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432 NUTS IN MAY
Ring." Holland (Cheshire Glossary) says, " May birches were branches of different kinds of trees fastened over doors of houses and on the chimney on the eve of May Day. They were fastened up by parties of young men who went round for the purpose, and were intended to be symbolical of the character of the inmates." I remember one May Day in London, when the " May girls " came with a garland and short sticks decorated with green and bunches of flowers, they sang—
Knots of May we've brought you, Before your door it stands;
It is but a sprout, but it's well budded out By the work of the Lord's hands, and a Miss Spencer, who lived near Hampton (Middlesex), told me that she well remembered the May girls singing the first verse of this carol, using " knots" instead of the more usual word "branch" or "bunch," and that she knew the small bunch of May blossom by the name of "knots" of May, "bringing in knots of May" being a usual expression of children.
The association of May—whether the month, or the flower, or both—with the game is very strong, the refrain "cold and frosty morning," "all on a summer's morning," "bright summer's morning," " so early in the morning," also being characteristic of the early days of May and spring, and suggests that the whole day from early hours is given up to holiday. The familiar nursery rhyme given by Halliwell—
Here we come a-piping,
First in spring and then in May, no doubt also refers to house-to-house visiting of May.
The connection between the May festival and survival in custom of marriage by capture is well illustrated by a passage from Stubbe's Anatomie of Abuses, p. 148. He says : " Against May Day, Whitsonday, or other time, euery Parishe, Towne and Village assemble themselves together, bothe men women and children, olde and yong, . . . and either goyng all together or diuidyng themselues into companies, they goe some to the Woodes and groves where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; and in the morning they return bringing with them |
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