Northamptonshire.
On the morning of May-day the girls from the neighbouring villages of Kingsthorpe, &c., bring into Northampton their garlands, which they exhibit from house to house (to show, as the inhabitants say, what flowers are in season), and usually receive a trifle from each house.
The skeleton of the garland is formed of two hoops of osier or hazel crossing each other at right angles, affixed to a staff about five feet long, by which it is carried; the hoops are twined with flowers and ribbons so that no part of them is visible. In the centre is placed one, two, or three dolls, according to the size of the garland and the means of the youthful exhibitors. Great emulation is excited amongst them, and they vie with each other in collecting the choicest flowers, and adorning the dolls in the gayest attire; ribbon streamers of the varied colours of the rainbow, the lacemakers adding their spangled bobbins, decorate the whole. The garlands are carried from house to house concealed from view by a large pocket-handkerchief, and in some villages it is customary to inquire if the inmates would like to see the Queen of the May.
Wherever the young people receive a satisfactory contribution they chant their simple ditties, which conclude with wishing the inhabitants of the house “a joyful May,” or “a merry month of May.” The verses sung by the Dallington children are entirely different from those of any other village, and are here subjoined:—
“The flowers are blooming everywhere,
O’er every hill and dale;
And oh! how beautiful they are,
How sweetly do they smell!
Go forth, my child, and laugh and play,
And let your cheerful voice,
With birds, and brooks, and merry May,
Cry out, Rejoice! rejoice!”
When the Mayers have collected all the money they can obtain, they return to their homes, and regale themselves, concluding the day with a merry dance round the garland.—Every Day Book, 1826, vol. ii. p. 615; Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854, vol. ii. p. 421.
Clare, “the Peasant Poet” of Northampton, in one of his MS. ballads, describes the manner in which May-day is observed in his native village, Helpstone, near Peterborough, and the neighbourhood. His delightful ballad is printed by Miss Baker in her work already quoted (vol. ii. p. 423).
“How beautiful May and its morning comes in!
The songs of the maidens, you hear them begin
To sing the old ballads while cowslips they pull,
While the dew of the morning fills many pipes full.
The closes are spangled with cowslips like gold,
Girls cram in their aprons what baskets can’t hold;
And still gather on to the heat of the day,
Till force often throws the last handful away.
Then beneath an old hawthorn they sit, one and all,
And make the May-garlands, and round cuck a ball
Of cowslips and blossoms so showy and sweet,
And laugh when they think of the swains they shall meet.
Then to finish the garland they trudge away home,
And beg from each garden the flowers then in bloom;
Then beneath the old eldern, beside the old wall,
They set out to make it, maid, misses and all.
The ribbons the ploughmen bought maids at the fair
Are sure to be seen in a garland so fair;
And dolls from the children they dress up and take,
While children laugh loud at the show they will make.
Then they take round the garland to show at each door,
With kerchief to hide the fine flowers cover’d o’er;
At cottages also, when willing to pay,
The maidens their much-admired garland display.
Then at duck-under-water[53] adown the long road
They run with their dresses all flying abroad;
And ribbons all colours, how sweet they appear!
May seems to begin the life of the year.
Then the garland on ropes is hung high over all,
One end to a tree, and one hooked to a wall;
When they cuck the ball over till day is nigh gone,
And then tea and cakes and the dancing comes on.
And then, lawk! what laughing and dancing is there,
While the fiddler makes faces within the arm-chair;
And then comes the cushion,[54] the girls they all shriek,
And fly to the door from the old fiddler’s squeak.
But the doors they are fastened, so all must kneel down,
And take the rude kiss from the unmannerly clown.
Thus the May games are ended, to their houses they roam,
With the sweetheart she chooses each maiden goes home.”
[53] Duck-under-the-water. A game in which the players run, two and two, in rapid succession, under a handkerchief held up aloft by two persons standing apart with extended arms. Formerly in this northern part of Northamptonshire even married women on May-day played at this game under the garland, which was extended from chimney to chimney across the village street.—Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, 1854, vol. i. p. 204.
[54] The cushion dance appears to be of some antiquity: it is thus mentioned by Selden in his Table Talk, under “King of England”:—“The court of England is much altered. At a solemn dancing, first you have the great measures, then the Corrantoes and the Galliards, and this is kept up with ceremony; at length to French-more [Frenchmore] and the cushion dance, and then all the company dance—lord and groom, lady and kitchen maid, no distinction. So in our court in Queen Elizabeth’s time gravity and state were kept up. In King James’ time things were very pretty well. But in King Charles’ time there was nothing but Frenchmore and the cushion-dance, omnium gatherum, tolly polly, hoite come toite.” In Playford’s Dancing Master (1698, p. 7) it is described as follows:—“This dance is begun by a single person (either man or woman), who, taking a cushion in hand, dances about the room, and at the end of the tune stops and sings, ‘This dance it will no further go;’ the musician answers, ‘I pray you, good sir, why say you so?’ Man. ‘Because Jean Sanderson will not come to.’ Musician. ‘She must come to, and she shall come to, and she must whether she will or no.’ Then he lays down the cushion before a woman, on which she kneels, and he kisses her, singing, ‘Welcome, Joan Sanderson, welcome, welcome.’ Then she rises, takes up the cushion, and both dance, singing, ‘Prinkum prankum is a fine dance, and shall we go dance it once again?’ Then making a stop, the woman sings as before, ‘This dance it will no further go.’ Musician. ‘I pray you, madam, why say you so?’ Woman. ‘Because John Sanderson will not come to.’ Musician. ‘He must come to,’ &c. (as before). And so she lays down the cushion before a man, who, kneeling upon it, salutes her, she singing ‘Welcome, John Sanderson,’ &c. Then he taking up the cushion, they dance round, singing as before, and thus they do till the whole company are taken into the ring. Then the cushion is laid before the first man, the woman singing ‘This dance,’ &c. (as before), only instead of ‘not come to,’ they sing, ‘go fro;’ and instead of ‘Welcome, John Sanderson,’ ‘Farewell, farewell;’ and so they go out one by one as they came in.”
This dance was well known in Holland in the early part of the seventeenth century, and an interesting engraving of it may be seen in the ‘Emblems of John de Brunnes,’ Amst. 1624.—Nares’ Glossary (Halliwell and Wright), 1859, vol. i. p. 219.
A native of Fotheringhay, Mr. W. C. Peach, relates that he was formerly accustomed to go into the fields over-night and very early on May-day to gather cowslips, primroses, wood-anemones, blue bells, &c., to make the garlands. The garland, if possible, was hung in the centre of the street on a rope stretched from house to house. Then was made the trial of skill in tossing balls (small white leather ones) through the framework of the garland, to effect which was a triumph. Speaking of the May-bush (a large tree selected for being tall, straight, full of branches, and if possible flowers), Mr. W. C. Peach says, “I have been looking out for a pretty bush days before the time, and if hawthorn and in blossom, then it was glorious. I have seen them ten or twelve feet high, and many in circumference, and they required a stalwart arm to carry and put them into a hole in the ground before the front door, where they were wedged on each side so as to appear growing. Flowers were then thrown over the bush and around it, and strewn as well before the door. Pretty little branches of whitethorn, adorned with the best flowers procurable, were occasionally put up, unperceived by others if possible, against the bed-room of the favourite lass, to show the esteem in which she was held, and the girls accordingly were early on the alert to witness the respective favours allotted them. Elder, crab-tree, nettles, thistles, sloes, &c., marked the different degrees of respect in which some of them were held.”—Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, vol. ii. p. 427.
At Nassington they carry garlands about, and beg for money; in the evening they tie them across the street from chimney to chimney, and dance under them. Formerly married women used to amuse themselves by playing under them at the game of Duck-under-the-water.[55]—Ibid. p. 428.
[55] See [note] on [page 252].
At Nassington a curious pasture custom also takes place on May-day. There is a large tract of meadow-land lying on the side of the river Nen, which the inhabitants of the village have the right of pasturing cows upon.[56] The pasture season commences on May-day, and on the evening preceding a rail is put across the entrance to the pasture, which the cows must leap to get into. Much rivalry takes place on this occasion. The lads watch through the night and the dawning of May-day, the lasses with their cows being ready at the proper moment to see which cow shall leap the rail first into the meadow, and the cow which does this is led round the village in the afternoon, her horns decorated with ribbons, &c. Degradation only awaits the hindmost cow, she has to carry elder, nettles, and thistles as her badge, and the lass who milks her has to bear the gibes and jeers of the villagers.—Glossary, &c., p. 428.
[56] Vide Bridge’s Hist. of Co. of Northampton, 1791, vol. ii. p. 468.
At Morton-Pinkeney the following song is sung by the children on May-morning:—
“I have a little purse in my pocket,
All fixed with a silver pin;
And all that it wants is a more little silver
To line it well within.
The clock strikes one, I must be gone,
Or else it will be day;
Good morning to you, my pretty fair maid,
I wish you the merriment of May.”—
Ibid. p. 426.
At Polebrook, on the last few days of April, the Queen of May and her attendants gather what flowers they can from the surrounding meadows, and call at the houses of the principal inhabitants to beg flowers, the gift or the loan of ribbons, handkerchiefs, dolls, &c., with which to form their garland. This being arranged on hoops, the young maidens assemble on May-morning, and carry it round the village, preceded by a fiddler; and the following quaint song—very similar to the one used at [Hitchin], and thought from its phraseology to have been written in the time of the Puritans—is sung by the Queen and her company at the different houses, and a gratuity is solicited.
“Remember us poor mayers all,
For now we do begin
To lead our lives in righteousness,
For fear we die in sin.
To die in sin is a serious thing,
To go where sinners mourn;
’Twould have been better for our poor souls
If we had ne’er been born.
Now we’ve been travelling all the night,
And best part of this day;
And now we’re returning back again,
And have brought you a branch of May.
A branch of May, which looks so gay,
Before your door to stand;
’Tis but a sprout, but ’tis well spread out,
The work of our Lord’s hand.
Arise, arise, you pretty fair maid,
Out of your drowsy dream,
And step into your dairy-house
For a sup of your sweet cream.
O, for a sup of your sweet cream,
Or a jug of your own beer;
And if we tarry in the town,
We’ll call another year.
Now take the Bible in your hand,
And read a chapter through,
And when the day of judgment comes,
The Lord will think of you.
Repent, repent, ye wicked men,
Repent before you die;
There’s no repentance in the grave,
When in the ground you lie.
But now my song is almost done,
I’ve got no more to say;
God bless you all, both great and small,
I wish you a joyful May.”
The garland is afterwards suspended by ropes from the school-house to an opposite tree, and the mayers and other children amuse themselves by throwing balls over it. With the money collected tea and cakes are provided for the joyous party. The Queen of the May takes her seat at the head of the tea-table, under a bower composed of branches of may and blackthorn; a wreath of flowers is placed on her head, and she is hailed “Lady of the May.” The attendants wait round her, the party of mayers seat themselves at a long table below, and the evening concludes with mirth and merriment.—Glossary, &c., p. 424.