I thought I’d slip in an extra little post this week, to celebrate May Day – today, if you hadn’t noticed. This is actually a reprise of what I posted last year, which itself was a slightly expanded version of the post I made in 2024. I’ve never been one to shy away from recycling!

This is where I started, by setting out my credentials for having a university degree in English Literature with a favourite poem:

I decided that it might be better if I supported that with some facts, and found this on Wikipedia:

May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the Northern Hemisphere’s Spring equinox and June solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. Traditions often include gathering wildflowers and green branches, weaving floral garlands, crowning a May Queen (sometimes with a male companion), and setting up a Maypole, May Tree or May Bush, around which people dance. Bonfires are also part of the festival in some regions. Regional varieties and related traditions include Walpurgis Night in central and northern Europe, the Gaelic festival Beltane, the Welsh festival Calan Mai, and May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. It has also been associated with the ancient Roman festival Floralia.

I have left in all of the links in case you want to know more, and to save this from becoming a long post, when my intention is to keep it brief. And it may surprise you to find that the ‘male companion’ link is nothing to do with male escorts, but is actually about the Jack In The Green, who is a traditional part of May Day celebrations here. The earliest known celebrations of this day are those for Floralia in the days of the Roman Republic, which ceased to exist in 27BC, giving way to the Roman Empire, so it has been around a bit.

Celebrations are held around the UK, and the tradition is particularly strong in the West Country. I wanted to give you a little historical feel for them, and found this on YouTube. It is from Elstow, in Bedfordshire, which isn’t exactly in the west of England but it is a chance to hear one of those fabulous Pathé News reports:

You may have spotted that the date on that was 1939, just four months before the outbreak of WWII. Things changed for a while but the traditions continue. Again from Wikipedia: “May festivals are thought to have taken place in Elstow village from long before the formation of the nunnery in 1078, possibly from pagan times. These were abandoned in about 1889 but then revived by the local headmaster, ‘Bob’ Wadsworth, in 1925. They were discontinued in 1968 and were then revived again in 2006 by the Reverend Jeremy Crocker, rector of Elstow Abbey.” I hope today is going well for them.

Not passing up a chance to play you some music for today, I thought I’d give you a couple of tunes that celebrate the occasion. The first is a take on an old English folk song, Hal-An-Tow, from one of my favourite bands – Oysterband:

The song is related to the Hal-An-Tow pageant, which is held on May Day in Helston, in Cornwall: it is a kind of mystery play with various historical and mythical themes, some of which are reflected in the song’s lyrics.

Last year I added in another English folk song about May Day, a charming little traditional song being given a nice treatment:

You’ve probably never heard of the band Magpie Lane. They were formed in 1992 in Oxford, and are still going today, having released ten albums of traditional music, the most recent being in 2018. For more than ten years they included Benji Kirkpatrick in their ranks: he is now much better known as a member of Bellowhead and others.

My closing tune for today is one from the European traditions that were mentioned in the first extract I quoted from Wikipedia. If you follow the link there you’ll see a longer version of this:

Walpurgis Night  is the eve of the Christian feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia, and is celebrated on the night of 30 April and the day of 1 May. This feast commemorates the canonisation of Saint Walpurga and the movement of her relics to Eichstätt, both of which occurred on 1 May 870. Saint Walpurga was hailed by the Christians of Germany for battling “pest, rabies, and whooping cough, as well as against witchcraft.”

This comes from another of my favourite bands, Faun. They are German and the song is sung in their own language, but I think the video will give you a fair idea of the way pagan celebrations have traditionally been held over there. And it is fun to watch – the music is, as always, terrific, and the visuals are pretty stunning, in a rather NSFW kind of way:

So, Happy May Day if you are celebrating, and just enjoy the music and the history lesson if you aren’t. And if you are partaking of activities related to my opening ‘poem,’ keep an eye out for thistles and nettles 🤣