which dominates the city of Oxford near Magdalen Bridge over the River Cherwell has a peal of ten bells. In the early hours of the morning at about 6.00 am the Choristers climb 144 feet to the top of the tower to welcome the sunrise by singing madrigals to the crowd below. There are other hymns and a peal of bells before the Morris Dancers take over for the next 2-3 hours.
The Modern May Day
Throughout Europe, the modern May Day has been transformed into a holiday often associated with socialism and the Labour Movement. This is partly to do with a congress of world Socialist parties held in Paris 1889, who voted to support the U.S. labor movement's demand for an 8-hour day. It chose May 1, 1890, as a day of demonstrations in favor of the 8-hour day. Afterward, May 1 became a holiday called Labour Day in many nations. The holiday is especially important in socialist and communist countries when political demonstrations are often held.
May Day is actually the one festival of the year with no significant church service. So it has always been a strong secular festival among the working class who would historically would often take the day off to celebrate it without their employer's approval. It was a popular custom - a people's day - and so it became identified with the Labour and socialist movements and by the 20th Century, it was rooted as part of the socialist calendar. The Labour movement in the UK chose May Day as International Labour Day.
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