50 Fun Facts About May Day

May Day, 1 May, falls roughly halfway between which two points of the year?

That is why the old European festivals treated it as the first day of summer, not the middle of spring.

The earliest known May celebrations were the Floralia, a Roman festival honouring Flora, goddess of what?

Ovid records that hares and goats were released during the festivities, which ran from 27 April to 3 May.

At Beltane on 1 May, cattle were driven between two bonfires before being sent where?

People also walked between the fires or leapt the embers for protection and luck.

Walpurgis Night on 30 April commemorates the canonisation of Saint Walpurga in which year?

Her relics were moved to Eichstätt on the same day, and pilgrims still collect vials of 'Saint Walpurga's oil' there.

In parts of Europe, bonfires are lit on Walpurgis Night to ward off what?

Saint Walpurga was invoked against 'pest, rabies, and whooping cough, as well as against witchcraft'.

Which of these is a traditional May Day custom in England?

The Queen of May was often given a male companion decked head to toe in greenery.

The earliest records of maypole celebrations in Britain date from which century?

By the 1580s Philip Stubbs described poles hauled home by forty yoke of oxen with flowers tied to their horns.

Who banned May Day celebrations in England during the Interregnum, before Charles II restored them?

The Long Parliament's 1644 ordinance called maypoles 'a Heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness'.

London's tallest ever maypole blew down in 1672 and was reused as a mount for whose telescope?

It was moved to Wanstead in Essex for the purpose.

On May Morning in Oxford, crowds gather beneath the tower of which college to hear its choir?

The hymn is the Hymnus Eucharisticus, and students used to jump off Magdalen Bridge into the Cherwell until the bridge was closed on May Morning.

Morris dancing is first mentioned in a 1448 record of a payment by which London livery company?

The word probably comes from morisco, meaning Moorish, and dancers traditionally wear bells on their legs.

Padstow in Cornwall celebrates May Day with two 'Obby 'Osses; what are they stylised depictions of?

The 'Old' and 'Blue Ribbon' 'Osses parade all day and meet at the maypole in the evening before 'dying' until next May Eve.

By the 19th century, the May Day figure Jack in the Green was chiefly associated with which trade?

The custom grew out of a 17th-century procession in which milkmaids carried pails decorated with flowers.

On 1 May 1515, Henry VIII's royal guard appeared at a woodland breakfast disguised as whom?

They met at Shooter's Hill after riding from Greenwich Palace.

In France, it is traditional to give a sprig of which flower on 1 May?

King Charles IX received one as a lucky charm in 1561 and began giving them to the ladies of the court each year.

In France, labour groups and private sellers may sell the 1 May flower without paying what?

The exemption applies on that day only; the plant itself is highly poisonous, which does not stop anyone.

In the German Rhineland, what does a young man deliver overnight to a girl's house for 1 May?

A tree wrapped only in white streamers signals dislike, and in leap years the women do the delivering.

Germany's Walpurgisnacht celebrations are traditionally strongest in which mountain range?

The night's motto is 'Tanz in den Mai', dance into May.

In Sweden and Swedish-speaking Finland, the maypole is raised not on May Day but at which festival?

The Swedish name is midsommarstång; the word 'maja' there means to dress or decorate, not the month.

Finland's Walpurgis carnival, Vappu, traditionally centres on drinking which homemade fermented drink?

It counts as one of Finland's five biggest holidays, alongside Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and Easter.

In the Czech Republic, May Day is a holiday of love; what do couples do on 1 May?

May is regarded there as the month of love.

Bulgaria's May Day festival of Irminden involves rituals to protect people from what?

The name comes from the prophet Jeremiah, though the roots are almost certainly pagan.

In Ireland, a Bealtaine May Bush was traditionally a thorn bush decked with blossoms, ribbons and what?

Household fires were doused and relit from the communal Bealtaine bonfire.

Edinburgh's modern Beltane Fire Festival, started in 1988, is held at which spot in the city?

It was meant for Arthur's Seat, home of older Edinburgh Beltane customs, but moved for practical reasons.

What is the Welsh name for the first of May, paralleling Beltane?

It is also called Calan Haf, meaning first of summer.

In Hawaii, 1 May is celebrated as what?

Poet Don Blanding proposed it, the first was held in Honolulu in 1927, and it became an official holiday in 1929.

Which fading American May Day custom involved leaving small containers of sweets or blossoms on doorsteps?

They were usually left anonymously; early European settlers brought the tradition with them.

International Workers' Day commemorates an 1886 strike and bombing in which American city?

Ironically the United States itself keeps its Labor Day in September.

The 1886 strike that led to the Haymarket affair was demanding what?

Australian stonemasons in Victoria had won the eight-hour day back in 1856, inspiring the American campaign.

What was thrown at police at the Haymarket rally on 4 May 1886?

Seven police officers and at least four civilians died in the blast and the gunfire that followed.

How many anarchists were charged with the Haymarket bombing?

Only two of them were even at the square when the bomb went off; four were hanged in November 1887.

Which Illinois governor pardoned the surviving Haymarket defendants in 1893 and criticised the trial?

The Haymarket Martyrs' Monument at their burial site in Forest Park became a National Historic Landmark in 1997.

Which 1889 gathering in Paris chose 1 May as a worldwide day of worker demonstrations?

The first coordinated demonstrations followed on 1 May 1890 across the US and most of Europe.

The United States and Canada hold their Labor Day on which date instead of 1 May?

It became a US federal holiday in 1894, by which time thirty states already observed it.

During the Cold War, 1 May was marked in Moscow with military parades through which location?

Politburo members watched from the top of Lenin's Mausoleum.

In 1955 Pope Pius XII placed a new feast on 1 May to counter communist May Day; whom does it honour?

He is the carpenter husband of Mary and the Catholic patron of workers.

Loyalty Day, the United States' 1 May observance, was created in 1921 under what original name?

It was an explicit replacement for International Workers' Day during the First Red Scare and was made official by Eisenhower.

South Africa first celebrated Workers' Day as a national holiday on 1 May of which year?

COSATU had demanded it on the Haymarket centenary in 1986; it was adopted after the 1994 elections.

England's early May bank holiday, on the first Monday of the month, was created in which year?

1 May itself is not a public holiday in England unless it happens to fall on a Monday.

The distress call 'mayday' was coined in the early 1920s by the radio officer at which airport?

Frederick Stanley Mockford chose it because most of his traffic flew to Paris.

'Mayday' is the phonetic equivalent of a phrase in which language?

It approximates m'aider, 'help me'; the properly conjugated phrase would be aidez-moi.

By convention, how many repetitions of 'mayday' open a distress call?

A lesser emergency, such as engine trouble, is announced with 'pan-pan' instead.

In which year did the International Radiotelegraph Convention adopt 'mayday' as the official voice distress call?

It sat alongside SOS, which remained the Morse-code signal.

Greek May Day, Protomagia, is named for which month-goddess?

The day celebrates the final victory of summer over winter, life over death.

Italy's May Day spring feast is called what?

It survives as a rebirth allegory in Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, Umbria and Emilia-Romagna.

An Edinburgh tradition says young women gain lifelong beauty by climbing Arthur's Seat on May morning to do what?

In Ireland, Bealtaine dew was likewise thought to bring beauty and keep you young.

Which of these was NOT one of the four main Gaelic seasonal festivals alongside Beltane?

Yule is Germanic; the Gaelic four divided the year at the start of each season.

Which of these US sporting events is held on the first Saturday in May?

It has been called 'the most exciting two minutes in sports' and is the first leg of the Triple Crown.

Where in England does the Somerset town of Minehead share a hobby-horse May Day custom with Padstow?

Minehead's version dates back at least to the 19th century.

Under Bavarian custom, what happens to the village maypole in the days before it is raised on 1 May?

Poles are often painted in the Bavarian white and blue and hung with emblems of local trades.