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May Day

© Linda Campbell

May Day is another festival that has its roots in pagan times as a festival to mark the start of summer. Many ancient civilisations held similar rites to celebrate this time of hope and promise for the future. For example, Floralia, in honour of the Sabine goddess of flowers, was held from April 28th to May 6th and involved flowers as well as hares and goats (animals renowned for their fertility).

Beltane was a Celtic bonfire festival which began at sunset on April 30th. This heralded the return of warmer weather and, like Samhain (October 31st), was one of the most important religious rites of the Celts. The Celts were an agricultural society; the end of winter meant moving flocks up to summer pastures and sowing crops. Beltane was one of the feast dates that was not taken over and changed by the Christian church. Although some efforts were made to give it a Christian meaning, its successor, in the form of May Day, has remained largely a celebration of fertility. Mayday is sometimes called Roodmas, which was the name given to it by the Church in medieval times. (‘Rood’ means ‘cross’.) May Day became the feast day for Saint Phillip and Saint James.

Many superstitions and stories surround May Day. The Queen of Fairies was supposed to ride a snow-white horse and to traverse the countryside on this date looking for a mortal to capture and take to Fairyland, where they would have to remain for seven years. It was also believed that during the month of May, the fairies were more likely to take mortal babies and leave changelings in their places. May was a month when it was unlucky to marry or to buy a new broom! Maidens who wished to improve their beauty would rise early on the 1st of May to bathe their faces in the dew. (I remember doing this as a child in Edinburgh, Scotland.) Wreaths were made from flowers and given to lovers or hung on doors. The flowers themselves told messages. Hawthorn (also called May) was considered to bring luck, so long as it was not taken indoors (fairies could be enticed inside by it). Other messages conveyed by flowers were ‘plum for the glum; elder for the surly; thorns for the prickly; pear for the popular’.

In Germany, April 30th is called Walpurgisnacht, after St Walpurga. It was believed that on this night, witches would fly to hilltops to engage in licentious festivals. An eighth century abbess, St Walpurga and her followers spent the night in the mountains performing sacred rituals.

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