Padstow, the 'Obby 'Oss and our May Day Celebration

'Obby 'Oss photo by Ennor

Happy May Day! One of the biggest May Day festivals can be found in Padstow, Cornwall. It's called 'Obby 'Oss Day.* Here are some of the lyrics to the Padstow May Day song:

Unite and unite, and let us all unite
For summer is a-comin' today.
And whither we are going we all will unite,
In the merry morning of May.

The young men of Padstow, they might if they would,
For summer is a-comin' today.
They might have built a ship and gilded it with gold
In the merry morning of May.

For the rest of the lyrics to this version of the May Day song, click here. The best audio I could find was this video of Steeleye Span. When my father visited us, he showed me a better quality video of Steeleye Span performing this song on a DVD he owned. The tune is catchy. I found night and day versions of the Padstow song here. [Careful! An audio file loads automatically.] For those of you who want to try out the song on guitar, here are the chords.** There are more recorded versions out there, as a quick iTunes search reveals.

While Lucia's class is delivering paper cones of flowers to people in the community, the big May Day festival is our May Faire this Saturday. This is the first year Lucia will dance in the May Pole Dance, and we're all excited. I'll take photos for sure. I wish I had my birthday camera with its video capabilities, but that's still in the works. I hope that next year I'll be able to capture a video clip for you to see, as long as I get permission from the other kindergarten parents to have their children pictured on my blog.

*Amended May 2nd: "Hobby Horse Day."

**I'm trying them out now, and I'm not sure if they're going to work. I'll let you know. Update: For me, the song works best as a three-chord deal in the key of F (E chord shapes and a capo on the first fret). There are a few chords in the "St. George" section that are beyond my reach. Maybe I'll just strum a B7 and hope for the best.

May Faire celebration

May-pole dance at Lucia's school


Flowers in our hair

THE MAY-POLE
by Robert Herrick

The May-pole is up,
Now give me the cup,
I'll drink to the garlands around it ;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it.

A health to my girls,
Whose husbands may earls
Or lords be, granting my wishes,
And when that ye wed
To the bridal bed,
Then multiply all, like to fishes.


Note to my daughter: please, please wait a good while before you indulge in the 2nd paragraph verse. I'm in no hurry for you to grow up more quickly than you already are.

(Lucia turns 4 on May 10.)

May-Pole

Many little girls in my part of the world have a fascination with princesses. When I was a little girl, I had a fascination with queens. I didn’t spend a lot of time with other children until first grade, and I don’t think I had even heard of princesses until that time. I knew about queens from Queen Sara on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood ("Don't judge me!" as Nonny would say), and I liked the idea of wearing a crown and holding a scepter just fine. I made my own crowns out of cardboard and aluminum foil. I put up signs saying that people could bow or curtsey to the queen (i.e. me). Except for my grandfather, who said that he would curtsey if need be, no one obliged. I did not banish anyone to the dungeon, though. Noblesse oblige, after all!

In second grade, I attended a first through eighth grade school in Newhall, West Virginia. For some reason,* the school celebrated May Day, complete with the May-pole dance, and a full court. Each grade chose a nominee for May Queen, then got her school photo pasted to a potato chip canister whereby we were supposed to put our coins inside for the person we wanted to win. (The school was always fund-raising, and this contest was yet one more way to get money.) The girls who didn’t win became May princesses, and got to hold court with the Queen on May Day.

My teacher asked me if I wanted to be the 2nd grade May Queen nominee. I surprised her and myself by saying, “No, I want to dance in the Maypole dance instead.”

My teacher was startled (as was I) and muttered something about my not necessarily getting to have that choice. Still, a few days later, my classmate Crystal and I became the 2nd grade representatives for the May-pole dance. We got to leave class periodically to go to the gym with the other dancers and learn to weave the long ribbons into an elaborately braided pole set on top of a car tire. We danced to a scratchy record that played “Greensleeves.” On the actual day of the performance, we got a bit muddled when the person who brought the Maypole to the center of the gym set it down slightly differently so that we couldn’t find our proper ribbons, but we were able to find our places (eventually) and start again.

The parents in the audience got to watch all of the performances, as did the first grade queen and her court of princesses in their frothy dresses. While I was dancing, I felt a brief pang that I hadn’t decided to be in the court because the performers showed up, did their dance, and went back to their classrooms. Still, I was so glad to have been a part of the dance. Even at the time, I didn’t know where I had heard of May-pole dancing, but I knew I wanted to be a part of it. For me, the May-pole dance was a bright moment in an otherwise traumatic** second grade experience. I am thankful that I got to dance.



*I think it might have had something to do with May 1st being Labor Day in some parts of the world. I lived in a coal-mining town, so this reason would have made sense. I don’t know for sure, though.

**Until 1994, West Virginia allowed corporal punishment in the schools. My teacher would have sessions where she encouraged kids to tattle on each other and then the "culprits" would come up and be paddled in front of the entire class. I am not kidding.