But though it may at first seem probable that our May-games may have come immediately from the Floralia, or Maiuma of the Romans,* there can be little question that their final origin must be sought in other countries, and his satirical address, the Misopogon, to the people of Antioch, and in time it appears to have degenerated so deeply into licentiousness that it was suppressed, so far as laws could suppress it, in the reign of Constantine, together with the feasts of Pan and Bacchus. Under the united rule of Arcadius and Honorius, it was restored, though with caution, the imperial mandate declaring, “clementiæ nostræ placuit ut Maiumæ provincialibus lætitia reddatur; ita tamen ut servetur honestas, et verecundia castis moribus perseveret." Imp. Cod. lib. xi. tit. 45. The admonition, however, in regard to decency and sobriety, does not seem to have produced any very desirable effect upon the minds of the people, for in the same reign it was once more forbidden on the plea of licentiousness by a rescript to the prefect Aurelian, which is still extant in the Theodosian Code, (lib. xv. tit. vi.) It is, however, plain, that though the Maiuma might be condemned by the edicts of emperors and the fulminations of saints-Chrysostom had particularly distinguished himself in this holy war against the popular amusement-still it could not be entirely repressed, for in the year 1573, we find the Council of Milan indulging in a furious tirade against the abomination of raising Maypoles, a pretty decisive evidence that the Maiuma had not been extirpated. But neither were the Roman clergy of the 16th century more successful than their predecessors had been; the detested Maypole was not to be put down, but has descended to our own days. * It may be as well, now I am upon this subject, to mention that the Romans had an absurd tradition of their May-games, their Floralia, or Larentalia, (Laurentalia) as they called them, having been derived from a prostitute named Flora or Larentia. The tale was this-It chanced one day, in the reign of Ancus, that the keeper of Hercules' temple, finding the time hang heavy on his hands for want of occupation, took it into his head to challenge the god to a game of dice-the loser to pay the penalty of a good supper and to supply his victor with what Peele or Decker would have called a croshabell. Hercules being, we may suppose, in a good humour, accepted this challenge from his door-keeper, and won the game as might have been expected, whereupon he received his reward in meal and malt, and far remoter periods. Maurice* says, and I have no doubt truly, that our May-day festival is but a repetition of the phallic festivals of India and Egypt, which in those countries took place upon the sun entering Taurus, to celebrate nature's renewed fertility. aoc in Greek signifies a pole, in addition to its more important meaning, of which this is the type; and in the precession of the equinoxes and the changes of the calendar we shall find an easy solution of any apparent inconsistencies arising from the difference of seasons. For obvious reasons I can do no more than hint at these mysteries, which besides would require a volume for their full discussion. That the May festival has come down to us from the Druids, who themselves had it from India, is proved by many striking facts and coincidences, and by none more than the vestiges of the God, Bel,† the Apollo or Orus of other nations. The Druids celebrated his worship on the first of May, by lighting immense fires in honour of him upon the various carns, ‡ and hence the day is called the possession of Larentia. But Hercules, though he might not have played upon the square, was yet in the main a liberal fellow, and the next morning, after the manner of gods and fairies, he bestowed a boon upon the lady,—it was, that the first person she met when returning home should prove of great advantage to her. And so it happened; for she met a rich man, by name Carucius, who was so smitten by her beauty, that he married her, and upon his death bequeathed to her the whole of his immense wealth. This she eventually left to the Roman people, in requital of which act of munificence King Ancus bestowed upon her a handsome funeral, ordered sacrifices to be offered to her manes, and a festival to be dedicated to Jove, because the ancients believed that the soul was given by him, and returned to him after death. This story will be found in the first book of the Saturnalia of Macrobius, vol. i. p. 241. Edit. Biponti, 1788. * Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 87. + Bel was variously called Beal, Bealan, Belus, Belenus, and Bael. Toland's History of the Druids, p. 115. 8vo. Montrose. by the aboriginal Irish and the Scotch Highlanders--both remnants of the Celtic stock-la BEALTINE, Bealtaine, or BELTINE, that is, the day of Belen's fire; for, in the Cornish, which is a Celtic dialect, we find that TAN is fire, and to tine, signifies to light the fire. The Irish still retain the Phenician custom of lighting fires at short distances, and making the cattle pass between them.* Fathers too, taking their children in their arms, jump or run through them, thus passing the latter, as it were, through the flames, the very practice so expressly condemned in Scripture. But even this custom appears to have been only a substitute for the atrocious sacrifice of children, as practiced by the elder Phoenicians. The God, Saturn-that is, Moloch-was represented by a statue bent slightly forward, and so placed that the least weight was sufficient to alter its position. Into the arms of this idol the priest gave the child to be sacrificed, when, its balance being thus destroyed, it flung, or rather dropt, the victim into a fiery furnace that blazed below.‡ If other proof were wanting of Eastern origin, we might find them in the fact that Britain was called by the earlier inhabitants the ISLAND OF BELI,§ and that BEL had also the name of Hu, a word which we see again occurring in the Huli festival of India.|| * Higgin's Celtic Druids, chap. v. sect. 23. p. 181. "And made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abomination of the heathen." 2 Kings, xvi. 3. There is an able article on this subject in the British and Foreign Quarterly Review for April, 1844, No. xxxiii. p. 61. § Thus in one of the Welsh TRIADS, a collection of aphorisms, supposed to be of great antiquity, we read: "sincerely I worship thee, Beli, giver of good, and Manhogan the king, who preserves the honours of Bel, the island of Beli." Davies' Celtic Researches, p. 191, 8vo. London, 1806. For an account of the Huli festival, see Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 334. When Christianity found its way into Britain, the same mode would seem to have been adopted in regard to the May-games by the wise liberality of the first missionaries, that we see them employing in so many other cases. Conceding to the prejudices of the people, they did not attempt to root out long-established characters, but invested them with another character, as bees close in with wax the noxious substance they are unable to remove. Thus in process of time the festival was not only diverted from its original intention, but even the meaning of its various symbols was forgotten. It degenerated into a mere holiday, and as such long continued to be the delight of all ages and of all classes, from kings and queens upon the throne to the peasant in his cottage.* But amusement and crime seem in the minds of some people to be very nearly allied, and we find Stubbes, that admirable specimen of his tribe, actually foaming at the mouth when descanting on the real or imaginary enormities of May-day. "Against Maie, Whitsondaie, or some other tyme of the yeare, every parishe, towne, or village, assemble themselves together, bothe men, women, and children, olde and yonge, even all indifferently; and either goyng all together, or devyding themselves into companies, they goe, some to the woodes and groves, some to the hilles and mountaines, some to one place, some to an other, where they spende all the night in pleasant pastymes; and in the mornyng they returne, bringing with them birch bowes and braunches of trees to deck their assemblies * Thus in Chaucer's Courte of Love, "And forth goth al the courte both most and lest Henry the Eighth and Queen Katherine, as we shall see presently, used to go a-maying. withall. And no marvaile; for there is a great lord present amongst them as superintendent and lorde over their pastymes and sportes; namely Sathan, prince of hell. But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence is their Maie poole, which they bringe home with greate veneration, as thus: They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes; and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole-this stinking idoll rather-which is covered all over with flowers and herbes bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred me, women, and children followyng it with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchēifes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up sommer haulles, bowers, and arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as y heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself. I have heard it credibly reported, -and that viva voce-by men of great gravitie, credite, and reputation, that of fourtie, threescore, or a hundred maides goyng to the woode over night, there have scarcely the third parte of them returned home againe undefiled."* It is curious enough to contrast the effusions of this rabid fanatic with the pleasing picture of the same custom left to us by Stowe. "In the moneth of May," says the cheerful old man, "namely on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweete meadows and greene woods, there to rejoyce their spirites with the beauty and savour of * Anatomie of Abuses, folio 54. 12mo. London, 1585. |