The first day of May is a festival combining a welcome to Spring, courtship rites, dances and games. Celebrating a flourishing of nature and fertility in humans and animals, the festival is believed to have originated in the ancient Roman Floralia, beginning in 258 B.C., in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers and Spring. At that time, flower dances and processions were common. With the Roman occupation, such celebrations took hold in Britain and continental Europe.
Originally such rites were intended to ensure fertility to the crops, and by extension, to cattle and human beings. In most cases this significance has gradually lost and the practices survived merely as popular festivals. A widespread superstition held that washing the face in the May Day morning dew would beautify the skin.
In the Middle Ages, May Day became one of the merriest holidays in Britain. People went into the woods after midnight to gather Spring flowers and hawthorn branches, returning at dawn singing and dancing. The major events of the day were dances around the Maypole, the selection of the fairest village maiden as Queen of the May, and rustic morris dances featuring such characters as Robin Hood (whom local youths impersonated in dances and dramatic performances) and Maid Marian, the hobbyhorse, and the fool.
Because merrymaking and mating rites became increasingly uninhibited, the festivities were banned, in 1644, under the Puritan Commonwealth. Although May Day celebrations were resumed after the Restoration (1660), interest gradually diminished. Although superseded by the Christian celebration of Easter, the holiday has survived in various forms.
In France, young Queens of the May are chosen to personify the Virgin Mary, to whom the month of May is dedicated. In rural Poland, a little May, a tall, smooth pole is placed before the cottage of a popular girl. The pole is tied at the top with a small juniper or other evergreen and tasseled with ribbons and flowers. Young men parade through the streets singing military songs to musical accompaniment. In Turkey, May 1st, known as Hidrellez, is an official holiday welcoming Spring. Flowers symbolize the festival, and the main event is a picnic in the country.
In the United States, some towns and college campuses have May Day festivals. The holiday is chiefly a festival for children and is still widely observed in city schools, especially in New York City. A young woman is chosen May Queen to preside over the festivities, which include music and games. The day is also celebrated with the hanging of May Baskets and dancing around the Maypoles. Beginning in 1902, many schoolchildren in San Jose, CA have celebrated May Day with folk games, dances, Grecian floral games, and chariot races.