The young people of Spotland, in the parish of Rochdale, are yet in the habit of assembling on the hill sides on the first Sunday in May, and exchanging congratulations on the return of spring. They drink to each others' health in liquor supplied by the pure mountain streamlets—no inapt substitute for the "heavenly soma" of the Vedic hymns. No doubt, some genuine love-making, as well as much licentiousness, has resulted from the observance of such ceremonies. It was formerly a custom, for milkmaids especially, in various parts of the country, to dance around a "garland" decorated with articles of value, very much after the fashion of the rush-bearers of Lancashire at the present day. The latter adorn their rush-cart and its contents with goblets, watches, and other polished metal articles, lent by friends for the occasion. Brand, speaking of the milkmaids in the neighbourhood of London, says:—
"They used to dress themselves in holiday guise on this morning, and come in bands with fiddles, whereto they danced, attended by a strange-looking pyramidal pile, covered with pewter plates, ribands, and streamers, either borne by a man upon his head or by two men upon a hand-barrow; this was called their garland."
Doubtless, the "well-dressing," or the decoration of springs and fountains with flowers, yet very common in some counties, and especially in Derbyshire, either owes its origin to the Roman Floralia, or to a still older custom, the common Aryan root of both. Dr. Stukeley, the celebrated antiquary, writing in 1724, speaks of a May-pole near Horn Castle, Lincolnshire, on a spot "where probably stood an Hermes in Roman times." He adds: "The boys annually keep up the festival of the Floralia on May-day, making a procession to this hill with May gads (as they call them) in their hands. This is a white willow wand, the bark peeled off, ty'd round with cowslips, a thyrsus of the Bacchanals. At night they have a bonefire, and other merriment, which is really a sacrifice or religious festival."
The old Puritan writers seem to have entertained a most profound horror of the ancient May-day festivities. Friar Tuck was pronounced a remnant of popery; maid Marian was the scarlet lady herself; and the hobby-horse was consigned to the limbo of defunct pagan superstitions. A May-pole was an abomination equalled only in atrocity by a "Whitsun-ale" or a "Morris-dance." Old Stubbs calls the May-pole a "stinking idol," and says it was brought home with "great veneration," hence his malediction. The attendant ceremony he describes as follows: "They have twenty or forty yoke of oxen, every ox having a sweet nosegay of flowers tied to the tips of his horns; and these oxen draw home the May-pole, covered all over with flowers and herbs, bound round with strings from the top to the bottom, and sometimes painted with variable colours, having two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with great devotion." Stubbs evidently knew that the May-pole was of pagan origin, if he was ignorant of its phallic character.
The court, however, favoured some of these pastimes. King James I. received a deputation on the subject during his stay at Hoghton Tower; and at Myerscough, near Preston, in Lancashire, he made a "speeche about libertie to piping and honest recreation." This was followed by his famous proclamation, levelled chiefly against the "Puritans and precise people of Lancashire." This action culminated in the still more celebrated "Book of Sports." Charles I., in 1633, republished "his blessed father's declaration," which decreed that "after the end of Divine service, his good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawful recreation; such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreations; nor from having of May Games, Whitsun Ales, and Morris Dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used; so as the same may be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine Service. And that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church, for the decoration of it according to their old custom. But withall his Majesty doth hereby account still as prohibited all unlawful games to be used, on Sundays only, as bear and bull baitings, interludes, and, at all times, in the meaner sort of people, as by law prohibited, bowling."
Our ancestors appear to have regarded the playing at bowls as an especially dignified recreation, and to have guarded by statute the game from any profanation by the vulgar. Old Strype records that owing to threatened disturbances in the North of England, a strict search was made, in every part of the kingdom, on the night of Sunday, the 10th July, 1569, for vagrants, beggars, gamesters, rogues, or gipsies. It resulted in the apprehension of thirteen thousand "masterless men." The chief offence with which they were charged was that they had no visible mode of living, "except that which was derived from unlawful games, especially of bowling, and maintenance of archery."
The sight of a May-pole, so offensive to the Puritan of old, excited a very different train of thought in the imagination of Washington Irving, on his first visit to this country. He says:—
"I shall never forget the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It was on the banks of the Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that stretches across the river from the quaint little city of Chester. I had already been carried back into former days by the antiquities of that venerable place, the examination of which is equal to turning over the pages of a black letter volume, or gazing on the pictures in Froissart. The May-pole on the margin of that poetic stream completed the illusion. My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank with all the dancing revelry of May-day. The mere sight of this May-pole gave a glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over the country for the rest of the day; and, as I traversed a part of the fair plain of Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales, and looked from among swelling hills down a long green valley, through which 'the Deva wound its wizard stream,' my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia."
The Laureate, in his beautiful poem, "The May Queen," has most happily pourtrayed the buoyant, joyous heart-feeling of the modern juvenile representative of the mythical Maid Marian of old. Eliza Cook, in one of the most successful of her many truly national songs, has hit off the spirit of the ancient May-day festivities with remarkable truthfulness and power:—
My brave land! my brave land! oh, may'st thou be my grave-land!
For firm and fond will be the bond that ties my breast to thee.
When Summer's beams are glowing, when Autumn's gusts are blowing,
When Winter's clouds are snowing, thou art still right dear to me.
But yet methinks I love thee best
When bees are nursed on white-thorn breast,
When spring-tide pours in—sweet and blest—
And Mirth and Hope come dancing;
When music from the feathered throng
Breaks forth in merry marriage-song,
And mountain streamlets dash along,
Like molten diamonds glancing!