Hallelujah summer is here! Well at least we can start celebrating its impending arrival now that May Day has arrived. In pagan times May 1 was the first day of summer, which is one reason we still mark this day with time off from work and events across the country.
For pagans May Day is Beltane, which means ‘day of fire’, and some groups still head to Stonehenge to honour the Celtic god ‘Bel’.
For others the days kicks off in a much more jovial mood. For example students in Oxford sing madrigals from the roof of the tower of Magdalen College at 6am, with thousands gathering on Magdalen Bridge to listen.
More traditional celebrations for May Day include Maypoles and Morris Dancing and the crowning of May Queens.
Many villages and towns host their own events. Both Hastings in East Sussex and Whitstable in Kent, have Jack-in-the-Green processions, where Morris Dancers march a garland of leaves and flowers through the town.
Padstow in Cornwall holds its annual ‘Obby-Oss’ (Hobby Horse) day of festivities, where revellers dance with the Oss through the streets which are decked out with woodland greenery, alongside accordion players and followers dressed in white with red or blue sashes who sing the traditional ‘May Day’ song.
The Obby-Oss celebration is thought to be one of the oldest fertility rites in the UK, a theme continued by the Wessex Morris Men who dance on the Cerne Abbas Giant hill figure at dawn on the first day of May. The naked giant is also known as The Rude Man and considered the UK’s most suggestive landmark!
The village of Minehead in Somerset also has its own version of the Hobby Horse which gallops through the streets accompanied by noisy musicians, to accost passersby for donations and embarrass those who don’t pay up.
Another dance-based celebration of May Day (although it actually takes place on 8 May) is the internationally famous festival of the Furry, or Flora Dance, in Helston. The locals dance all day throughout the town, which is decked out with bluebells, gorse, laurel leaves and colourful flags. Dancing starts at 7am, with later dances featuring the children of the town, and a principal dance where participants don top hats, tails and dress gowns.
And for something completely different, join in with the Mayday run parade of thousands of motorbikes, which go from London to the seafront in Hastings and enjoy the special day.
How are you spending your May Day?