MAY-DAY.
The observance of May-day was a custom which, until the close of the reign of James the First, alike attracted the attention of the royal and the noble, as of the vulgar class. Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth, and James patronized and partook of its ceremonies; and, during this extended era, there was scarcely a village in the kingdom but had a May-pole, with its appropriate games and dances.
The origin of these festivities has been attributed to three different sources—Classic, Celtic, and Gothic. The first appears to us to establish the best claim to the parentage of our May-day rites, as a relic of the Roman Floralia, which were celebrated on the last four days of April, and on the first of May, in honor of the goddess Flora, and were accompanied with dancing, music, the wearing of garlands, strewing of flowers, &c. The Bettein, or rural sacrifice of the Highlanders, on this day, as described by Mr. Pennant and Dr. Jamieson, seems to have arisen from a different motive, and to have been instituted for the purpose of propitiating the various noxious animals which might injure or destroy their flocks and birds. The Gothic anniversary on May-day makes a nearer approach to the general purpose of the Floralia, and was intended as a thanksgiving to the sun; if not for the return of flowers, fruit, and grain, yet for the introduction of a better season for fishing and hunting. The modes of conducting the ceremonies and rejoicings on May-day may be best drawn from the writers of the Elizabethan period, in which this festival appears to have maintained a very high degree of celebrity, though not accompanied with that splendor of exhibition which took place at an earlier period, in the reign of Henry the Eighth. It may be traced, indeed, from the era of Chaucer, who, in the conclusion of his "Court of Love," has described the feast of May, when
Forth goth all the court, both most and leas,
To fetch the floures fresh, and braunch and blome;
And namely hauthorn brought both page and grome:
And then, rejoysen in their great delite,
Eke ech at other throw the floures bright,
The primerose, the violets, and the gold,
With fresh garlants party blew and white.
And it should be observed that this, the simplest mode of celebrating May-day, was as much in vogue in the days of Shakspeare as the more complex one, accompanied by the morris-dance and games of Robin Hood. The following description, by Bourne and Borlase, manifestly alludes to the costume of this age, and to the simpler mode of commemorating the first of May: "On the calends, or the first day of May," says the former, "the juvenile part of both sexes were wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighboring wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. When this is done, they return with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph in the flowery spoil. The after part of the day is chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole, which is called a May-pole; which, being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there, as it were, consecrated to the goddess of flowers, without the least violence offered to it, in the whole circle of the year."
"An ancient custom," says the latter, "still retained by the Cornish, is that of decking their doors and porches on the first of May with green sycamore and hawthorn boughs, and of planting trees, or rather stumps of trees, before their houses. And, on May-eve, they from towns make excursions into the country, and, having cut down a tall elm, brought it into town, fitted a straight and taper pole to the end of it, and painted the same, erect it in the most public places; and on holidays and festivals adorn it with flower-garlands, or ensigns and streamers." So generally prevalent was this habit of early rising on May-day, that Shakspeare makes one of his inferior characters in King Henry the Eighth exclaim—
Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible
(Unless we sweep them from the door with cannons)
To scatter them, as 'tis to make them sleep
On May-day morning; which will never be.
But, about the commencement of the sixteenth century, or sooner, a very material addition was made to the celebration of the rites of May-day by the introduction of the characters of Robin Hood and some of his associates. This was done with a view towards the encouragement of archery, and the custom was continued even beyond the close of the reign of James the First. It is true that the May-games, in their rudest form—the mere dance of lads and lasses round a May-pole, or the simple morris with the Lady of the May—were occasionally seen during the days of Elizabeth; but the general exhibition was the more complicated ceremony which we are about to describe. The personages who now become the chief performers in the morris-dance were four of the most popular outlaws of Sherwood Forest. Warner, the contemporary of Shakspeare, speaking of the periods of some of our festivals, and remarking that "ere Penticost began our May," adds—
Tho' (then) Robin Hood, litell John, frier Tuck,
And Marian, deftly play,
And lord and ladie gang till kirke,
With lads and lasses gay;
Fra masse and een sang sa gud cheere,
And glee on ery greene.
These four characters, therefore—Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian—although no constituent parts of the original English morris, became at length so blended with it, especially on the festival of May-day, that, until the practice of archery was nearly laid aside, they continued to be the most essential part of the pageantry.
