Great were the doings around the May-pole, for which the tallest and straightest of trees was selected. It was drawn to its place by as many as thirty or forty yoke of oxen, their horns decorated with flowers, followed by all the lads and lassies of the village. The pole was wound or painted with gay colors, and trimmed with garlands, bright handkerchiefs, and ribbon streamers, from top to bottom.
With great ceremonies, and shouts of joy, it was lifted to its place by ropes and pulleys, and set up firmly in the ground; and then the people joined hands and danced around it. The whole day was given up to merriment, every one dressed in holiday clothes, doors and windows were adorned with green boughs and flowers, the bells rang, processions of people in grotesque dresses were arranged, and the famous Morris dancers performed.
In this dance the people assumed certain characters. There was always Robin Hood, the great hero of the rustics; Maid Marian, the queen, with gilt crown on her head; Friar Tuck; a fool, with his fool's-cap and bells; and, above all, the hobby-horse. This animal was made of pasteboard, painted a sort of pink color, and propelled by a man inside, who made him perform various tricks not common to horses, such as threading a needle and holding a ladle in his mouth for pennies.
The various characters labored to support their parts. The friar gave solemn advice, the queen imitated lady-like manners, the fool joked and made fun, and the horse pranced in true horsey style.
This Morris dance is supposed to have been brought in early times from Spain, where the Moors danced it, and where it still survives as the "fandango."
All this May-day merriment came to an end when our grim Puritan fathers had power in England. Dancing around the May-pole looked to them like heathen adoration of an idol. Parliament made a law against it, and all the May-poles in the island were laid in the dust. The common people had their turn, when, a few years later, under a new king, the prohibitory law was repealed and a new May-pole, the highest ever in England (one hundred and thirty-four feet), was set up in the Strand, London, with great pomp. But the English people were fast outgrowing the sport, and the customs have been dying out ever since. Now, a very few May-poles in obscure villages are all that can be found.
Though May-pole and Morris dancing were the most common, there were other curious customs in different parts of the kingdom. In one place, the Mayers went out very early to the woods, and gathering green boughs, decorated every door with one. A house containing a sweetheart had a branch of birch, the door of a scold was disgraced with alder, and a slatternly person had the mortification to find a branch of a nut-tree at hers, while the young people who overslept found their doors closed by a nail over the latch.
In other places, wreaths were made on hoops, with a gayly dressed doll in the middle of each, and carried about by girls, the little owners singing a ballad which had been sung since the time of Queen Bess,—and expecting a shower of pennies, of course.
In Dublin, the youths decorated a bush, four or five feet high, with candles, which they lighted and danced around till burnt out. They then lighted a huge bonfire, threw the bush on it, and continued their dance around that. In other parts of Ireland, the boys had a mischievous habit of running through the streets with bundles of nettles, with which they struck the face and hands of every one they met. The sting of nettle, perhaps you know, is a very uncomfortable pain. The same people are very superstitious, and they believed that the power of the Evil Eye was greater on the first of May than at any other time; and they insured a good supply of milk for the year by putting a green bough against the house, which is certainly an easy way. In old times, the Druids drove all the cattle through the fire, to keep them from diseases, and this custom still survives in parts of Ireland, where many a peasant who owns a cow and a bit of straw is careful to do the same.
In the Scottish Highlands, in the eighteenth century, the boys had a curious custom. They would go to the moors outside of the town, make a round table in the sod, by cutting a trench around it, deep enough for them to sit down to their grassy table. On this table they would kindle a fire and cook a custard of eggs and milk, and knead a cake of oat-meal, which was toasted by the fire. After eating the custard, the cake was cut into as many parts as there were boys; one piece was made black with coal, and then all put into a cap. Each boy was in turn blindfolded, and made to take a piece, and the one who selected the black one was to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favor they wished to ask for their harvest. The victim in that day had only to leap through the fire; but there is little doubt that the whole thing was a survival from the days when human beings were really sacrificed.