May Day has from ancient times been celebrated
as a Spring Festival all over Europe.
The air filled with bird song, swallows have
returned to nest, bluebells and primroses
are carpeting the woods, and every meadow testifies
to the fact that 'When you can put your foot on
nine daisies at once, spring has come'.
The end of winter, the start of Spring is here...
newly-sown seed was sprouting, new-born lambs
in the fields, newly-hatched chicks in the farmyard,
new leaves appearing on the trees and birds everywhere
mating and nesting...time for humans to join
in with the celebration of Spring's arrival.
May Day, 1st May...but before the change in the calendar
in 1752, May Day fell 11 days later.
So to the
woods the young men and women went to participate
in the rites of the renewal of life. The went
a-maying on May Day Eve into the woods and returned at
dawn on May Day, carrying green boughs of branches
freshly bursting into leaf, as tokens that they
had identified themselves with the revival of
nature that was happening all around them.
Little girls went parading the streets with garlands of flowers,
fastened to sticks, which theys showed passers-by,
who were expected to put something in the collecting-bag.
I remember as a young girl, May Day was special.
We had a lovely older couple down the road we
lived on. She grew the most beautiful flowers.
We would knock on her door and ask if we could
cut some of the flowers and make May Baskets for
some of the neighbors. She always let us. Of course,
she was the first to get one of our homemade baskets.
We did a simple basket with our artwork
using crayons on paper plates. We cut one paper plate
in half and stapled the half to the whole one
making a homemade basket and tied yarn around
and decorated them filling them with the flowers
we picked. The neighbors loved it.
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