WITH the Easter celebrations behind us, we begin the next significant phase of the current year which is sometimes referred to as The Ripening Season. Perhaps the best known day in this forthcoming part of the year is May Day, more formally known as May 1.

Down the centuries, we have celebrated May Day in different ways, many of which have links with ancient fertilisation ceremonies and rituals. These can range from the Crowning of the May Queen to dancing around the maypole via displays of Morris Dancing, traditional plays and the dressing of wells.

Of these, maypole dancing appears to be having a popular revival. Today, maypole dancing has returned to its former glory in many villages in this region. Nowadays, however, maypole dancing is not performed on May Day itself but usually on the nearest Saturday or Sunday, often with school children as dancers. One modern problem is that the erection of maypoles is not subjected to health and safety rules and in some cases might be subjected to planning consent.

I have notes of maypoles in Foston, Staithes, Roxy, Slingsby, Sinnington, Langton near Malton, Masham, West Burton, Bolton-on-Swale, Appleton Wiske, Crakehall, Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, Coneysthorpe, Welburn, Clifton near York, Thorpe and Burnsall in Wharfedale, Skinningrove, Ovington near Richmond, Otley and Aldborough near Boroughbridge, with the daddy of them all being at Barwick-in-Elmet near Leeds.

At 86 feet high, this is the tallest in the country and requires a crane and a great deal of manpower to erect it. I am sure there are other maypoles elsewhere within this region. In many case, morris dancing and the election of a May Queen accompanies the maypole dances.

However, there were attempts to kill the rustic fun of this period. In 1644, for example, maypole dancing was forbidden by the Puritans because they regarded it as a pagan festival, but many villagers steadfastly refused to destroy their maypoles. There are lovely stories of battles to save the maypoles. At Sinnington near Pickering for example in 1701, a band of Puritans known as Broadbrims due to the style of their hats invaded Sinnington during maypole dancing. They set about violently trying to destroy the pole and its ribbons, and to disrupt the party atmosphere.

Other groups of Puritans did likewise at Helmsley, Kirkbymoorside and Slingsby. However, the local lads managed to beat them off and it was said that at Slingsby there was “a great dordum of a fight.”

The maypole at Burnsall in Wharfedale also featured some un-neighbourly behaviour. The Burnsall pole had stood on the green for as long as anyone could remember but in 1804 some cobblers from the neighbouring village of Thorpe-sub-Montem enjoyed the celebrations so much that they wished they also had such a splendid maypole.

As they made their way home that evening, a group of cobblers from Thorpe decided they would have a magnificent maypole. No doubt fortified with strong ale and a sense of daring, they decided to acquire one – and chose the pole standing on Burnsall green. Several nights later, the band of cobblers crept into Burnsall under cover of darkness and managed to steal the pole and carry it off without alerting anyone.

They erected it in Thorpe but when the people of Burnsall awoke to find their maypole missing, they were dismayed but determined to find it. An army of volunteers searched all the nearby villages without finding their pole – but Thorpe’s isolated location, albeit nearby, meant it was overlooked.

It was only a matter of time, however, that Thorpe would come under suspicion and so a band of Burnsall men set off to recover their pole. We are not told precisely what happened except that the Burnsall team far outnumbered the cobblers of Thorpe and managed to recover their pole. I am assured now that the people of Thorpe are welcome to attend events around the maypole in Burnsall although that event is still recalled in local memory.

One very popular May Day game when I was a child in Eskdale was May Gosling. It was rather like April Fool pranks played on April 1 because children played jokes upon each other. Anyone who fell victim was known as a May Gosling. Just like April Fool jokes, the pranks had to be perpetrated before 12 noon.

Other May Day events that seem to have vanished include Birch Twig Day when birch twigs were cut and taken indoors to ward off witches, and Yellowhammer Day when youths would chase those lovely birds and kill them, believing they had drunk the devil’s blood. It was also Cattle Anointing Day when farmers anointed their cattle to keep away evil spirits. Robin Hood and Maid Marian were regarded in some areas as Lord and Lady of the May, and so May 1 also became known as Robin Hood’s Day.

Among the many other celebrations was the famous World Dock Pudding Championship at Hebden Bridge.

Puddings are made from the leaves of young sweet dock along with nettles, onions and oatmeal; they are fried and served with potatoes. The championship determines whose dock puddings are the best.

One of my favourites was the annual Lying Contest Day held in the Lake District. Men competed to determine who can tell the biggest whopper and one story says a Bishop of Carlisle once tried to stop the fun. He told the audience he had never told a lie – and promptly won first prize.

Another welcome feature of May is the dense white blossom of the hawthorn which is sometime referred to as the May. It flourishes during this month and produces a rather sweet scent; we will recognize it along our hedgerows or in individual trees. The hawthorn has grown for centuries in this country where it has been cultivated as effective field boundaries which contain livestock and keep out trespassers.

Long before Christianity came to these islands, the pagans celebrated the coming of summer with various rites linked to the hawthorn. Even today, folk memories of those rites prevail in some areas where destruction of a hawthorn bush is believed to herald danger or perils of some unspecified kind and some people still believe it unlucky to bring hawthorn blossom into the house.

In similar vein, some believe a wedding in May is doomed to fail and any child born of such a couple would be sickly. Likewise, May-born kittens were unwanted and many were drowned because it was believed they might sleep on the faces of slumbering babies and suffocate them.

However, there was a means of preventing problems on May Day – it was to pick a bunch of primroses and on the Eve of May Day lay them on the doorsteps of houses and cow byres. I’m told they were effective at keeping witches and other evils from the premises.