The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1930-04-25
BY ELMO SCOTT WATSON

lECvNt3 when she offers striking
evidence that she is the
daughter of Old England
~ and that the descendants
of the founders of the ma
ton, despite the infiltration of other
racial strains during the centuries in
which the nation was building, are
still conscious of their English an
cestry. That day is the first of May.
To some people who live in America
but who have not yet been trans
formed into Americans by the al
chemy of the melting pot, May
means a day for protest against the
prevailing order of things, for So
called radical" activities, for calling
for an uprising which somehow
never seems to come off successfully.
For millions of Americans May l
means disorder of another kind, the
semi-annual upheaval in domestic ar
engagements and change from old fire.
sides to new, known as Moving day."
But to millions of young Americans,
in our schools and colleges, May l is a
festival day, a time of rejoicing and
merrymaking, of song and of dance
And as they, gaily dressed, weave in
and out with the long streamers at
tached to the top of Maypole erected
on some level stretch of greensward,
they are perpetuating an old custom
of bringing in the May" which traces
back in an unbroken line TO the
Elizabethan days in Merrie England.
In that respect, May day is almost
unique. Few, if any, of the holidays
which we celebrate are observed in a
manner so closely resembling its
ancient observance as is this one 1t
is one of the popular customs of the
long ago which persists after others
have long since passed away.
The month of May is named for
Maia, the Roman goddess of fertility.
So the May day celebration of a later
period had it's roots in the rites orig
inally offered in honor of the god
dess Maia. But it was another Ro-
man festival which brought to May
day the character of the ceremonies
which made it distinctive. This was
the Floralia, held in honor of Flora,
the goddess of flowers, when there
were gay costumes, dramatic perform
ances and dances. When Christianity
began to prevail over Europe, certain
pagan customs were retained in
modified form and among these was
the May day celebration. In medieval
times it became an important festival
and all classes of people, old and
young, participated in it. Among the
Russians there was a spring festival
celebrated by the boys and girls with
a choral dance called "Khorovod'' and
in Sweden there was also May day
celebration with a dance.
But for some reason the festival
reached its highest development in
England and we now think of it as
a distinctively English custom.
Early in the first morning of May
the men and the maids of Old England
would set forth singing for the fields
and the woods to gather Towering
boughs, wayside blossoms and any
pretty, fresh green things that might
await them. These treasures were
used to ''May" the doors of the popu-
lar houses in the village. 1t is this
custom which survives in the hanging
of May baskets by the chilS-en of
today.
However the "Mayere" went into
the woods primarily to choose the
tallest, straightest hawthorne, to cut
it down and, with its greenness still
freshly fragrant. to bring it into the
public square, there to raise it for
the center of their long days festivity.
They did it with much ceremony.
A writer in the Fifteenth century
says: "They bring home with great
generation; they have twentie or
FORTE yoake of oxen-every one hav-
ing a sweet nosegaie Of flowers tied
to the tip of his horns, and those oxen
draw home the May poale. COW
cred all over with flowers and
hearbes. and thus equipped it
was rear'd with handkerchiefs and
fiagges streaming on the top"
The Maypole having ?een raised,
what follows is resented by Puritan
writer thus: Sand then fell they to
banquet and feast, to leape and dance
about it, as the heather people did at
the dedication of their idols, whereof
this is a perfect pattern, or rather the
thing itself"
The beloved festival, called by the
Puritans IAN impious and pagan
superstition" was long celebrated by
the rich and poor alike. Chaucer
writes: "Fourth goth al the court,
both most and lest. to fetch the flow
ers fresh and blome.' Stow. in his
Survey of London" 1902. says I'm
the month of May every man. except
impeachment. would walk into the
sweete meadows and greene woods