May Day

Today is May Day -- the First of May, when all kinds of interesting things happen in the park.

Mom and I were entertained by a merry band of May Day revelers called the Bowery Boys. Normally, they do their dances down near 92nd street, but because that area is under construction they came up to our neck of the woods.

First, they decorated the May Pole, and then they did a number of dances that incorporated lots of tiny bells, a drum and a recorder.

Mom and I researched May Day on the internet:

Mayday originated in pagan Europe. It was a festive holy day celebrating the first spring planting. The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane or the day of fire. Bel was the Celtic god of the sun.

The Saxons began their May day celebrations on the eve of May, April 30. It was an evening of games and feasting celebrating the end of winter and the return of the sun and fertility of the soil. Torch bearing peasants and villager would wind their way up paths to the top of tall hills or mountain crags and then ignite wooden wheels which they would roll down into the fields.


The May eve celebrations were eventually outlawed by the Catholic church, but were still celebrated by peasants until the late 1700's. Those less afraid of papal authority would don animal masks and various costumes, not unlike our modern Halloween. The revelers, lead by the Goddess of the Hunt; Diana (sometimes played by a pagan-priest in women's clothing) and the Horned God; Herne, would travel up the hill shouting, chanting and singing, while blowing hunting horns.

The Celtic tradition of Mayday in the British isles continued to be celebrated through-out the middle ages by rural and village folk. Here the traditions were similar with a goddess and god of the hunt. Celts traditionally used 9 different kinds of wood to light the balefires of Beltane. Each one having a magickal quality all its own.

Wow. I don't know if the people we saw were magickal, but they sure did entertain us!