Some of the ceremonies of May-day, handed down from generation to generation, were brought to America in old colonial days by the English, but owing, perhaps, to the stern puritanical training of most of the early settlers, the customs did not thrive here as in the mother country, and many of them have died out altogether.
May-day is one of the many holidays still celebrated, that originated among the pagans ages ago, and it is said that the practice of choosing a May-queen and crowning her with flowers is a remnant of the ceremonies in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers, which were held in Rome the last four days of April and the first of May.
There was, at one time, a very pretty custom observed in Merrie England of fastening bunches of flowering shrubs and branches of sycamore and hawthorn upon the doors of those neighbors whose good lives and kindly habits were thus recognized by their friends.
The maids and matrons of England formerly had a way of their own of observing the day. On the first of May they would all go trooping out with the earliest rays of the morning sun, to bathe their faces in the magic dew, which glistened upon the grass once a year only, and was supposed to render the features moistened with it beautiful for the next twelve months.
When the writer was a wee little girl there lived next door to her home two old maiden ladies, who always kept a bottle of May-dew among their treasures. Although the ladies in question had long since passed that period when maidens are supposed to be lovely, superstitious persons might have found confirmation of a belief in the power of the dew, when they looked upon the sweet and kindly faces of these old maids. Faith in the fabled efficacy of May-dew will probably lose its last adherents when the two old ladies, very aged now, leave this world; but other pretty customs, from which all the superstitious elements seem to have departed, should not be allowed to die out, and we intend this chapter on May-day sports as a reminder that May-day is a holiday and should be fittingly celebrated by the older girls as well as the little children, who, in these times, seem to be the only ones to remember the day.
May-day Sports.
A May-day custom, and a very pretty one, still survives among the children in our New England States. It is that of hanging upon the door-knobs of friends and neighbors pretty spring-offerings in the shape of small baskets filled with flowers, wild ones, if they can be obtained; if not, the window-gardens at home are heavily taxed to supply the deficiency. When the dusky twilight approaches, it is time for the merry bands of young folks to start out on this lovely errand of going from house to house, leaving behind them the evidence of their flying visit in these sweetest of May-offerings. Silently approaching a door, they hang a May-basket upon the knob and, with a loud rap, or ring of the bell, scamper off, and flee as though for life.
Fig. 33.
