University of Virginia Library

MAY-DAY CUSTOMS.

Pasquil's Palinodia. 1634.

The month of April has nearly passed away,
and we are fast approaching that poetical day
which was considered, in old times, as the
boundary that parted the frontiers of winter and
summer. With all its caprices, however, I like
the month of April. I like these laughing and
crying days, when sunshine and shade seem to
run in billows over the landscape. I like to

see the sudden shower coming over the meadows
and giving all nature a greener smile, and the
bright sunbeams chasing the flying cloud, and
turning all its drops into diamonds.

I was enjoying a morning of the kind in company
with the Squire in one of the finest parts of
the park.

We were skirting a beautiful grove, and he
was giving me a kind of biographical account
of several of his favourite forest trees, when we
heard the strokes of an axe from the midst of a
thick copse. The Squire paused and listened,
with manifest signs of uneasiness. He turned
his steps in the direction of the sound. The
strokes grew louder and louder as we advanced;
there was evidently a vigorous arm wielding the
axe. The Squire quickened his pace, but in
vain; a loud crack and a succeeding crash told
that the mischief had been done, and some child
of the forest laid low. When we came to the
place we found Master Simon and several others
standing about a tall and beautifully straight
young larch which had just been felled.

The Squire, though a man of most harmonious
disposition, was completely put out of
tune by this circumstance. He felt like a monarch
witnessing the murder of one of his liege
subjects, and demanded, with some asperity, the
meaning of the outrage. It turned out to be an
affair of Master Simon's; who had selected the
tree, from its height and straightness, for a May-pole;
the old one which stood on the village
green being unfit for farther service.

If any thing could have soothed the ire of my
worthy host, it would have been the reflection
that his tree had fallen in a good cause, and I
saw that there was a great struggle between his
fondness for his groves, and his devotion to May-day.

He could not contemplate the prostrate tree,
however, without indulging in lamentation, and
making a kind of funeral eulogy, and he forbad
that any tree should thenceforward be cut down
on his estate without a warrant from himself;
being determined, he said, to hold the sovereign
power of life and death in his own hands.

This mention of the May-pole struck my attention,
and I inquired whether the old customs
connected with it were still kept up with any
spirit in this part of the country.

The Squire shook his head mournfully, and I
found I had touched on one of his tender points,
for he grew quite melancholy in bewailing the
total decline of old May-day. Though it is regularly
celebrated in the neighbouring village,
yet it has been merely resuscitated by his countenance,
and is kept up in a forced state of existence
at his expense. He meets with continual
discouragements, and finds great difficulty in
getting the country bumpkins to play their parts
tolerably.

He manages to have every year a “Queen of
the May;” but as to Robin Hood, Friar Tuck,
the Dragon, the Hobby Horse, and all the other
motly crew that used to enliven the day with
their mummery, he has not ventured to introduce
them.

Still, I look forward with some interest to the
promised shadow of old May-day, even though

it be but a shadow; and I feel more and more
pleased with this whimsical, yet harmless hobby
of my host, which is surrounding him with agreeable
associations, and making a little world of
poetry about him.

Brought up, as I have been, in a new country,
I may appreciate too highly the faint vestiges of
ancient customs which I now and then meet
with; and the interest I express in them may
provoke a smile from those who are negligently
suffering them to pass away. But with whatever
indifference they may be regarded by those
“to the manner born,” yet, in my mind, the
lingering flavour of them imparts a charm to
rustic life, which nothing else could readily supply.

I shall never forget the delight I felt on first
seeing a May-pole. It was on the banks of the
Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge, that
stretches across that river from the quaint little
city of Chester. I had already been carried
back into former days by the antiquities of that
venerable place, the examination of which is

equal to turning over the pages of a black letter
volume, or gazing on the pictures in Froissart.
The May-pole on the margin of that poetic
stream completed the illusion. My fancy adorned
it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the
green bank with all the dancing revelry of May-day.
The mere sight of the May-pole gave a
glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over
the country for the rest of the day; and as I
traversed a part of the fair plain of Cheshire,
and the beautiful borders of Wales, and looked
from among swelling hills down a long green
valley, through which “the Deva wound its
wizard stream,” my imagination turned all into
a perfect Arcadia.

Whether it be owing to such poetical associations,
early instilled into my mind; or whether
there is, as it were, a sympathetic revival and
budding forth of the feelings at this season, certain
it is, that I always experience, wherever I
may be placed, a delightful expansion of the heart
at the return of May. It is said that birds about
this time will become restless in their cages, as if

instinct with the season, conscious of the revelry
that is going on in the groves, and impatient to
break from their bondage and join in the jubilee
of the year.

In like manner I have felt myself excited even
in the midst of the metropolis, when the windows
which had been churlishly closed all winter,
were again thrown open to receive the balmy
breath of May; when the sweets of the country
were breathed into the town, and flowers
were cried about the streets.

I have considered the treasure of flowers thus
poured in, as so many missives from nature inviting
us forth to enjoy the virgin beauty of the
year, before its freshness is exhaled by the
heats of sunny summer.

One can readily imagine what a gay scene it
must have been in jolly old London, on a May-day
in former times, when the doors were decorated
with flowering branches; when every hat
was decked with hawthorn, and Robin Hood,
Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, the morrice dancers,
and all the other fantastic masks and revellers

were performing their antics about the May-pole
in every part of the city.

I am not a bigoted admirer of old times and
old customs merely because of their antiquity.
But while I rejoice in the decline of many of
the rude usages and coarse amusements of former
days, I cannot but regret that this innocent
and fanciful festival has fallen into disuse. It
seemed appropriate to this verdant and pastoral
country, and calculated to light up the too pervading
gravity of the nation. I value every
custom that tends to infuse poetical feeling into
the common people, and to sweeten and soften
the rudeness of rustic manners, without destroying
their simplicity. Indeed, it is to the decline
of this happy simplicity that the decline of this
custom may be traced; and the rural dance on
the green, and the homely May-day pageant,
have gradually disappeared, in proportion as the
peasantry have become expensive and artificial
in their pleasures, and too knowing for simple
enjoyment.

Some attempts, the Squire informs me, have
been made of late years by men of both taste
and learning, to rally back the popular feeling
to these standards of primitive simplicity; but
the time has gone by; the feeling has become
chilled by habits of gain and traffick; the country
apes the manners and amusements of the
town, and little is heard of May-day at present
excepting from the lamentations of authors, who
sigh after it from among the brick walls of the
city.