Oh! pleasant 'tis to scan the page,
Rich with the theme of by-gone age;
When motley fool and learned sage
Brought garlands for the gay pole;
When laugh and shout came ringing out
From courtly knight and peasant lout,
In "Hurrah for merry England, and
The raising of the May-pole;"
When the good old times had carol rhymes,
With morris games and village chimes;
When clown and priest shared cup and feast,
And the greatest jostled with the least,
At the "raising of the May-pole."
The people of Lancashire, until very recently, kept the May-day festival with considerable éclat. Indeed, it is by no means forgotten at the present day. The main streets of Preston, Manchester, and other towns, during "the good old coaching time," presented a remarkably gay appearance, in consequence of the horses being decorated, and some of them profusely, with ribbons and other festive ornaments.
The decoration of horses with flowers and ribbons, the raising of May-poles, and the attendant dances and games, are yet far from obsolete in many parts of England. A few years ago I attended a May-day gathering at a village in North Cheshire; but the dancers, as well as the May Queen, were all children, and the spectators chiefly ladies and gentlemen from Manchester and its neighbourhood. It was a very pretty sight, and was patronised by the neighbouring "squire" (R. E. Warburton)[22] and his family, but it lacked the healthy rusticity which I had anticipated from the hearty enjoyment of lusty farm labourers and their sweethearts in the old-fashioned May-day dance.
The Rev. Jno. E. Sedgwick, of St. Alban's Church, Cheetwood, Manchester, has recently revived the May-day games; but, although termed May-day festivities, the decoration of the May-pole, the crowning of the May Queen, etc., which I visited, took place, in 1867, in Whit-week, which is the great Manchester holiday. The children looked pretty with their pink sashes and wreaths of green leaves, and evidently enjoyed themselves much. With this exception, however, the affair was in little distinguishable from ordinary holiday sports, and it certainly lacked the necessary rusticity to suggest any strong sympathy with the rural festival of the "olden time."
The practice of gathering hawthorn blossoms, where practicable on the 1st of May, still continues, and in many localities superstition lingers respecting the supernatural properties of this tree. The hanging up in the homestead of a white thorn branch procured on May-day was supposed to act as an antidote to the machinations of witchcraft. Both the white and black thorn are considered as representatives of the Mimosa catechu, the sacred thorn of India, which, being sprung from lightning, was supposed to be endowed with supernatural properties. Amongst the Germans "wishing" or "divining" rods were made from both the black and the white thorn. Walter Kelly says, "The wood of the thorn (ramnos) was used by the Greeks for the drilling stick of their pyreia (or fire-producing chark), and it was held by them to be prophylactic against magic, as the white thorn was by the Romans, among whom it was used for marriage torches."
I have referred, in a preceding chapter, to the superstition respecting the blossoming of the Christmas thorn at midnight, on Old Christmas eve. The legend has, no doubt, intimate relationship to the presumed supernatural attributes of the celebrated Glastonbury thorn, and its progeny. The original plant, according to Collinson's "History of Somersetshire," was the dry hawthorn staff which St. Joseph of Arimathea stuck into the ground when weary with journeying.
In one of the Coventry Mysteries, "The Miraculous Espousal of Mary and Joseph," the blossoming of the rod of the latter is the sign that he is the destined husband of the former. When the feeble old man unwillingly appears before the "bishop Issachar," he is surprised to see his staff break out into flower. Issachar is equally astonished, and exclaims:—
A mercy! mercy! mercy! lord, we crye!
The blyssyd of God we see art thou!
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This superstition bears evident marks of near relationship to some of both the Greek and the Indoo, as well as other Eastern mythical faiths. The blossoming staff of Joseph appears to be but a reproduction of the budding thyrsus of the Bacchanals and of Hermes, which is regarded as a phallic symbol, typical of the reproductive forces of nature. In the Teutonic mythology the fylfot, or revivifying hammer of Thor, as previously shown, likewise reproduces a phallic symbol.