owslips.

There was a fixed Maypole in the Strand for many years--or rather a
succession of Maypoles. One, when only four years old, was given to Sir
Isaac Newton to make a stand for his telescope, and another seems to
have had a narrow escape from being handed over to a less celebrated
astronomer, some years later.

The wandering Maypole, with its Queen of the May and her chimney-sweeps,
is a modern compound of the village Maypole and May Queen with the May
games in which (as in the Christmas festivities) morris-dancers played a
part. The May-day morris-dancers, like the Christmas mummers, performed
sword-dances and sang appropriate doggerels in costume. The characters
represented at one time or another were Maid Marian or the May Queen,
Robin Hood or Lord of the May, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, Little John
Stokesley, Tom the Piper, Mad Moll and her Husband, Mutch, the Fool and
the Hobby Horse. Archery was amongst the May-day sports, especially in
the company of Robin Hood. The Summer King and Queen were perhaps the
oldest characters. They seem to be identical with the Lord and Lady, and
sometimes to have been merged in Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

"Maid Marian fair as ivory bone,
Scarlet, and Mutch, and Little John."

The King and Queen of May are spoken of in the thirteenth century, but
morris-dancing at May-time does not seem to date earlier than Henry
VII., and is not so old a custom as the immemorial one of going a-Maying

"To bring the summer home
The summer and the May-O!"

This was not confined to young people or to country-folk. Chaucer says
that on May-day early "fourth goth al the court, both most and lest, to
fetche the flowres fresh, and braunch, and blome," and Henry VIII. kept
May-day very orthodoxly in the early years of his reign.

Milkmaids have been connected with May-day customs from an early period.
Perhaps because syllabub and cream were the recognized dainties of the
festival. In Northumberland a ring used to be dropped into the syllabub
and fished for with a ladle. Whoever got it was to be the first married
of the party. An odd old custom in Suffolk suggests that the hawthorn
was not always ready even for the Old Style May-day. Any farm-servant
who could find a branch in full blossom might claim a dish of cream for
breakfast. The milkmaids who supplied London and other places used to
dress themselves gaily on May-day and go round from house to house
performing a dance, and