WE are now more than one week into May, which is widely regarded as a month of celebration because it is rich with symbolism due to its flourishing plant life, increasingly pleasant weather and general air of happiness. In our fairly recent past, the rich list of May celebrations and festivities included may blossom, birch twigs, yellowhammers, cattle, dock leaves, rowan trees, buttercups, oak apples and nettles, while not ignoring the feast day of the Ice Saints.

There is also a fair smattering of saints’ days during May, including St John of Beverley, St Mamertus, St Pancras, St Serviatus, St Boniface, St Dunstan and St Urban, not forgetting Robin Hood’s Day and The Gang Days.

It almost seems there is something to celebrate on every day during May.

Nonetheless, May does include a few items of advice such as never washing your blankets during May “because you’ll wash your soul away” along with the warning “never cast a clout ‘til May is out”. This old piece of rustic lore is open to argument. But does the word “May” refer to the May blossom that adorns the hawthorns around this time, or does it refer to the current month?

For those interested in saints’ days, yesterday was the feast day of St John of Beverley, one of our many Yorkshire saints and also one of more than 60 saints named John. In some records, his feast day is shown as October 25, and this may have been confused with St John of Bridlington, whose feast day is October 21.

John of Beverley was born in AD 640 at Harpham between Driffield and Bridlington. He entered Whitby Abbey monastery as a student during the time of St Hilda, and in AD 687 became Bishop of Hexham in Northumberland, later becoming Bishop of York in AD 705. He retired to Beverley and died there, with Beverley Minster being the successor to his earlier church. His well, St John’s Well at Harpham, survives and is sometimes known as The Drumming Well due to the noise its waters can produce. John’s name is carved on the stonework and his grave can be seen in Beverley Minster.

Question of faith

On April 17, the letters page of this newspaper published an interesting letter from Canon David Lickess of Snape, Bedale, for which I thank him. In referring to the history of the Church of England, he raised the matter of the distinctions between faith and denominations so far as religions in this country are concerned. His views led me to some interesting research.

According to my Oxford Library of Words and Phrases (1986), “denomination” can include a class or sect and this is supported by my Collins’ Thesaurus which says the word can include belief, communion, creed, persuasion, religious group, school and sect. My Concise Oxford Dictionary is rather more brief, defining it as a recognised autonomous branch of a church or religion; this means the church or religion can be self-governing and free to make its own rules.

My dictionary defines faith as (a) complete trust or confidence, and (b) strong belief in a religion based on spiritual conviction rather than proof. It can also refer to a particular religion. My other sources suggest faith indicates trust, belief, faithfulness and loyalty.

With reference to faith in his country, our coins bear the initials F.D., which derive from the Latin Fidei Defensor, which means Defender of the Faith. Those initials have appeared on all our coins since the reign of King George I (1714-27). So to which faith do those initials refer? It is clearly referred to as “the” Faith.

In fact, the faith in question was the Roman Catholic faith. This title was awarded by Pope Leo X to King Henry VIII in October 1521 in honour of his treatise Assertio Septem Sacramentorum which Henry wrote as an attack on the teachings of Martin Luther. The title was not rescinded when Henry defied the Pope to establish himself as head of the English church, as distinct from Rome.

It seems odd that the modern British sovereigns and the English establishment are still commemorating Henry’s defence of the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity. It is one of those constant puzzles which we now tend to ignore as we go about our daily lives in a multi-faith community. Or should that be multi-denominational community?

As a further matter of interest, the word “faith” appears hundreds of times in both the Old and New Testaments, my source being Cruden’s Complete Concordance to the Old and New Testaments (1893), but I could find no reference to “denominations.”

Yaffle's decline

When I was a child, the only woodpeckers I saw were the green variety. Green woodpeckers were plentiful in the woods I explored, but I never encountered either a great spotted woodpecker or its lesser spotted relation. Both the latter were considered rarities at that time.

Now, it is no longer common to see the green woodpecker, or yaffle as it is sometimes known due to its laughing call. More often than not, it was that familiar laughing call that revealed the presence of this bird, and in flight it was readily identified by its green plumage, black tips to the wings and tail, red cap and distinctive yellow rump. In those childhood rambles, I found many woodpecker nests in their holes, usually excavated in dead trees. The nesting holes are usually very sparsely decorated but the female can produce seven or eight eggs.

Today, it is rare to see a green woodpecker but our bird feeders regularly attract a great spotted woodpecker. One arrived as I was settling down to produce these notes and it appeared unworried about my movements around the house and ignored me as I opened the blinds of our conservatory.

It settled down to ferociously attack the nuts in our feeder and also ignored the other smaller birds as they queued up for their turns. I could see them assembling in the cherry tree close to both the feeder and the woodpeckers, but none dared to join it at breakfast. They will happily share the feeder with other birds – but not that woodpecker. I think its large beak and powerful attack of the nuts is enough to deter other visitors.

The greater spotted woodpecker has increased its numbers in recent years but this does not appear to have occurred with the lesser spotted variety which appears to prefer the southern areas of this country, favouring civilised places like orchards, parks and gardens.

It was the green woodpecker that was sometimes known as the rain bird because its call was supposed to herald rain, but when woodpeckers disappeared from their usual haunts, it was considered the sign of a hard winter. And a woodpecker pecking low on a tree trunk was sometimes regarded as a sign of warm weather to come.