—Bourne (Antiquitates Vulgares, chap. xxv.) describes this custom as it existed in his time:—On the calends, or first of May, commonly called May-day, the juvenile part of both sexes are wont to rise a little after midnight and walk to some neighbouring wood, accompanied with music and blowing of horns, where they break down branches from the trees, and adorn themselves with nosegays and crowns of flowers; when this is done they return with their booty homewards, about the rising of the sun, and make their doors and windows to triumph with their flowery spoils.
In Chaucer’s Court of Love we read that early on May-day “Fourth goth al the court, both most and lest, to fetche the flowris fresh and blome.”
In the old romance, too, La Morte d’Arthur, translated by Sir Thomas Maleor, or Mellor, in the reign of Edward IV., is a passage descriptive of the customs of the times. “Now it befell in the moneth of lusty May, that Queene Guenever called unto her the knyghtes of the Round Table, and gave them warning that early in the morning she should ride on maying into the woods and fields beside Westminster.” The rural clergy, who seem to have mingled themselves with their flock on all occasions, whether of sorrow, devotion, or amusement, were reproved by Grostete, or Greathead, Bishop of Lincoln, for going a-maying.—Med. Ævi Kalend. vol. i. p. 233.
Shakespeare likewise, alluding to this custom, says (Henry VIII. Act v. sc. 3), it was impossible to make the people sleep on May-morning, and (Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act i. sc. 1) that they rose up early to observe May day.
“If thou lovest me then,
Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
To do observance to a morn of May,
There will I stay for thee.”
And again:
“No doubt they rise up early to observe
The rite of May.”—Act. iv. sc. 1.
May-dew.
—This was held of singular virtue in former times, and thus in the Morning Post of 2nd May, 1791, we are told that the day before, being the First of May, according to annual and superstitious custom, a number of persons went into the fields and bathed their faces with the dew on the grass, under the idea that it would render them beautiful. Pepys on a certain day in May makes this entry in his Diary: “My wife away, down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre and to lie there to-night, and so to gather May-dew to-morrow morning, which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash her face with.”