But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight——
has been found lingering in some parts of the country. At the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century there were still some people who would get up early on Easter Day and go out into the fields to see the sun dance. The Rev. R. H. Cobbold, Rector of Ross, wrote on October 13, 1879: ‘In the district called Hockley, in the parish of Broseley, a woman whose maiden name was Evans, wife of Rowland Lloyd, a labourer, said she had heard of the thing but did not believe it true, “till,” she said, “on Easter morning last, I got up early, and then I saw the sun dance, and dance, and dance, three times, and I called to my husband and said, Rowland, Rowland, get up and see the sun dance! I used,” she said, “not to believe it, but now I can never doubt more.” The neighbours agreed with her that the sun did dance on Easter morning, and some of them had seen it,’ Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 335. According to a Sussex version the sun always dances on Easter morning, but nobody has ever seen it because the Devil is so cunning that he always puts a hill in the way to hide it. Although Sir Thomas Browne included this tradition in his lists of Vulgar Errors, he evidently felt that belief in it was an outgrowth of popular religious feeling, and that as such it must be handled with reverence: ‘We shall not, I hope, disparage the resurrection of our Redeemer, if we say the sun does not dance on Easter-day. And though we would willingly assent unto any sympathetical exultation, yet cannot conceive therein any more than a tropical expression,’ Vulgar Errors, Bk. V, Chap. XXIII. 14.
May-day Sports
Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the Eve of May-day was in some northern districts known as Mischief-night, when rough practical jokes were played by boys upon their neighbours, gates were pulled off their hinges, and hung up in trees, tubs and mops left out of doors were carried off and left in some inaccessible place, and other property was wantonly damaged.
The original May-day sports and observances have long been dead and gone, leaving only scattered traces few and far between, but at the present time great efforts are being made to revive the old folk-songs, dances, and mumming-plays, and children are being taught in Board Schools how to celebrate May-day with the traditional songs, processions, and flowers; so that we have consequently to beware of mistaking a revival for a survival. The May-garland would seem, however, to be a genuine relic of the past. As seen in Oxford, it is formed of two willow hoops, placed transversely, and decorated with leaves and wild flowers. It is suspended from a stick, which is held at each end by a child, and carried thus from house to house on May morning. The Jack-in-the-green, very common twenty or twenty-five years ago, was a chimney-sweep enclosed in a frame of green leaves shaped like a bower, who paraded the streets on May-day. He is still occasionally to be seen. I myself saw one in Oxford in 1909. The name also lingers on in figurative use as an expression of contempt, e.g. He looked for all the world like a Jack-in-the-green. A Bedfordshire term for a scarecrow or a slattern is moggy, a name which bears a reminiscence of the maying company which consisted of: my lord and my lady, two moggys and a merry Ander. The moggy always carried a ladle.
To remind us of the revelry of May-day there is the custom among boys of making May-music with May-horns (Oxf. Brks. Cor.), or whistles made out of sycamore or willow twigs; cp. ‘Scores of youngsters, as usual, celebrated the advent of the month of flowers in their own peculiar way by creating a most hideous row with their May-horns,’ Oxford Times, May 5, 1900; and further, the use of the term may-games (Som. Dev. Cor.) for frolics, tricks, &c. In Cornwall, a half-witted person is sometimes spoken of as a may-game.
Beating the Bounds