PADSTOW AND ITS MAY DAY SONGS
May Day in Padstow, on the north Cornish coast, is celebrated by an ancient custom of peculiar interest. The whole town is en fete, the ships in the harbour decked with flags, the people adorned with flowers. The feature of the day's celebrations is the Hobby Horse Dance, or procession, to two very old tunes. Until comparatively recent times the Maypole was still erected each year in the town.
Padstow's two old May songs date from the Middle Ages, but they have suffered much corruption in the course of time. Words and music have been altered, but the version given here is from an old source, and, owing to the irregularity of the metre of the lines, as in all traditional songs, a considerable amount of ingenuity is called for on the part of the singer to fit the words of the second and subsequent verses—particularly of the Day Song—to the tune. But it can be done.
The May Morning Song has eighteen or more verses—each followed by the chorus—all of which obviously cannot be printed here. There are a dozen that begin "Rise up...," the name of the person before whose house it is being sung being inserted.