Paddy Slade’s Seasonal Magic is good for all the Mayday games that conjure serendipity in aid of a good Spring, Summer and harvest… Add to these the traditional helpers of Great Nature, and we have the imagery that feels perfect for the first day of May… the month named for one of the Seven Sisters, the wife to Hermes…
A ribboned hoop, with gold and silver balls. A wooden rod with the bark peeled in a spiral, and on top a painted cockerel. Birch branches, and branches of other trees – collected over night… the hawthorn, the rowan… (set up over the windows and door, but NEVER brought inside). Miniature maypoles and candies. Two hoops bound with flowers – one inside the other – and mounted on a stick, with a small female doll and a garland. The maypole itself, of birch or ash, hung about with garlands, ribbons, silver spoons, watches, tankards and symbols of the sun, moon and stars… rich fruitcake and rough cider to reward the musicians, the May queen and the May king, sitting in a bower with their attendants dancing around them… Announcing the May Queen’s arrival with a bugle… or a lur! A wreath of forget-me-nots, and on a pole: a wooden stag’s head… a wood-wose… the bale-fires lit with nine types of wood, and driving the cattle between the two fires, on the hilltop… round cakes of oatmeal broken in four, and who-ever gets the last piece jumps the fire. Butter, milk and eggs left when the fires are out… whisky and oatmeal for the foxes, crows and eagles, a golden lion and on either side a red and a blue hobby horse… birch bundles to ensure fertility… the fly agaric growing beneath the birch… the burning of straw houses or of effigies… a greenwood hand-fasting, washing of faces in May morning dew, a fiddler leading the dancing line serpentine, two dancing circles – deosil and widdershins one inside the other – amongst the dancers: Maid Marion, Robin Hood and his Merry Men… the dancing procession to bless every house…
