May Day, Bhealltaine, Cyntefyn--Which is it?

It's May! Who cares??? It's finally May! The snow is gone for another year, the sun is shining, the temperatures are warm, and the earth is awakening. It's May--that lustiest of months!

When you were small, did you ever deliver a May basket to a neighbor or family member? I did. It's a charming practice.

May Basket Here's a pretty May basket, in case you wondered what I mean. Mothers help their offspring select someone to receive the basket, and help compose and assemble the contents. Once completed and ready for delivery, the children creep up the front steps of their recipient's  home, trying for all their worth, to stifle their giggles, place the basket on the door handle, knob or latch, knock on the door or ring the bell. Then, they run from the scene at full tilt and hide themselves in the shrubbery to watch the person's face when they see their pretty gift.  Have you ever danced around a May pole after sunset on a village green? Do you know what a May pole is? Here's an example. Isn't it pretty?

Do you know where the custom comes from? Mostly, they're found in Germanic and Celtic countries of northern Europe. Nobody knows where they originated, but most agree they're a continuation of the reverence for sacred trees. Some view them as having phallic symbolism. Whoa, baby! That's some big, um-m, rod. These things could be as tall as trees! Which they were. The original ones were trees that had been stripped of all but their top leaves. John Cleland's controversial novel, Fanny Hill records,  “...and now, disengag'd from the shirt, I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard , that had proportions been observ'd, it must have belong'd to a young giant."

The earliest recorded evidence comes from a Welsh poem written by Gyffydd ap Adda ap Dafydd during the mid-14th century, in which he described how people used a tall birch pole at Llanidloes in central Wales.  
Pairs of boys and girls (or men and women) stand alternately around the base of the pole, each holding the end of a ribbon.  They weave in and around each other, boys going one way and girls going the other and the ribbons are woven together around the pole until the merry-makers meet at the base. Belenos Celts have long celebrated the first day of May as Bhealtainn, the day the god Belenos, the horned god of the woodlands and the Great Mother are united in sacred marriage.  The lusty month, May is a time for drinking mead wearing bright colors, including green, gathering flowers and celebrating the dawn of each new day. The color green, worn at this time, honors the earth mother. This is the month during which trial marriages, called handfasting, are made for a year and a day.

On May Day young men use commonly to runne into woodes at night time, amongst maidens, to set bowls. So much as I have heard of tenne maidens whiche went to set May and nine of them came home with childe.               ~ Unknown 16th century chronicler.


And there you have it.