For many of us today, it is no more than a welcome bank holiday here in the UK, but to our ancestors, May Day was an important festival welcoming the start of summer. Given our current weather, summer feels a long way off yet, but we can still recognise the turning of the seasons with the beautiful tree blossoms and the blooms of bluebells and mayflowers in our woods and hedgerows.
The earliest origins of May Day is the Roman festival of Flora, who was the Goddess of Flowers. It was celebrated as Walpurgis Night in Germanic countries, and as Beltane in Gaelic countries, including Great Britain. Beltane marked the half way point in the year and involved fertility rites, one of which was the “setting of new fire” where cattle were driven through the flames to purify them, and young couples passed through the smoke to bring them good luck. After the arrival of the Romans, their own Festival of Flora was gradually integrated with Beltane to produce the traditions that we still see today.
In Great Britain it has long been associated with the maypole dance, morris dancing and the crowning of the Queen of the May, which still continues to this day in some parishes. These ancient traditions have survived from pagan Anglo-Saxon rites.
Many an English village still has a maypole on the village green, harking back to the middle ages when the maypole would have been brought in from the woods amongst great merrymaking. Villages would compete to see who could produce the tallest pole. The pole would remain for a day and then be taken down although in larger towns it became a permanent fixture. The maypole has a very symbolic tradition. Trees were seen as symbols of fertility and strength, and when they were cut down for the maypole, a branch would be stripped of branches, with a few left at the top. It would then be wrapped in violets.
During the commonwealth period, that killjoy Oliver Cromwell banned Mayday celebrations (along with Christmas and the theatre) as being too pagan (you are probably not surprised to know that when I was a member of the Sealed Knot I was on the Royalist side!). But luckily the tradition survived and was reinstated when Charles II returned to the throne.
If you have English ancestors dating back to the middle ages and beyond then it is very likely they would have been involved in May Day celebrations – and perhaps your 10 x great-grandmother was crowned Queen of the May!
