May Day

So many ritual days recently I am getting a bit weary writing about them.

Anyway, today is May Day, which has so many folklore associations you could write a book.

Above:  the cowslips are out around this holy well.  When I asked why it was holy I was told the water had curative properties.  I lowered one of the buckets and brought some water up - it looked a bit murky to me, so I didn't drink any.

Above:  traditionally May Day was the day for maypole dancing in the villages of the county.  This fertility custom almost died out, but over the last ten years or so there has been a revival.  Originally (pre-Victorian era) everyone in a village who was past the age of puberty and still unmarried would take part in the ceremony, which seems to have been a sort of mating facility (the community placing an emphasis on production of the next generation of children).

Above:  now the mayploe dance is entirely performed by children.  Some villages have permanent maypoles, but most just put them up for the day.  Traditionally maypoles were garlanded with cowslips.

Above:  also on May Day each village would crown a May Queen.  Here you can see both a May Queen and a May King has been appointed, presumably in response to political correctness.  Usually May Queens were chosen for their looks.

Above:  I stopped to have a quick look round this May Day fete and saw this rudimentary throne set up under a makeshift canopy, ready for the crowning of the May Queen (I didn't have time to stay and see the actual event).  The recent Royal Wedding has raised questions about why young girls should dream of being princesses and queens.  It doesn't make sense in terms of modern consumer society.  But it makes perfect sense when seen in terms of pre-industrial agrarian societies where the highest value was placed on young women who were able to breed perfect children.  Is this simply "learned behaviour" encouraged by a sexist and Disneyfied society (in which case the state could ban the fetes in the interest of gender equalities policy).  Or is this a cultural impulse of such antiquity that it cannot be suppressed (for instance, interest in the Royal Wedding in the non-monarchical United States is supposed to have been even more fervant than in the United Kingdom, which points to a Freudian reaction).

Above:  earlier in the year I was in Dorset and went to look at the Cerne Abbas giant - a hill carving of a sexually-excited naked man holding a club.  No-one knows how old the figure is, but most experts suggest at least an Iron Age origin (there is an Iron Age fort on the summit of the hill).  Every May Day the hill figure is the location for fertility customs (Morris dancers and suchlike - nobody fornicates in public any more).

Above:  walking around the village of Cerne Abbas was surreal.  The hill figure is everywhere.  For instance you can buy a Cerne Abbas mug.

Above:  or a Cerne Abbas tea towel.

Above:  or have a drink in The Giant pub.