May Day Trivia
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free May Day trivia questions with answers. May Day is really several holidays sharing a date, and this May Day trivia quiz covers all of them. There is the ancient spring festival: the Roman Floralia, Gaelic Beltane, Walpurgis Night, maypoles and May Queens, Oxford's May Morning, Padstow's 'Obby 'Oss, Jack in the Green and the Puritans who tried to ban the lot. There is the workers' holiday: the 1886 Chicago strike, the Haymarket bomb, the Second International, Red Square parades and why Americans keep Labor Day in September instead. Then the odd corners: lily of the valley in France, maypoles delivered to girls' doors in the Rhineland, Finnish sima, Czech kisses under blossom, Hawaii's Lei Day, May baskets, Loyalty Day, and the Croydon radio officer who invented the 'mayday' distress call. It works for a pub quiz, a classroom, or a family that has just spent the morning dancing round a pole. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic or primary source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01May Day, 1 May, falls roughly halfway between which two astronomical points of the Northern Hemisphere year?
Spring equinox and midsummer solstice
Halfway between the spring equinox and midsummer solstice is why old European festivals treated May Day as the first day of summer, not mid-spring.
Q 02Saint Walpurga, after whom Walpurgis Night is named, was born in which country?
England
Walpurga was born in Wessex, England, around 710 and went to Germany as a missionary, becoming abbess of Heidenheim; her canonisation on 1 May gave Walpurgis Night its name.
Q 03At Beltane on 1 May, cattle were driven between two bonfires before being sent where?
To summer pastures
At Beltane, cattle were driven between two bonfires for protection before being sent to summer pastures; people also walked between the fires or leapt the embers for luck.
Q 04Walpurgis Night on 30 April commemorates the canonisation of Saint Walpurga in which year?
870
Walpurga was canonised on 1 May 870 by Pope Adrian II, the same day her relics were moved to Eichstätt, where pilgrims collect vials of 'Saint Walpurga's oil' from her tomb.
Q 05In parts of Europe, bonfires are lit on Walpurgis Night to ward off what?
Witches
Saint Walpurga was invoked against 'pest, rabies, and whooping cough, as well as against witchcraft'.
Q 06Which of these is a traditional May Day custom in England?
Crowning a May Queen
The Queen of May was often given a male companion decked head to toe in greenery.
Q 07The earliest records of maypole celebrations in Britain date from which century?
14th
The earliest British record is a mid-14th-century Welsh poem by Gruffudd ap Adda ap Dafydd describing a maypole at Llanidloes; by the 1580s Philip Stubbes described poles hauled by forty yoke of oxen.
Q 08Who banned May Day celebrations in England during the Interregnum, before Charles II restored them?
The Puritan parliaments
The Long Parliament's 1644 ordinance called maypoles 'a Heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness'.
Q 09Which scientist obtained a felled Strand maypole to mount a giant telescope at Wanstead, Essex?
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton, as Royal Society president, procured the old Strand maypole for James Pound at Wanstead to carry the 123-foot object glass Huygens had left to the Society.
Q 10On May Morning in Oxford, crowds gather at 6 a.m. beneath the tower of which college to hear its choir sing?
Magdalen College
Magdalen College Choir sings the Hymnus Eucharisticus from the tower top; students used to jump off Magdalen Bridge into the Cherwell until it was closed on May Morning.
Q 11Morris dancing is first mentioned in a 1448 record of a payment by which London livery company?
The Goldsmiths
The Goldsmiths' Company paid seven shillings to Morris dancers in 1448, the earliest known English record; the name probably comes from 'morisco', meaning Moorish, and dancers wear bells on their legs.
Q 12Padstow in Cornwall celebrates May Day with two 'Obby 'Osses; what are they stylised depictions of?
Horses
Padstow's two 'Obby 'Osses are stylised horses: the 'Old' and 'Blue Ribbon' 'Osses parade all day and meet at the maypole in the evening before 'dying' until next May Eve.
Q 13By the 19th century, the May Day figure Jack in the Green was chiefly associated with which trade?
Chimney sweeps
Q 21In the Czech Republic, May Day is a holiday of love; what do couples do on 1 May?
Kiss under a blossoming tree
Couples kiss under a blossoming tree, traditionally a cherry, so the woman stays healthy and beautiful for the year; May is regarded in the Czech Republic as the month of love.
Q 22Bulgaria's May Day festival of Irminden involves rituals to protect people from what?
Snakes and lizards
Irminden rituals guard against snakes and lizards, believed to come out on 1 May; the name comes from the prophet Jeremiah, though the roots are almost certainly pagan.
Q 23In Ireland, a Bealtaine May Bush was traditionally a thorn bush decked with blossoms, ribbons and what?
Bright shells
Chimney sweeps made Jack in the Green their own in the 19th century, parading the leaf-covered figure to collect money on May Day; the custom grew out of 17th-century milkmaids' flower-decked garland processions.
Q 14On 1 May 1515, Henry VIII's royal guard appeared at a woodland breakfast disguised as whom?
Robin Hood and his men
Henry VIII's guard, dressed in green as Robin Hood and his men, met the king and Catherine of Aragon at Shooter's Hill after the ride from Greenwich Palace and served them a venison breakfast.
Q 15In France it is traditional to give a sprig of which flower on 1 May, a custom traced to King Charles IX?
Lily of the valley
Lily of the valley was given to Charles IX as a lucky charm in 1561, and he began presenting sprigs to the ladies of the court each year.
Q 16In France, labour groups and private sellers may sell the 1 May flower without paying what?
Sales tax
France tolerates tax-free street sales of lily of the valley on 1 May only, so unions and private sellers pay no sales tax that day; the plant itself is highly poisonous.
Q 17In the German Rhineland, what does a young man deliver overnight to a girl's house for 1 May?
A maypole wrapped in streamers
A small maypole wrapped in coloured streamers is set up overnight at the girl's house; a tree wrapped only in white streamers signals dislike, and in leap years the women do the delivering.
Q 18Germany's Walpurgisnacht celebrations are traditionally strongest in which mountain range?
The Harz
The Harz Mountains host the biggest celebrations, with bonfires and the wrapping of a Maibaum; the night's motto is 'Tanz in den Mai', dance into May.
Q 19In Sweden and Swedish-speaking Finland, the maypole is raised not on May Day but at which festival?
Midsummer
Swedes raise the pole at Midsummer and call it a midsommarstång; the Swedish verb 'maja' means to dress or decorate with greenery, not the month of May.
Q 20Finland's Walpurgis carnival, Vappu, traditionally centres on drinking which homemade fermented drink?
Sima
Sima, a homemade lightly fermented lemon mead, is the traditional Vappu drink, served with funnel cakes called tippaleipä during Finland's 1 May carnival.
The May Bush, usually a hawthorn, was decked with blossoms, ribbons and bright shells; household fires were doused and relit from the communal Bealtaine bonfire.
Q 24Edinburgh's modern Beltane Fire Festival, started in 1988, is held at which spot in the city?
Calton Hill
The festival has been staged on Calton Hill since its first night in 1988, reviving Beltane customs that older Edinburgh tradition kept on Arthur's Seat.
Q 25Which Welsh name for 1 May means 'first of summer'?
Calan Haf
Calan Haf, 'first of summer', is the Welsh May Day, also called Calan Mai; on its eve bonfires were lit as at the Irish and Scottish Beltane.
Q 26In Hawaii, 1 May is celebrated as what?
Lei Day
Lei Day was proposed by poet Don Blanding, first celebrated in Honolulu, and made an official Hawaii holiday in 1929.
Q 27Which fading American May Day custom involved leaving small containers of sweets or blossoms on doorsteps?
May baskets
May baskets of sweets or flowers were hung on a neighbour's door anonymously, the giver knocking and running away; European settlers brought the tradition with them.
Q 28International Workers' Day commemorates an 1886 strike and bombing in which American city?
Chicago
The Haymarket affair took place in Chicago on 4 May 1886, at a rally called after police had killed strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company the day before.
Q 29The 1886 strike that led to the Haymarket affair was demanding what?
An eight-hour working day
Australian stonemasons in Victoria had won the eight-hour day back in 1856, inspiring the American campaign.
Q 30What was thrown at police at the Haymarket rally on 4 May 1886?
A dynamite bomb
A dynamite bomb was thrown at police as they moved to break up the rally; seven officers and at least four civilians died in the blast and the gunfire that followed.