399
viva voce) by men of great gravitie, cre-
ii i •<•, and reputation, that of fourtie, three
score, or a hundred raaides goying to the
woode ouer night, there have scarcely
the thirde parte of them returned home
againe undented." In Braithwaite'a "
Whimzies," 1631, p. 132, speaking of a
Ruffian, the author says : " His sovereignty
is showne highest at May-games,
wakes, summerings, and rush-bearings."
In " The Laws of the Market," 1677, under "
The Statutes of the Streets of this
City against Noysances," 29, (reprinted
from Stowe's Survey, 1633), I find the following : "
No man shall go in the streets
by night or by day with bow bent, or
arrows under his girdle, nor with sword
unscabbar'd under pain of imprisonment ;
or with hand-gun, having therewith powder
and match, except it be in a usual
May-game or sight." The Court of James
I. and the populace long preserved the
observance of the day, as Spelman remarked. "
May is the merry moneth —
on the first day, betimes in the morning,
shall young fellowes and mayds be so enveloped
with a mist of wandring out of
their wayes, that they shall fall into
ditches one upon another. In the after-
noone, if the skie cleare up, shall be a
stinking stirre at Pickehatch, with the
solemne revels of morice-dancing, and the
hobbie-horse so neatly presented, as if one
of the masters of the parish had playd it
himselfe. Against this high-day, likewise,
shall be such preparations for merry meetings,
that divers durty sluts shall bestow
more in stuffe, lace, and making up of a
gowne and a peticote, then their two
yeares wages come to. besides the benefits
of candles' ends and kitchen stuffe." —
Vox Graculi, 1623. A few other literary
allusions may be interesting : "
If thou lov'st 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."
Mids. N. Dream, act i. sc. 1. "
And though our May-lord at the feast,
Seemed very trimly clad,
In cloth by his owne mother drest,
Tet comes not neere this lad."
Browne's Shepherd's Pipe, 1614. "
On May Morning. "
Now the bright morning star, day's
harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads
with her The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail ! bounteous May ! that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire : Woods and groves are of thy dressing, Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. Thus we salute thee with our early song. And welcome thee, and wish thee long. —Milton. In Herrick's " Hesperides " are several allusions to customs on May Day. In the " Life of Mrs. Pilkington " the writer says, " They took places in the waggon, and quitted London early on May morning; and it being the custom in this month for the passengers to give the waggoner at every inn a ribbon to adorn his team, she soon discovered the origin of the proverb, ' as fine as a horse ' ; for, before they got to the end of their journey, the poor beasts were almost blinded by the tawdry party-coloured flowing honours of their heads." The Sheffield Daily Telegraph of May 2, 1889, says : "Yesterday the annual parade of dray horses owned by the Midland Railway Company took place. Of the 113 animals forming the Sheffield stud no less than a hundred put in an appearance at the Wicker Goods Station. The horses were, without exception, in splendid condition, and the decorations showed that the draymen had taken great pains in polishing the harness and general equipment. A dray horse at work is not expected to be a thing of beauty ; but yesterday the horses attending the annual parade looked as gay as circumstances would permit, with bright ribbons attached to their manes and tails, and with the brasswork of the harness polished to brilliancy. In order to encourage the men to groom the horses well and to keep the harness in condition, a number of prizes are annually given for the best- groomed horses. On New May Day the cart, waggon, and brewers' horses are usually decorated with ribbons and rosettes, and in many cases now new reins and whips are provided. This happened in 1903. In 1892, May-Day falling on a Sunday, the observance took pla'ce on the day previous.

maintain to be true, from experience."
For an account of the May-day celebrations
in France before the Revolution of
1789, see Douce's " Illust. of Shakespear,"
vol. ii., pp. 463, 468, 471. Compare Evil
May Day, Irish May Cuitoms, and M orris
Dance.
May-Day, Old .— May 11. In the
Tears of Old May Day, ascribed to Lovi-
Ixitnl, are some stanzas in allusion to the
alteration in the style.
May-Dew. — It was long an article
of popular faith in Eastern and Western
Europe, that a maiden, washing herself
with dew from the hawthorn on the first
day of May at daybreak, would preserve
her beauty for ever, the operation being
of course annually repeated. In 1515 we
find Catherine of Arragon, accompanied
by twenty-five of her ladies, sallying out
on May-Day to gather the dew for the
purpose of preserving her complexion, and
in 1623 the Spanish Infanta Maria is described
by Howell in one of his Familiar
Letters as doing the same thing in the
country, where she was staying at a casa
de campo belonging to her royal father
near Madrid, while Prince Charles was
paying his addresses to her. In the Morning
Post, Monday, May 2nd, 1791, it was
mentioned, "that yesterday, 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." At
a village in Sussex, about 1810, the lasses
used to repair to the woods early on May
morning, and gather the dew, which they
sprinkled over their faces as a preservative
against freckles, and to secure their
good looks until the next anniversary.
Pepys notes in his "Diary," under
May 28, 1667: "My wife away down
with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich,
in order to a little ayre and to
lie there to-morrow, and so to gather May-
dew tomorrow morning, which Mrs. Turner
hath taught her is the only thing in
the world to wash her face with ; and I
am contented with it." On the 9th of
May, 1669, Mrs. Pepys "went with her
coach abroad " for the same purpose. Lord
Braybrooke refers to Hone's " Every Day
Book," where the case of belief in this dissolvent (
as Aubrey calls it) in 1791, is
noticed. See Aubrey's Miscellanim, 1696,
ed. 1857, p. 127.
At Venice, as early as 1081, mention occurs
of a Dogaressa, who, when she rose,
bathed her cheeks with dew ; but this was
a daily process, undertaken from a similar
motive. She was by birth a Greek.
Hazlitt's Venetian Republic, 1900, ii.,
753. May Fair. — St. James's Fair (q. v.) was removed to Brookfield, Westminster, adjoining to Piccadilly, in 1688, and was held annually on May-Day and for about a fortnight after. It proved as great a nuisance in its new place of settlement as it had in its original one. In 1709 a pamphlet appeared, giving reasons for the suppression of this fair. " Multitudes of the oooths erected in this Fair," we are told, " are not for trade and merchandise, but for musicke, shows, drinking, raffling, lotteries, stage-plays, and drolls. _ It is a very unhappy circumstance of this Fair, that it begins with the prime beauty or the :year, in which many innocent persons incline to walk into the fields and out- parts of the city to divert themselves, as they very lawfully may." A farther account of May Fair may be found in Mr. Wheatley's Piccadilly, 1870, pp. 200-208. May Garlands. — In Martin Parker's ballad of "The Milkmaid's Life," there is a passage to the immediate purpose : — " Upon the first of May, With garlands fresh and gay, With mirth and music sweet, For such a season meet, They passe their time away — " These garlands are described by Robert Fletcher in his " Poems," 1656 : — "Heark, how Amyntas in melodious loud Shrill raptures tunes his horn-pipe ! whiles a crowd Of snow-white milk-maids, crowned with garland gay, Trip it to the soft measures of his lay ; And fields with curds and cream like green-cheese lye ; This now or never is the Gallaxie. If the facetious gods ere taken were With mortal beauties and disguis'd, 'tis here. See how they mix societies, and tosse The tumbling ball into a willing losse, That th' twining Ladyes on their necks might take The doubled kisses which they first did stake." In the dedication to "Col. Marten's Familiar Epistles to his Lady of Delight," by E. Gayton, 1663, we have the following allusion to this custom : " What's a May-day milking-pail without a garland and a fiddle?" "An antient poor woman " (an old writer relates) " went from Wapping to London to buy flowers, about the 6th or 7th of May, 1660, to make garlandt for the day of the King's proclamation (that is, May 8th), to gather the youths together to dance for the garland ; and when she had bought the flowers, and was going homewards, a cart went over part of her body, and bruised her for 401 it, just before the doors of such as she

4oo

401
it, just before the doors of such as she
might vex thereby. But since, she remains
in a great deal of misery by the bruise
ahe had gotten, and cryed out, the devil !
saying the devil had owed her a shame,
and now thus he had paid her. It's judged
at the writing hereof that she will never
orergrow it." Henri Misson, who was in
England in the time of Charles II., says: "
On the first of May, and the five or six
days following, all the pretty young country
girls that serve the town with milk,
dress themselves up very neatly, and borrow
abundance or sihrer plate, whereof
they make a pyramid, which they adorn with
ribbands and flowers, and carry upon
their heads, instead of their common milk-
pails. In this equipage, accompanied by
some of their fellow milk-maids and a bagpipe
or fiddle, they go from door to door,
dancing before the houses of their customers,
in the midst of boys and girls that
follow them in troops, and every body
gives them something. The children at
blip, in Oxfordshire, used to carry about
their May garlands, singing: "
Good morning, Missis and Master,
I wish you a happy day ;
Please to smell my garland.
Because it is the first of May."
A writer in the Morning Post, May 2,
1791, says: "I remember that in walking
that same morning between Hounslow and
Brentford, I was met by two distinct parties
of girls with garlands of flowers, who
begged money of me, saying ' Pray, Sir,
remember the garland.' "
May Gosling- — In the North of
England, they appear to have had a May
gosling, equivalent to the April Fool. A
correspondent of the " Gent. Mag." for
April, 1791, says: — "A May gosling, on
the first of May, is made with as much
eagerness, in the North of England, as an
April Noddy or Fool, on the first of April."
May Hiring*.— At those, which were
held in Lincolnshire in 1902, not one girl
in twenty, engaged for the farmhouse,
would undertake the duties of milking,
which was once a rine qua non of almost
every such domestic. The majority of servants
now stipulate for a weekly holiday,
and in most cases at least one evening or
one afternoon "off" per week has to be
eoooeded. The wages demanded, too,
show a substantial increase over those
which obtained a few years ago. Girls of
14 and 15 years of age going into general
serrice asked as many pounds per year,
and boys for the farm were equally pre-
eocioas."— Daily Telegraph, May, 22,
1902. Pestle," 1613, Rafe, one of the characters, appears as Lord of the May : " And. by the common-councell of my fellows in the Strand, With gilded staff, and crossed skarfe, the May-Lord here I stand." He adds : " The Morrice rings while hobby horse doth foot it featously ;" and. addressing the group of citizens assembled around him, " from the top of Conduit-head," says : " And lift aloft your velvet heads, and slipping of your gowne, With bells on legs, and napkins cleane unto your shoulders ti'de, With scarfs and garters as you please, and Hey for our town cry'd : March out and shew your willing minds, by twenty and by twenty, To Hogsdon or to Newington, where ale and cakes are plenty. And let it nere be said for shame, that we, the youths of London, Lay thrumming of our caps at home, and left our custome undone. Up then, I say, both young and old, both man and maid, a Maying, With drums and guns that bounce aloud, and merry taber playing." "It appears," says Douce, "that the Lady of the May was sometimes carried in procession on men's shoulders ; for Stephen Batman, speaking of the Pope and his ceremonies, states that he is carried on the backs of four deacons, ' after the maner of carying whytepot queenes in Western May games. There can be no doubt that the Queen of May is the legitimate representative of the Goddess Flora in the Roman Festival." Browne thus describes the Queen or Lady : "As I haue seene the Lady of the May Set in an arbour (on a Holy-day) Built by the May-pole, where the iocund swaines Dance with the maidens to the bagpipes straines, When enuious night commands them to be gone, Call for the merry youngsters one by one, And for their well performance soone disposes, To this a garland interwoue with roses ; To that, a carued hooke or well-wrought scrip ; Gracing another with her cherry lip : To one her garter, to another then A hand-kerchiefe cast o're and o're agen : And none returneth emptie that hath spent
His paines to fill their rurall meri-
I no ut — " In the " Gent. Mag." for October. 1793, there is

In the " Gent. Mag." for October. 1793,
there is a curious anecdote of Dr. Geddes,
the well-known translator of the Bible,
who, it should seem, was fond of innocent
festivities. He was seen in the summer of
that year, " mounted on the poles behind
the Queen of the May at Marsden Fair,
Co. Oxon." At Cambridge they beg monej
for "the poor May Lady?' a fi|
grotesquely by the children. for "the poor May Lady?" a figure di sly by the children. '
The bush of hawthorn," observes
a writer, "or, as it is called, May,
placed at the doors on this day,
may point out the first fruits of
the Spring, as this is one of the earliest
trees which blossoms." Ihre, in his "Suio-
Gothic Glossary." makes mention of the
King or Lord or May upon the Continent (
tom. ii. p. 118, sub. v.). The designation
of " Lady of May " conferred by the anonymous
author of the " Justes or the Mon-
eths of May and June," 1507, on the Princess
Mary, as patroness of the Lists, has,
of course, no connection with the old English
custom here illustrated. But it
shews that the title was sufficiently
popular at that time to tempt the
author of the " Justes " to employ
it for his own purposes. Hazhtt's
Popular Poetry, ii, 109 et seqq. Much
the same is to be predicated of the
pretty pageant, which takes place annually
at Whitelands College, under the initiative
of the late Mr. Buskin.
Maypole. — Bourne, speaking of the
first of May. tells us : " The after-part of
the day is chiefly spent in dancing round
a tall poll, which is called a May poll ;
which being placed in a convenient part
of the village, stands there, as it were
consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers,
without the least violation offered to it,
in the whole circle of the year." The
author of "The Way to Things by Words,"
Ac., very properly points out, that Maypole
is a pleonasm, for the French call
the same thing the Mot. We are told by
the same writer that the column of May (
whence our May-pole) was the great
standard of justice in the Ey-Commons or
Fields of May. Here it was that the
people, if they saw cause, deposed or punished
their governors, their barons, and
their kings. The judge's bough or wand (
at this time discontinued and only faintly
represented by a trifling nosegay), anil
the staff or rod of authority in the civil
and in the military (for it was the mace
of civil power and the truncheon of the
field officers), are both derived hence.
Keysler, says Borlase, thinks that the
custom of the Maypole took its rise from
the earnest desire of the people to see
their king, who seldom appearing at other
times, made his procession at this time of
year to the great assembly of the States
held in the open air. In the "British Apollo," (it is said) : " It was a custom among the ancient Britons, before converted to Christianity, to erect these Maypoles, adorned with flowers, in honour of the Goddess Flora; and the dancing of the milk-maids may be only a corruption of that custom in complyance with the town." Tollett tells us, that the May Pole in his window " is painted yellow and black, in spiral lines." Spelman's "Glossary " mentions the custom of erecting a tall May Pole, painted with various colours, and Shakespear, in " A Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. sc. 2, speaks of a painted May Pole. Upon our pole (adds Mr. Tollett) are displayed St. George's red cross or the banner of England, and a white penon or streamer, emblazoned with a red cross, terminating like the blade of a sword ; but the delineation thereof is much faded. Stukeley, in his " Itinerariuin," 1724, p. 29, says : " There is a May Pole near Horn Castle, Lincolnshire, where probably stood an Hermes in Roman times. The boys annually keep up the festival of the Floralia on May Day, making a procession to this hill with May gads (as they call them) in their hands. This is a white willow wand, the bark peel'd off. ty'd round with cowslips, a thyrsus of the Bacchanals. At night they have a bonefire, and other merriment, which is really a sacrifice, or religious festival." Borlase, speaking of the manners of the Cornish people, says: — " From towns they make excursions on May Eve into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most public part, and, upon holidays and festivals, dress it with garlands of flowers, or ensigns and streamers." Owen, in his " Welsh Dictionary," voco " Bedwin," a birch-tree, explains it also by " a May-pole, because it was always," he says, " made of birch. — It was customary to have games of various sorts round the Bedwen ; but the chief aim, and on which the fame of the village depended, was, to preserve it from being stolen away, as parties from other places were continually on the watch for an opportunity ; who, if successful, had their teats recorded in songs on the occasion." It appears from a stage direction in the " Mountebanks' Masque "— " Paradox his Disciples, and the May-pole, all daunce " — that the latter was much like the modern "Jack in the Green," and formed, like it, the central figure in the dance. In an account of Parish Expences in Coates's " Hist, of Reading," p. 216, A.D. 1504, we have : " It. payed for felling and bryngy'g home of the bow (bough) set in the M'cat- place, for settyng up of the same, mete and drink, via4." In the Chapel Warden's 403 Accounts of Brentford, under the year 1623, is the

402

4°5
dancing about a May pole, then he will
doe all the week after at his work, will
have a cast at me." " This day shall be
erected long wooden idols, called Maypoles ;
whereat many greasie churles shall
murmure, that will not bestow so much as
a faggot sticke towards the warming of
the poore : an humour that, while it
seemes to smell of conscience, favours indeed
of nothing but covetousnesse." — Vox
Graculi, 1623. It is to be suspected, nevertheless,
that, as Cromwell's personal ascendancy
asserted itself, greater tolerance
prevailed. There are in a volume printed
in 1657 called "Wit a-Sporting," by
Henry Bold, some verses, which were not
improbably conveyed from an earlier
writer (much of his matter was stolen
from Herrick) : "
The May Pole. "
The May Pole is up,
Now give me the cup,
I'll drink to the garlands around it,
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it."
After the Restoration, May poles were
permitted to return. Hall, however, protested
against this revival in his " Fune-
bria Flora, the Downfall of May Games,"
1660. At the end is a copy of verses (in
which he makes the May-pole recapitulate
propriA persond) the evils with which his
introduction was fraught to the cause of
religion and morality. Another copy of
the verses is to be found in Harl. MS.,
1221, and is there entitled: "A May
Pooles Speech to a Traveller." Possibly
the lines were merely appropriated by
Hall. The May-Pole is made to say : "
I have a mighty retinue,
The scum of all the raskall crew
Of fidlers, pedlers, jayle-scap't slaves,
Of tinkers, turn-coats, tospot knaves,
Of theeves and scape-thrifts many a one,
With bouncing Hesse, and jolly Jone,
With idle boyes, and journey-men,
And vagrants that their country run :
Yea. hobby-horse doth hither prance,
Maid-Marrian and the Morrice-dance.
My summons fetcheth, far and near,
All that can swagger, roar, and swear,
AH that can dance, and drab and drink,
They run to mee as to a sink.
These mee for their commander take,
And I do them my blackguard make.
The honour of the Sabbath-day
My dancing-greens have ta'en away,
Let preachers prate till they grow wood,
Where I am they can do no good."
At page 10. Hall says: "The most of
there May-poles are stollen, yet they give
out that the poles are given them.'' — "
There were two May-poles set up in my
parish ( King's-Norton) ; the one was stollen,
and the other was given by a profest papist. That which was stollen was .vu,i to be given, when 'twas proved to their faces that twas stollen, and they were made to acknowledge their offence. This pole that was stollen was rated at five shillings : if all the poles one with another were so rated, which were stollen this May, what a considerable sum would it amount to ! Fightings and bloodshed are usual at such meetings, insomuch that 'tis a common saying, that 'tis no festival unless there bee some fighting." " If Moses were angry," he says in another page, " when he saw the people dance about a golden calf, well may we be angry to see people dancing the morrice about a post in honour of a whore, as you shall see anon." " Had this rudeness," he adds. " been acted only in some ignorant and obscure parts of the land, I had been silent ; but when I perceived that the complaints were general from all parts of the land, and that even in Cheapside itself the rude rabble had set up this ensign of prophaneness, and had put the lord-mayor to the trouble of seeing it pulled down, I could not, out of my dearest respects and tender compassion to the land of my nativity, and for the prevention of the like disorders (if possible) for the future, but put pen to paper, and discover the sinful rise and vile prophaneness that attend such misrule." In "The Lord's Loud Call to England," published by H. Jessey, 1660, there is given part of a letter from one of the Puritan party in the North, dated "Newcastle, 7th of May, 1660": " Sir, the countrey, as well as the town, abounds with vanities ; now the reins of liberty and licentiousness are let loose : May-poles, and players, and juglers, and all things else, now pass current. Sin now appears with a brazen face," Ac. But the resistance and exposure were vain. The May-pole was never again suppressed, till modern feeling operated against it. Pepys notes the erection of the Strand May-pole under date of June 1, 1663. The Rural Dance about the Maypole, and the tune to which the first figure is danced at Mr. Young's ball, May, 1671. is described in " Westminster Drollery,'' 1671: " Come lasses and lads, take leave of your dads, And away to the May-pole hie ; For every he has got him a she, And the minstrel's standing by. For Willy has gotten his Jill, and Johnny has got his Joan. To jig it, jig it, jig it, jig up and down. " Strike up, says Wat. Agreed, says Kate, And, I prithee, fidler, play : Content, says Hodge, and so says NATIONAL FAITHS For this is a holiday ! Then every

NATIONAL FAITHS
For this is a holiday !
Then every mail did put his hat off to
his lass,
And every girl did curchy, curchy,
curchy on the grass. ;
in, says Hall. Aye, aye, says
lall,
We'll lead up Packington's Found :
No, no, says Noll. And so, says Doll,
We'll first have Sellenger's Round.
Then every man began to foot it round
about,
And every girl did jet it, jet it, jet
it, in and out. "
You're out, says Dick. 'Tis a lie, says
Nick;
The fiddler played it false : '
Tis true, says Hugh ; and so says Sue,
And so says nimble Alee.
The fiddler then began to play the tune
again,
And every girl did trip it, trip it, trip
it to the men."
A shorter version of this is given by
Rimbault, in his Book of Songs and I'ul-
tnilti, 1861. Shakespear makes dancers
kiss: "
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then join hands.
Curtsied when you have, and kist,
The wild waves wist ! "
In " Pol wart on the Green." we have at
the very commencement (I quote from "
Orpheus Caledonius," 1733): "
At Polwart on the Green,
If you'll meet me the morn,
Where lasses do convene.
To dance about the thorn ;
A kindly welcome you shall meet
Frae her who likes to view
A lover and a lad complete,
The lad and lover you." "
The Mayings," says Strutt, " are in
some sort yet kept up by the milk-maids
at London, who go about the streets with
their garlands and music, dancing; but
this tracing is a very imperfect shadow of
the original sports ; for May-poles were set •
up in the streets, with various martial
shows, Morris dancing and other devices,
with which, and revelling, and good chear,
the day was passed away. At night they
rejoiced, ana lighted up their bonfires." "
Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 99.
The young chimney-sweepers, some of
whom are fantastically dressed in girls'
clothes, with a great profusion of brick-
dust by way of paint, gilt paper, AT.,
making a noise with their shovels and
brushes, were long the most striking objects
in the celebration of May Day in the
streets of London. But the May-pole, and
the May customs generally, are now almost quite neglected in London and other great centres. Consult Vossius " De Orig. & Prog. Idolatries," lib. ii. Spelman's Glossary, 1687, v. " Maiuma," Ducange, v. " Ma- iuma," and Carpentier's " Glossary," v. " Maium." Meadow Verse.— To the Harvest festivities must be referred the Meadow \rerse. In Herrick's "Hesperides," 1648, p. 161, we have: " The meadow Verse, or Anniversary, to Mitiris Bridget Lowman. " Come with the Spring-time forth, fair Maid, and be This year again the Meadows Deity. Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to set Upon your head this Howry coronet ; To make this neat distinction from the rest, You are the Prime, and Princesse of the feast : To which with silver feet lead you the way, While sweet-breath nimphs attend you on this day. This is your houre; and best you may command, Since you are Lady- of this fairie land. Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall Cherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all. The Parting Verte, the Feast there ended. Loth to depart, but yet at last, each one Back now must go to's habitation : Not knowing thus much, when we once do sever, Whether or no, that we shall meet here ever." — — " If fates do give Me longer date, and more fresh springs to live, Oft as vour field shall her old age renew, Herrick shall make the meddow-verse for you."

-Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, John Brand 1905.