Our forefathers delighted, too, in the advent of
the bright month of May, which the old poets used to compare to a
maiden clothed in sunshine dancing to the music of birds and brooks;
and May Day was the great rural festival of the year.

Long before the break of day, men and women, old and young, of all
classes, used to assemble and hurry away to the woods and groves to
gather the blooming hawthorn and spring flowers, and laden with
their spoils returned when the sun rose, with merry shouts and
horn-blowings, and adorned every door and window in the village. The
poet Herrick sings of this pleasant beginning to the day's
festivities. Addressing a maiden named Corinna, he says--

"Come, my Corinna, come, and coming mark
How each field turns a street, and each street a park,
Made green and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough
Or branch; each porch, each door, ere this
An ark, a tabernacle is
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove."

The men blew cow-horns to usher in the spring, and the maids carried
garlands to hang them in the churches; while at Oxford the
choristers of Magdalen College assemble at the top of the tower at
early dawn, and sing hymns of thankfulness because spring has come
again. This pleasing custom is still observed every year on the
first of May.

But let us away to the village green, where the May-pole is being
adorned with a few finishing touches, and is covered with flowers
and ribbons. It has been carried here by twenty or thirty yoke of
oxen, their horns decorated with sweet flowers, and then, with
shouts and laughter, and with song, the young men raise the massive
pole with handkerchiefs and flags streaming on the top, and the
rustic feast and dance begin.

"The May-pole is up,
Now give me the cup,
I'll drink to the garlands around it;
But first unto those
Whose hands did compose
The glory of flowers that crown'd it."[9]

A company of morris-dancers approach, and a circle is made round the
May-pole in which they can perform. First comes a man dressed in a
green tunic, with a bow, arrows, and bugle-horn, who represents
Robin Hood, and by his side, attended by some maidens, walks Maid
Marian, the May Queen.[10] Will Stukeley, Little John, and other
companions of the famous outlaw, are represented; and last, but not
least, comes the hobby-horse--a man with a light wooden fr