The Origins of "May Day"

So tomorrow (May 5th) is the May Day bank holiday here in the UK, and as I wasn't really sure about how it came about, I thought I'd do some research and tell all of you guys!

According to this wikipedia article, May Day had its origins in pre-Christian society, and is closely linked to the celebration of Walpurgis Night, a Germanic festival (originally 'Walpurgisnacht'), whcih was celebrated on the 30th April. This is the eve of the feast day of St, Walpurga, an 8th-century German abbess, and is said to be the night of a witches' meeting.




In England, modern-day celebrations include Morris and Maypole dances, and the crowning of a May Queen, but in the past, it was traditional for young children, often girls, to go 'a-Maying' early on May Day morning - collecting sprigs of hawthorn and giving May baskets, filled with sweets and flowers, to neighbours. However, this tradition faded at the beginning of the 20th century.

May Day is also supposedly the first day of Summer: February 1st was the first day of Spring. Following this, the summer solstice on 25th June (now 21st) was Midsummer.

As far as I can gather, May Day is celebrated in many different countries in many different ways; I will leave the link to the wikipedia article I used for this post at the bottom.

I'm not sure how
frequent posts will be in the next few weeks, as Jenni and I both have exams (hence why there wasn't a post last week). I'll try to keep you updated, but it might be infrequent.

~ Tess

Wikipedia posts used: May Day; Walpurgis Night