THE MONTHS-MAY.

MAY was called by our Saxon ancestors Tri-milki, because in that month they began to milk their kine three times in the day.*

Every year on this day met the folkmote of our Saxon ancestors the annual parliament, as it is explained by Spelman, or convention of the bishops, thanes, aldermen, and freemen, in which the laymen having first sworn to defend one another and conjointly with the king maintain the laws of the realm, then proceeded to consult of the common safety.

The modern name of the month is from the Latin Maius, or Majus, which itself has been variously derived, and occasioned much dispute, as Macrobius tells us, amongst the Roman writers. According to one account it was called Majus from Majores, the elders, just as the month of June had its name from Juniores, the younger, these appellations having been respectively given in honour of the two great masses into which Romulus had divided the Roman people,-namely the elders and the juniors,—

* Verstegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 66. London,

the one being appointed to maintain the republic by their counsels, and the other by their arms. Cincius however imagines that the name was derived from Maia, whom he calls the wife of Vulcan, while Piso contends that the goddess in question was called Majesta, and not Maia, whom others call the mother of Mercury. Some again derive it from Jupiter, called Majus from his Majesty; and not a few have maintained that the Maia, to whom sacrifices were made in May, was the Earth, so named from its magnitude, as in the sacred rites she is called Mater Magna, the Great Mother. The plain inference from all these argumentary suppositions is that neither Varro, nor Cincius, nor Macrobius, nor any of the authors cited by him, knew a jot more of the matter than ourselves.*

It may now be said to be spring to the feelings as

*"Majum Romulus tertium posuit, de cujus nomine inter auctores lata dissensio est; nam Fulvius Nobilior in FASTIS, quos in æde Herculis Musarum posuit, Romulum dicit, postquam populum in majores junioresque divisit, ut altera pars consilio, altera armis rempublicam tueretur, in honorem utriusque partis hunc Majum, sequentem Junium, vocasse. Sunt qui hunc mensem ad nostros fastos a Tusculanis transisse commemorant; apud quos nunc quoque vocatur Deus Majus, qui est Jupiter, a magnitudine scilicet ac majestate dictus. Cincius mensem nominatum putat a Maja, quam Vulcani dicit uxorem; argumentoque utitur, quod flamen Vulcanalis Kalendis Majis huic deæ rem divinam facit. Sed Piso uxorem Vulcani Majestam, non Majam dicit vocari. Contendunt alii Majam, Mercurii matrem, mensi nomen dedisse, hinc maxime probantes quod hoc mense mercatores omnes Maja pariter Mercurioque sacrificant. Affirmant quidam, quibus Cornelius Labeo consentit, hanc Majam, cui mense Majo res divina celebratur, terram esse, hoc adeptum nomen a magnitudine sicut et Mater Magna in sacris vocatur."-Macrobii Saturnal, lib. i. cap. xii.

If however we may believe the authorities, cited by the learned Vossius (De Origine et Progressu Idolatriæ, lib. i. cap. xii. p. 37, folio), the Bona Dea was addicted to drunkenness, and upon one oc

;

well as according to the strict letter of the almanac. The garden begins to put on its gayest robe of flowers the male orchis with its purple pyramids; narcissi of various sorts; the garden-squill; the narrow-leaved peony, beautiful, but short lived, in its blowing; the globe-flower ; Solomon's seal; the lily of the valley; the asphodel; the monkey-poppy; ground ivy; the fleur-de-lis; the speedwell; the creeping crowsfoot; the wall hawkweed; and many others-till, towards the end of the month, the list of them would require a volume.*

casion got well whipt for draining a flask in the temple against her husband's knowledge. "Sed quam malè tanta pudicitia, a Varrone memorata, convenit cum ejus ebrietate, de quâ sic ex Sexto Clodio scribit Arnobius in sexto;-Faunam igitur Fatuam, Bona quæ dicitur Dea, transeamus; quam myrteis cæsam virgis, quòd marito nesciente, seriam meri ebiberit plenam, Sextus Clodius indicat sexto de diis Græcorum."

* The following is a brief index to the Vernal Flora.

The five last-mentioned flowers absolutely carpet the fields with yellow.

In regard to the Fauna, little can be added except that the swallows and martins begin to be common ; the nightingales now sing both night and day; glow-worms may be occasionally seen in the evening; the green Maybug, burnished with gold, and the brown cock-chafer are abundant; and generally the birds are in full song.

The festival of May-day has existed in this country, though its form has often changed, from the earliest times; and we find abundant traces of it both in our poets and old chroniclers.* Tollet imagines that it originally came from our Gothic ancestors; and certainly, if that is to be taken for a proof, the Swedes and Goths welcomed the first of May with songs and dance, and many rustic sports; but there is only a general, not a parti

* Thus Shakspeare in Henry VIII. act v. scene iii.
""Tis as much impossible

To scatter them as 'tis to make them sleep
On a May-morning."

So too Chaucer in his Court of Love.

+ In Olaus Magnus we read " 'Postquam Septētrionales populi communiter à principio Octobris ad finem Aprilis asperrimas hyemes et longissimas noctes, sævosque flatus, pruinas, nives, caligines, tempestates, immensaque frigora, et reliquas sævientium elementorum mutationes, quasi concessa solatia alacriter transierant, mos est diversus in gentibus illis remotissimè distantibus, nempe quòd redeuntem solis splendorem singulari tripudio, præcipuè versus Polum Arcticum habitantes, excipere soleant. Qui enim montosa sublimioraque loca incolunt mutuis conviviis gaudia multiplicantes exultant, eò quòd uberior redit venatio et piscatura." Olaus Magnus de Gentium Septentrionalium Conditionibus, lib. xv. cap. viii. et seq. p. 571. The author then goes on to detail a custom, which has nothing whatever to do with May-day in England. "Alius ritus est ut primo die Maii, sole per Taurum agente cursum, duplices a magistratibus urbium constituantur robustorum juvenum et virorum equestres turmæ seu cohortes, tanquam ad durum aliquem conflictum progressuræ, quarum altera sorte deputato duce dirigitur, qui hyemis titulo et habitu, variis indutus pellibus, hastisque focalibus armatus, globatas nives et crus

cular, likeness between our May-day festivities and those of our Gothic ancestors. Others again have sought for the origin of our customs in the Floralia, or rather in the Maiuma of the Romans, which were established at a later period under the Emperor Claudius, and differed perhaps but little from the former, except in being more decent.*

tatas glacies spargens ut frigora prolonget, obequitat victoriosus, eòque duriorem se simulat et efficit, quò ab vaporariis stiriæ glaciales dependere videntur. Rursumque alterius cohortis præfectus æstatis, Comes Florialis appellatus, virentibus arborum frondibus, foliisque et floribus (difficulter repertis) vestitus, æstialibus indumentis parum securis, ex campo cum ducet hyemali, licet separato loco et ordine, civitates ingrediuntur, hastisque edito spectaculo publico, quòd æstas hyemem exuperet, experiuntur." The substance of all which in brief is, that it was a custom among the Southern Swedes on the first of May, for two parties of youths to take upon them respectively the characters of winter and summer. The one clad in furs flung about ice and snow in order to prolong the winter, while the other was led on by their Captain Florio, who was lightly dressed, with boughs and leaves, and then commenced a battle between them, which of course ended in summer being the victor.

* The festival of the Maiuma originated probably at Ostia, a city on the sea-coast at the mouth of the Tiber, where the goddess Flora seems to have been more particularly worshipped, from her supposed power of calming the sea and rendering the winds mild and favourable. It is thus described by Suidas : " Πανήγυρις ἤγετο ἐν τῇ Ρώμη κατα τόν Μάϊον μῆνα. Τὴν παράλιον καταλαμβάνοντες πόλιν, τὴν λεγομένην Οστίαν, οἱ τα πρῶτα τῆς Ρώμης τελὄντες, ἡδυπαθειν ἠνείχοντο ἐν τοις θαλαττίοις ὕδασιν ἀλλήλους ἐμβάλ λοντες. "Οθεν καὶ Μαϊουμᾶς ὁ τῆς τοιαύτης ἑορτῆς καιρὸς ώνομálεTO." (Suidas, p. 2375, sub voce Maïoupas, folio. Oxonii, 1834.) That is, “Maiumas was a Roman festival held in the month of May, when the heads of the city, going off to the sea-town called Ostia, gave themselves up to pleasure, and amused themselves with throwing each other into the sea. Hence the time of that festival was called Maiuma."

This festival was celebrated with much splendour, both in banquets and in offerings, as we are told by the Emperor Julian, in