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May Day






The first day of the month of May is known as May Day. It is the time of year when warmer weather begins and flowers and trees start to blossom. It is said to be a time of love and romance. It is when people celebrate the coming of summer with lots of different customs that are expressions of joy and hope after a long winter.

Although summer does not officially begin until June, May Day marks its beginning. May Day celebrations have their origins in the Roman festival of Flora, goddess of fruit and flowers, which marked the beginning of summer. It was held annually from April 28th to May 3rd.

Traditional English May Day celebrations include Morris dancing, crowning aMay Queen and dancing around a Maypole.

Morris dancing. It is a traditional English form of folkdancing, performed by groups of men or women. The dancing is very lively and accompanied by an accordion player, a melodian or fiddle player (Cotswolds) or a noisy band with a drum (Border Morris or North West sides).

Morris dancers wear different clothes depending on the part of the country in which they dance. They are often dressed in white with coloured baldrics (coloured belts) across their chests.

Border Morris Dancers generally wear “tatter jackets” and black their faces – probably originating as a form of disguise.

Crowning a May Queen is one of the festivities of the May Day celebration. The May Queen is the human replica of Flora. By tradition she took no part in the games or dancing, but sat like a queen in a flower-decked chair to watch her “subjects”.

Maypole Dancing is a traditional May Day dance. On May Day, people used to cut down young trees and stick them in the ground in the village to mark the arrival of summer.

People danced around the tree poles in celebration of the end of winter and the start of the fine weather that would allow planting to begin.

Maypoles were once common all over England and were kept from one year to the next. Schools would practice skipping round the pole for weeks before the final show on the village greens.

The end results would be either a beautiful plaited pattern of ribbons round the pole or a tangled cat’s cradle, depending on how much rehearsing had been done.

Maypoles are still a part of some village life and on May Day the villagers dance around it.


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