Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1878 — The Story of May-Day. [ARTICLE]

The Story of May-Day.

Alas, children 1 the world is growing old. _ Not that dear old Mother Earth begins to show her 6,000 (more or lesB) years, by stiff joints and clumsy movements, by clinging to fier winter’s rest and her warm coverlet of snow, forgetting to push up the blue-eyed violets in the Bpring, or neglecting to unpack the fresh green robes of the trees. No, indeed ! The blessed mother spins around the sun as gayly as she did in her first year. She rises from her winter sleep fresh and young as ever. Every new violet is as exquisitely tinted, as sweetly scented, as its predecessors of a thousand years ago. Each new ma-ple-leaf opens as delicate and lovely as the first one that ever came out of its tightly-packed bud in the spring. Mother Nature never grows old. But the human race changes in the same way that each one of us does. The race had its childhood when men and women played the games that are now left to you youngsters. ' We can even see the change in our own day. Some of us—who are not grandmothers, either —can remember when youth of 14 and 15 played many games which nowadays an unfortunate damsel of 6 years—ruffled, embroidered and white-gowned, with delicate shoes, and hips in the viceliked grasp of a modern sash—feels are altogether too young for her. Well, well! What do you suppose our greatgrandchildren will do ? When the Romans came to Britain to live, many hundred years ago, they brought, of course, their own customs and festivals, among which was one in memory of Flora, the Goddess of Flowers, The heathen—our ancestors, you

know—adopted them with delight, being in the childhood of their race. They became very popular; and when, some years later, a good priest, Gregory, came (from Rome, also) to convert the natives, ho wisely took advantage of their fondness for festivals, and, not trying to suppress them, he simply altered them from heathen feasts to Christian games, by substituting the names of saints and martyrs for heathen gods and goddesses. Thus the Floralia became May-day celebration, and lost none of its popularity by the change. On the contrary, it was oarried on all over England for ages, till its origin would have been lost but for a few painstaking old writers, who “made notes” of everything. The Floralia we care nothing for, but the May-day games have lasted nearly to our day, and some relics of it still survive in our young country. When you crown a May Queen, or go with a May party, you are simply following a custom that the Romans began, and that our remote ancestors in England carried to such lengths that not only ordinary people, but lords and ladies, and even King and Queen, laid aside their state and went “ a-Maying ” early in the morning, to wash their faces in May dew, and bring home fresh boughs and flowers to deck the May-pole, which reared its flowery crown in every village. —Olive Thome, in St. Nicholas for May.