CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



have been prompted by Nature herself : the time 

 of the young flower and leaf, and of all the 

 promise which August fulfils, could not but im- 

 press the minds of the simplest people, and 

 dispose them to joyful demonstrations in word 

 and act. The sun, as the immediate author of 

 the glories of the season, was now worshipped by 

 the Celtic nations under the name of Baal ; hence 

 the festival of Beltane, still faintly observed in 

 Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. Even 

 in Ayrshire, they kindled Baal's fire in the even- 

 ing of May-day till about the year 1790. The 

 Romans held games called Floralia, at which 

 there was great display of flowers, and where 

 women danced, if we are to believe Juvenal, only 

 too enthusiastically. The May-day jollities of 

 modern Europe seem to be directly descended 

 from the Floralia. 



In England, we have to go back a couple of 

 hundred years for the complete May-day ; since 

 then, it has gradually declined, and now it is 

 almost extinct. When it was fully observed, the 

 business of the day began with the day itself 

 that is to say, at midnight. We have the author- 

 ity of Shakspeare, that with the populace of 

 England it was impossible to sleep on May morn- 

 ing. Immediately after twelve had struck, they 

 were all astir, wishing each other a merry May, 

 as they still, at the same hour on the ist of 

 January, wish each other a happy new year. They 

 then went forth with music and the blowing of 

 horns, to some neighbouring wood, where they 

 employed themselves in breaking down and 

 gathering branches. These they brought back 

 at an early hour, and planted over their doors, so 

 that by daylight the whole village looked quite a 

 bower. In some places, the Mayers brought 

 home a garland suspended from a pole, round 

 which they danced. In others, and this was a 

 more general custom, there was an established 

 May-pole for the village, which it was their 

 business to dress up with flowers and flags, and 

 dance around throughout all the latter part of the 

 day. A May-pole was as tall as the mast of a 

 sloop of fifty tons, painted with spiral stripes of 

 black and white, and properly fixed in a frame to 

 keep it erect Here lads and lasses danced in 

 a joyful ring for hours to the sounds of the viol, 

 and maskers personating Robin Hood, Little 

 John, Maid Marian, and others of the celebrated 

 Sherwood company of outlaws, as well as morris- 

 dancers, performed their still more merry pranks. 

 May-poles, as tending to encourage levity of 

 deportment, were condemned by the Puritans 

 in Elizabeth's time ; James I. supported them in 

 his Book of Sports; they were altogether sup- 

 pressed during the time of the Commonwealth, 

 but got up again at the Restoration. Now change 

 of manners has done that which ordinances of 

 parliament could not do : this object, so inter- 

 woven with our national poetical literature, is all 

 but rooted out of the land. 



A certain superstitious feeling attached to May- 

 day. The dew of that morning was considered 

 as a cosmetic of the highest efficacy ; and women, 

 especially young women, who are never unwilling to 

 improve in this respect, used to go abroad before 

 sunrise to gather it. To this day there is a resort 

 of the fair sex every May morning to Arthur's 

 Seat near Edinburgh, for the purpose of washing 

 their faces with the dew. Mr Pepys, in his 



456 



Diary, gravely tells us of his wife going to Wool- 

 wich for a little air, and to gather May-dew, 

 'which Mrs Turner hath taught her is the only 

 thing in the world to wash her face with.' 



In London, May-day was once as much ob- 

 served as it was in any rural district There 

 were several May-poles throughout the city, par- 

 ticularly one near the bottom of Catharine Street 

 in the Strand, which, rather oddly, became, in its 

 latter days, a support for a large telescope at 

 Wanstead in Essex, the property of the Royal 

 Society. The milkmaids were amongst the last 

 conspicuous celebrators of the day. They used 

 to dress themselves in holiday guise on this morn- 

 ing, and come in bands with fiddles, whereto they 

 danced, attended by a strange-looking pyramidal 

 pile, covered with pewter-plates, ribbons, and 

 streamers, either borne by a man upon his head, 

 or by two men upon a hand-barrow ; this was 

 called their garland. In London, May-day still 

 remains the great festival of the sweeps, and much 

 finery and many vagaries are exhibited on the 

 occasion. 



The Robin Hood games and morris-dances, by 

 which this day was distinguished till the Reforma- 

 tion, appear, from many scattered notices of them, 

 to have been entertainments full of interest to the 

 common people. Robin has been alternately 

 styled in at least one document as the King of 

 May, while Maid Marian seems to have been 

 held as the Queen. 



10. Whit-Sunday, a festival of the Church of 

 England, designed to commemorate the descent 

 of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles on the day 

 of Pentecost. In Catholic countries, on this day, 

 while the people are assembled in church, pigeons 

 are suspended above, and wafers, cakes, oak-leaves, 

 and other things are made to shower down upon 

 the altar all this as a dramatic representation of 

 the miracle. 



11. Whit-Monday. A festival of the Church of 

 England, as is also 



12. Whit-Tuesday. These three days together 

 are called Whitsuntide. It forms a term, for 

 which the I5th of May is fixed. The Wednesday, 

 Friday, and Saturday of this week are Ember 

 Days, and the week is consequently an Ember 

 Week. (See %th February.) This also was a 

 period of festivity among our ancestors. They 

 now had what they called the Whitsun Ale, 

 which consisted in a meeting of householders 

 with their families at the church, after service, to 

 partake of a feast provided by the churchwardens, 

 at which the young danced and played at games, 

 while the seniors looked on. In the days before 

 the poor were supported by rates, a collection was 

 made on this occasion, usually found sufficient- to 

 provide for them. Whitsunday and Martinmas 

 terms (May 15 and November n) are those 

 alone regarded for the leasing of all kinds 

 property, paying of rents, and engaging of ser- 

 vants, in Scotland. 



17. Trinity Sunday, a festival of the Church of 

 England, which always takes place eight weeks 

 after Easter. 



21. Corpus Chris ti, a festival of the Roman 

 Church, always held on the Thursday after 

 Trinity Sunday. It celebrates the doctrine of 

 transubstantiation. In all Roman Catholic 

 countries it is observed with music, lights, 

 flowers strewed in the street, rich tapestries hung 



