May Day
 May Day, May 1. May Day is an ancient celebration of the coming of spring, which typically begins with
bonfires the previous evening on Walpurgis Night.
The traditional May Day customs are especially observed in the British Isles and
Scandinavia, where it is customary to set up a Maypole and dance around it by weaving
ribbons in and out around the pole.
The puritan Phillip Stubbes colorfully describes May Day with disgust:
Against May, Whitsonday, or other time, all the yung men and maides, olde men and wives,
run gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils, and mountains, where they spend all the
night in plesant pastimes; and in the morning they return, bringing with them birch and
branches of trees, to deck their assemblies withall.
And no mervaile, for there is a great Lord present amongst them, as superintendent and
Lord over their pastimes and sportes, namely, Sathan, prince of hel.
But the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their May-pole, which they bring home
with great veneration, as thus.
They have twentie or fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweet nose-gay of flouers
placed on the tip of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this May-pole, which they
bring home this May-pole (this stinkyng ydol, rather), which is covered all over with
floures and hearbs, bound round about with strings, from the top to the bottome, and
sometime painted with variable colours, with two or three hundred men, women and children
following it with great devotion.
And thus beeing reared up, with handkercheefs and flags hovering on the top, they straw
the ground rounde about, binde green boughes about it, set up sommer haules, bowers, and
arbors hard by it.
And then fall they to daunce about it, like as the heathen people did at the dedication
of the Idols, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or rather the thing itself.
I have heard it credibly reported (and that
viva voce) by men of great gravitie and reputation, that of fortie, threescore,
or a hundred maides going to the wood over night, there have scaresly the third part
of them returned home againe undefiled.
The licentious antics that were often a part of these celebrations so offended the
Puritans, that they managed to outlaw Maypoles in 1644.
In 1661, Charles II ended these restrictions and built London's tallest ever Maypole (134')
which later became the support for Sir Isaac Newton's telescope.
The Puritans were more successful in the New World in supressing this holiday.
In 1628 Governor William Bradford wrote:
They allso set up a May-pole, drinking and dancing about it many days together,
inviting the Indean women for their consorts, dancing and frisking together.
He goes on to tell how the Puritan leader John Indecott had the Maypole cut down and
put an end to the fun.
These customs originated with the Beltaine festival of the Druids, and with the ancient
Roman festival of Floralia.
In modern times it has come to symbolize labor, and is accompanied by parades.
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Mauritius
