Now that that cock-block of an A to Z challenge is over, we
can get back to your regularly scheduled programming, part of which, you’ll
remember, is Fun Friday Facts! Yay! Hooray! Fun Friday Facts are BACK!
Now, I know May Day was on Wednesday BUT, that was
Wednesday, NOT Friday, so my hands were tied. I also know May Day isn’t really
celebrated in the United States but that is precisely
why I decided to blog about it. There’s a whole world out there, kids. Look
into it.
May Day celebrations, like pretty much everything else I
blog about on Fridays, date
back to antiquity. May Day’s pre-Christian celebrations were associated
with Walpurgis Night in Germanic Europe; Beltane in Celtic and Gaelic regions;
and the Roman festival of Flora, goddess of flowers. Though not terribly
popular in ancient Rome, Flora was super-popular among Renaissance Europeans,
which is why she appears in every other work of art from the period.
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| As seen here in Botticelli's Primavera. |
Like many other pagan holidays, May Day has been absorbed
into the Christian tradition, although perhaps not as perfectly as holidays
like Christmas, Easter and All Saint’s Day. The Catholics among you will know
that 1 May is celebrated as a holiday in honor of the Virgin Mary, who may be
depicted wearing a crown of flowers for the occasion. The Feast of St. Joseph
the Worker is also celebrated on 1 May, to coincide with International
Worker’s Day, since Joseph is the patron saint of workers, among other things. May Day was
among the holidays suppressed during the English Interregnum,
which lasted from 1649 to 1660. In England, May Day is celebrated with Morris
dancing:
Video credit: John Cummings
In France,
it has been customary to gift a lily of the valley, as a traditional springtime
symbol on 1 May, ever since King Charles IX received one for good luck on 1 May
1561. In Germany,
the night before May Day is Walpurgisnacht, when bonfires are lit and the streamers
are wrapped around the maypole. In the Rhineland, a young demonstrate his
romantic interest in a young girl by giving her a maypole on the first of May,
although on leap years, these roles are reversed. A young woman might express
her affection by leaving a heart made of roses or rice on the window or
doorstep of her manly man.
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| This looks like it might take more than one person. Image credit: Florian Schott |
In Romania, the May Day holiday is known as “mugwort day” or
“drunkard’s day” because of the custom of wearing mugwort flowers and drinking
mugwort-flavored wine while partying outside. People usher in a year of good
health by using the morning’s dew to wash their faces. They hang birch saplings
and green branches over the gates of their homes and animal shelters for good
luck. On the eve of May Day, women are forbidden to work either in the fields
or in the home, lest the village be ravished by storms. Neither are animals to
be used for labor on May Day, to protect them and their owners from illness.
