MAY FOLKLORE
A great change is about to happen over the land. People in fume filled cities will see it, from Glasgow, Belfast, London, Cardiff it will occur. All Britain responds but only in the countryside is the greeting total, because there alone the change appears in all its glory - the glow of young green leaves.
It is said that a severe Winter cleanses the Earth, and that Spring's new coat will be all the more radiant, full of beauty, hope and life. Robert Bridges summed it up thus -
Behold! the radiant Spring,
In splendour decked anew,
Down from her heaven blue,
Returns a sunlit way ....In March the year was young, in January younger still and were the seasons of infancy and childhood, whereas May is earth's adolescence. When houses possessed few windows and rarely a chimney, and none at all was centrally heated, May came as a merciful release from smoky rooms and draughts. May is often connected with Whitethorn and Blackthorn, which themselves are misleading words, because the former suggests the flower is white, whereas they can often be pink or red. The white refers to the wood, and hawthorn comes from the old English 'haga' or 'haw' referring to the fruit. Sometimes also called quicks or quicksets from the old English 'cwic' or 'living'.
Every bird now whistles and sings as it goes about its work, whether it be attracting a mate, or for early nesters feeding and fending a brood. To rise with the crack of dawn and wander down to the woods in May is to hear Nature announcing through the Dawn chorus the joy and beauty of all its wonders.
Three rubrics stand at the head of my own calendar. They are the first snow, May Day, and the opening of the brown trout season. For example, hearing the first cuckoo or watching the lambs, I think of people I have met and places visited and hope to return to again. Is the lady on the Isle of Harris still spinning her yarn outside her croft and counting the seabirds as they fly past? Do daffodils still flower on the banks of the River Barle in deepest Somerset? Will the violets shyly peep through in the hedges of the lanes around here? Will there be a blue carpet of bluebells near Cwm Annell this year? Walking Offa's Dyke one year in May, I have never encountered such a profusion of flowering hawthorn near Clun. The scent was something to relish on this windless day, although it is said that hawthorn contains tri-methelamine, a substance found in putrid fish.
As to old customs, the May pole was once popular in Wales, but has now entirely died out. The May-pole was always made out of Birch 'Bedwen' which has romantic connections. In times past, for a young woman to accept a branch of birch from her suitor was to accept his advances.
Games of various kinds were played around the village May pole, and the fame of the village depended on it keeping its May pole as other roving parties would be intent on taking possession
This stemmed from the ancient idea that the first of May was the boundary dividing the confines of Winter and Summer, when a fight took place between the powers of the air.
In even earlier times, a fire of logs was kindled on May Day, around which it was customary for men and women, young and old, to dance hand in hand and sing to the accompaniment of a harp. some of the men would leap over the fire at the peril of being burnt. The origins of this date back to the 'belltaine' fires of the Druids.
Yes, the traditions of May Day stretch back to time immemorial, and despite today's technology, speeding traffic, and materialism, a modern countryman shares an ancient craving. And having survived the Winter, he recalls the poet's lines -
But now the North wind ceases,
The warm South-west awakes,
The heavens are out in fleeces,
The Earth's green banner shakes.