Madness in May

AH, the merrie month of May is upon us – with a “Hey and a Ho and a Hey Nonny No!” as we children used to sing badly out of tune in Cowdenbeath every May Day. And the Morris dancing that the miners of West Fife engaged in, hopping on one leg round the Maypole while humming sweet praises to the mine owners amid the colourful, streaming ribbons, was also a treat. (Spoiler alert: not everything in this column will prove to be one hundred per cent accurate. As a post-modern New Testament scholar whose sensational five-volume treatise on The Use of the Subjunctive in Q – “A tour de force of fantastic scholarship” – Fake News Telegraph – took the European academies by storm, I don’t feel obliged to traffic solely in facts. So that’s that little matter sorted.)

Anyway, pin back your lugs for the real story. My research assistant, Professor Stan Google, informs me that the origins of the May Day festivities go all the way back to your actual Middle Ages. Dancing, drinking, obeisance to some greetin’ faced pagan deity and wee outbreaks of procreation and stabbing went on, while the polis (ie the city) turned a blind eye to such unPresbyterian excesses.

Professor Google reveals that at its heart, May Day celebrated the return of your actual Spring. Your Ancient Greeks and your Ancient Romans liked a hoolie to welcome the fact that Spring had sprung yet again.

But May Day also had a more serious side to it. It is also known as International Workers day. Miners might well have been hopping on the first May Day – hopping mad about the terrible conditions they had to work in. The last thing the miners wanted was their sons following them into the murky and dangerous bowels of the earth. They certainly wouldn’t have been addressing songs of praise to the mine owners.

Growing up in a mining community, I saw these struggles at first hand. The flag that fluttered from the roof of the Cowdenbeath Town House on the first day of May every year was the red flag. Tumult and passion and cries for justice were interlinked.

But, I hear you cry, surely the biggest and most notable event in Scotland in the merrie month of May is the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland?

“Mibbes Aye, Mibbes Naw”, as the great Scottish icon Kenny Dalglish might put it. We could do with more celebration to accompany the event – dancing – or even hopping – round the glowering John Knox in New College quadrangle? Colourful ribbons and banners? Or this:

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

We could do with more celebration to accompany the event – dancing – or even hopping – round the glowering John Knox in New College quadrangle?

There’s a certain madness in May, leading inexorably towards the holy barking of Pentecost. But that’s another story for another day. In the meantime, feel free to sing along with the swaying crowd the dittie composed by the appointed Holy Fool who wears a skull mask and is clad in sackcloth and ashes:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying.