Remember hanging may baskets on folkses door knobs?
Ok. Just use your imagination. I can’t show you the picture. 
I tried three times but couldn’t see it. 
That’s right!!! It’s Bealtaine! Fertility rites! Drunken orgies! Virgin sacrifices! Pagan City, here we come! 
And tonight is Walpurgisnacht!
Nope, I don’t remember that. I do remember when I was a kid it was a yearly ritual at school. We always had a big ole Maypole, spent weeks practicing “winding” it correctly with colored ribbons as we danced around the thing, had a “May Court” and a king and queen were crowned. It was great fun. I haven’t thought about that in years, in fact I bet my kids( in their mid-twenties) wouldn’t even know what I was talking about . 
I forgot that May Eve is Walpurgisnacht. Appropriately, we’re having thunderstorms tonight.
If there’s a bustle in your hedge row, don’t be alarmed now.
It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen.
(Led Zeppelin - “Stairway to Heaven”)
in germany they do the pole thing & something called “tanz in den mai”, which means dancing into may. germans, young and old, boogie from 30 apr → 1 may. some fertility rites also observed.
- tom
I remember folks telling me they used to do this.
I’d rather not. Can I just have tea and cookies and read something by C.S. Lewis?
Tomorrow is a BIG day for us…it’s the day the children’s Morris Troupe I play for makes its debut! Morris Dance is, of course, strongly associated with May Day (that “dancing in the May”), as well as with other festivals, both secular and sacred. The adult teams will be up at dawn at the lighthouse in Santa Cruz to dance the sun up…then the kids will meet them downtown to dance on the street.
I’m getting a bit nervous…other than our practices, I’ve never played for dancers. I do OK in rehearsal, but I’m so worried I’ll flub something in performance and mess things up for the kids. Funny, when it’s just me playing, I don’t sweat it…if I make a mistake, who’s likely to know? But the kids depend so much on the music to tell them what to do when and to keep their rhythm going…
Grrr…I’ve just got to stop worrying! I must have played these very simple versions of Shepherd’s Hey and South Australia a thousand times, I’m NOT going to flub them!
:roll:
When I was a kid, we used to make May baskets out of paper strips, fill them with flowers and hang them on people’s doors on May Day. I mentioned it to the kids today, and they’d never heard the like…hmmm…that might be a good project to suggest to the teachers next year!
Redwolf
Suitable viewing? How’s about the cult film ‘The wickerman’?
No doubt,many of you may have seen this,but for those who haven’t,the gist of the story is that, a young girl is reported missing on a remote Scottish island,so a policeman(played by Edward Woodward-‘Callan’,‘The Equaliser’) is despatched from the mainland to investigate.
Turns out that there’s been a pagan revival on the island,led by lord Summerhill(Christopher ‘Dracula’ lee)
The film is a bit 70’s horror campy in parts,but in essence is a good story,and the ending is still quite a shocker.
The ‘folky’ sound track is a bit embarrassing-in fact there’s so many musical interludes you could almost class the film as a Horror-Musical!
Someone actually plays a RECORDER in the pub session scene (now that’s REAL HORROR! 
)
Best of luck, Redwolf. Looking forward to hearing how it all went!
Classic film! It has that spooky “everyone knows something awful and they’re not telling me” feel running through it.
One of the best ever film endings ever! Being a 70s film there’s a bit of female nudity, but they don’t overdo it.
Best of luck Redwolf. If you keep training up youngsters then maybe one day I can finally hang up my bells (or at least malinger with the rest of the musicians). I shall expect a full report when I get back from my own weekend of celebrations.
As a child (about 30 years ago) I lived in Bedfordshire and every year we would be dancing around the may pole and there would be a king and queen of may as well.
When I moved up to the wild heathen north this didn’t happen, so is this an English celebration?
Richard.
I went to Catholic elementary and high school and the only association I have with May day is that it is the first day of the month dedicated to the Blessed Mother Of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, aka BVM. The entire month was replete with flowers, May crowns, virgins, anthems to the BVM that reached its climax with the May Crowning with a statue of the BVM being carried up the center aisle of the church.
Immaculate Mary, our hearts are on fire…
No mention of godless communism, labor organizations, etc. Just Church-sponsored idol… uh…veneration.
Mike
One of the classic photographs of our family is of my mother when she attended a private women’s college in the 1930’s of her and her classmates dancing around a May Pole on May 1st.
When she hauled out our baby pictures to embrass us - my sister and I, when we brought home our dates we were seeing, we would in turn haul that one out! Or when she thought we were acting to foolishly we just give her a gentle reminder of THAT photograph!
Happy May Day!
MarkB
Hmmm…another instance of Mother Church usurping the dates of pagan festivals? The pagans have still scored one with Easter, though, the only Christian obsservance to maintain its pagan name.
Happy May Day, whatever your affiliation!
M
Oooh, those pagans with their phallic May Poles!
My favorite part of May Day celebrations (Shepherdstown, WV) is watching the morris dancers … well … morrising about, waving hankies, pounding the ground with great sticks, and jingling the bells strapped to their legs.
I have not yet seen the fabled Stick and Bucket dance, but I’m told by a morris-dancing friend that it is rarely performed because of excessive lewdness. 
M