HOORAY, HOORAY! THE first of May…
My International holiday begins and ends Sunday.
That’s right, in my May family household, May Day is our absolute favorite holiday of the year.
Better than the candy of Halloween, the barbecues of Memorial Day weekend and the harmless pranks of April 1. For me, my own international recognition day is pretty hard to beat. There is no Smith or Jones Day, Inslee or Biden day, even George Washington has to share his day now with all the rest of the presidents. I just love May Day!
And does a name influence what’s around or associated with it? Do April showers really bring May flowers?
The origins of May Day are deeply rooted — well before the working-class union May Day strike on May 1, 1886, declared eight hours the legal working day.
May Day precedes the European churches of the Middle Ages, which conspired to outlaw the raucous pagan celebration of fertility, planting and the return of the Sun.
The Druids of the British Isles held May Day as their second most heralded holiday, calling it Beltane to honor the day of Fire. Bell was the Celtic god of the sun, and May 1 splits the year into two equal halves. May 1 to Nov. 1 was planting and harvest time, the ground fertile. Animals bred and plants flourished while the other six months were cold, brutal, dormant and fallow, with agriculture on hold throughout much of Europe.
Pre-Christian Rome celebrated April 27 to May 3 as the Festival of Flora. Floralia, as this 5-day fest was known, honored the Roman goddess of flowers and vegetation.
The Saxons partied hard May 1 as well, beginning the night of April 30 by playing games, torching wheels of fire and feasting, all in honor of the end of winter, the beginning of soil fertility and the return of the Sun.
So from its beginning, the name May was fused with flowers, planting, fertility and crops. But as human history progressed, so did May Day as flowers grew in symbolic significance. Roman influence in Europe dominated, and Floralia and Beltane cross-pollinated into various rituals of trees, maypoles, flowers, fertility and mating.
In France, King Charles IX gave each lady of the court a sprig of the aromatic lily of the valley each May 1, and today, the ritual of giving lily of the valley to a lady persists, though a kiss is traditional to give in return.
In Cornwall, England, the Flower Boat ritual happens every May. A model of the ship the Black Prince, covered in flowers, is paraded from Quay at Millbrook and cast adrift at the Cawsand Beach after passing through villages adorned in floral decorations.
In the Rhineland region of Germany, young men deliver a tree covered in streamers to the lady of their interest the night before, while the young ladies placed roses or rice in the form of a heart at the house of their beloved one.
Even in America, early settlers erected maypoles and danced around them. Many other American pioneers and settlers gave May baskets filled with flowers and treats, hoping to be caught by the person receiving them in exchange for a kiss.
In Sequim, numerous maypoles are erected May 1 in anticipation of the Irrigation Festival, starting this year on May 6.
My father, Thomas May, was a gardener when he married my mother, and both received their floraculture (i.e. green-housing) degrees from Cornell University. They then set forth, working at a huge greenhouse, and had me, another little May.
Later, they bought a cornfield and erected from the ground up the Mayflower Greenhouse, known for its beautiful flowers. This article ends with the tagline “dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson County nationally recognized as ‘Flower Peninsula, USA’.” Why?
Because even this year, as more and more people joke about when, if ever, spring will arrive, we on the Peninsula will celebrate the festivals of Floralia and Beltane all year long.
May Day is omnipresent here, with flora green all calendar long. We are “The Evergreen State,” by the banana belt, in or next to the “Blue Hole,” and even the West End has the “Enchanted Valley” up the Quinault river basin.
So perhaps May Day has nothing to do with my family, but your family has everything to do with how great we can grow things on the Peninsula.
Celebrate May Day — and each day — by growing in your yard because many people, for a very long time, celebrated heartily for a climate we so abundantly have. But don’t be discouraged if they do not name a day after you for the effort — and make an effort to stay well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
