[1862:] [John Harland:] While reading one evening
towards the close of April, 1861, [...] I was on
a sudden aware of a party of waits or carollers
who had taken their stand on the lawn in my
garden, and were serenading the family with a
song. [...] Inquiry resulted in my obtaining from
an old 'Mayer' the words of two songs, called by
the singers themselves 'May Songs', though the
rule and custom are that they must be sung before
the first day of May.[...]He says that the Mayers
usually commence their singing round about the
middle of April, though some parties start as
early as the beginning of the month. The singing
invariably ceases on the evening of the 30th
April. (Chambers, Book of Days, vol. I, quoted in
Palmer, Country 133f) [1967:] The great Labour
festival of the modern proletariat is but the
continuation, on a new plane, of the springtime
processions and revels of working people in
ancient times. Nor has the old sense of
ceremonial orgy quite faded; in some continental
countries, May Day is at least as boozy and
unbuttoned as any Durham Big Meeting Day. The
ribaldry persists, though the old sacred reasons
no longer apply. Formerly the peasantry were
strong in the belief that the fertilization of
plants involved the sexual participation of the
grower, and that at seed-time licentiousness is
not only permitted but demanded. Phillip Stubbs
[...] in a famous passage from his 'Anatomie of
Abuses' (1583) offers this view of merrie England
in Shakespeare's time:
"Against May, Whitsonday, or other time, all
the yung men and maides, olde men and wives, run
gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils,
and mountains, where they spend all the night in
pleasant pastimes; and in the morning they
return, bringing with them birch and branches of
trees, to deck their assemblies withall [...] But
the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is
their Maypole, which they have bring home with
great veneration [...] I have heard it credibly
reported (and that viva voce) by men of great
gravitie and reputation, that of fortie,
threescore, or a hundred maides going to the wood
over night, there have scarcesly the third part
of them returned home againe undefiled."
Commenting on Stubbs' last sentence, Violet
Alford remarks: "If this was true, and,
allowing for some exaggeration, it seems to have
been, it was a confirmation of firmly seated use
at this time of the year and belonged, not to
lack of moral sense, but to an earlier stage of
culture."
The mayers would return from the woods in the
night or early on May morning, with big bunches
of May or garlanded poles. They had their special
May songs to sing at every door and, as usual,
they expected their ritualistic reward of a bit
to eat or the price of a pint. (Lloyd, England
100f)
[1976:] [This was] sung as part of the May Day
rituals in Bedford (Cornwall). [...] in the
Cornish May Day celebrations, the 'creature' was
a form of 'Old 'Oss' [...] (Notes 'The Spinners'
English Collection')
[1982:] Another important festival was May
Day. This used to be seen as the first day of
summer, and therefore a time for great
celebration. It was the custom for young people
to go out to the woods to collect May branches to
decorate the houses and church on May eve (30
April). Then on May Day there would be feasting
and dancing round the Maypole. There were many
complaints that the young people got out of hand,
and misbehaved [by the 17th century Puritan
Philip Stubbes, for one]. (Lee, Folksong 6)
[1998:] The word [carol], from the French
'carole', first appears in English in 1300 and
only became primarily associated with Christmas
songs in the fifteenth century. According to the
classic work, Richard Leighton Greene's 'The
Early English Carol', 'a carol is a song of joy
originally accompanying a dance ... it has come
eventually to be used to designate a kind of
lyric poem, usually, but not exclusively on
sacred subjects, intended to be sung with or
without musical accompaniment.' (Peter Silverton,
Observer, 5 July)