This might be a nice topic to be used for a Speaking activity.
Students can look for information on internet about this topic and can share the information they found with the rest of the class.
It can be done just before the 1st May, in order to make students aware of the meaning of this date.
The teacher can provide students with some guiding lines:
- the meaning of May Day and synonims
- places where it is celebrated
- ways of celebrating it, for example, how people in different countries celebrate it
- relevant information about the origin of this celebration
- historical background and social effect
Useful websites:
https://www.learnenglish.de
The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian Europe, although the pagan-oriented celebrations faded as Europe became Christianised, a more secular version of the holiday continued to be observed in the schools and churches of Europe well into the 20th century. In this form, In the UK May Day is best known for its traditions of dancing the Maypole and crowning of the Queen of the May.
May Day ushers in the fifth month of the modern calendar year, the month of May. May Day celebrations and festivities were once the highlight of the year in every town and village through Britain. Although it is not as popular today as it once was, it seems to be enjoying something of a come back.
The month of May is named in honour of the goddess Maia, originally a Greek mountain nymph, later identified as the most beautiful of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. By Zeus, she was also the mother of Hermes, god of magic. Maia's parents were Atlas and Pleione, a sea nymph.
Also, 1 May 1707, was the day the Act of Union came into effect, joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Although this isn't celebrated, especially not in Scotland.
THE HISTORY OF MAY DAY
MAY DAY TODAY
The old Celtic celebration of May Day was called Beltane, (or Beltaine in its most popular Anglicized form) the Celtic god of light or the sun (Bel, Beli or Belinus). He, in turn, may be traced to the Middle Eastern god Baal. Other names for May Day include: Cetsamhain ('opposite Samhain') and Walpurgisnacht (in Germany). For the Celts, Beltane was a festival where fires were set to mark the beginning of summer: "They rolled wheels of fire down hillsides, lit bonfires, and drove their cattle through the flames in a ceremony of purification".
Some people believe that the celebrations on May Day began with Beltane and the tree worship of the Druids. Others believe they go back to the spring festivals of ancient Egypt and India. However, May Day as it is celebrated today is more of a European import, believe it or not, from Italy. The people of ancient Rome honored Flora, the goddess of flowers and springtime, with a festival called Florialia. The goddess was represented by a small statue wreathed in garlands. A procession of singers and dancers carried the statue past a sacred blossom-decked tree. Later, festivals of this kind spread to other lands conquered by the Romans, and of course this included Britain.
As Europe became Christianized, the pagan holidays lost their religious character and either morphed into popular secular celebrations, as with May Day, or were given new Christian interpretations while retaining many traditional pagan features, as with Christmas, Easter, and All Saint's Day. Beginning in the 20th century, many neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival once more.
These festivals reached their height in England during the Middle Ages. On the first day of May, English villagers awoke at daybreak to roam the countryside gathering blossoming flowers and branches. A towering maypole was set up on the village green. This pole, usually made of the trunk of a tall birch tree, was decorated with bright field flowers. The villagers then danced and sang around the maypole, accompanied by a piper. Usually the Morris dance was performed by dancers wearing bells on their colorful costumes. Often the fairest maiden of the village was chosen queen of the May. Sometimes a May king was also chosen. These two led the village dancers and ruled over the festivities. In Elizabethan times, the king and queen were called Robin Hood and Maid Marian.
May Day festivities became so much fun that in 1644 the Puritans attempted to make the celebrations illegal, banning even the making of Maypoles. They especially attempted to suppress the 'greenwood marriages' of young men and women who spent the entire night in the forest, staying out to greet the sunrise, and bringing back boughs of flowers and garlands to decorate the village the next morning. One angry Puritan wrote, 'men doe use commonly to runne into woodes in the night time, amongst maidens, to set bowes, in so muche, as I have hearde of tenne maidens whiche went to set May, and nine of them came home with childe.' And another Puritan complained that, of the girls who go into the woods, 'not the least one of them comes home again a virgin.'
Rudyard Kipling wrote about this custom:-
Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,
Or he would call it a sin;
But we have been out in the woods all night,
A-conjuring Summer in!
Eventually many of the customs made a come back and many of them are now practised all over England. I'm not sure about the 'greenwood marriages' though!
https://www.learnenglish.de/culture/mayday.html
The modern May Day has been transformed into a holiday often associated with socialism and the Labour Movement. This is partly to do with a congress of world Socialist parties held in Paris 1889, who voted to support the U.S. labor movement's demand for an 8-hour day. It chose May 1, 1890, as a day of demonstrations in favour of the 8-hour day. Afterward, May 1 became a holiday called Labour Day in many nations. The holiday is especially important in socialist and communist countries when political demonstrations are often held.
May Day is actually the one festival of the year for which there is no significant church service. Because of this, it has always been a strong secular festival particularly among the working class, who would often take the day off to celebrate it without their employer's approval. It was a popular custom - a people's day - and so it became identified with the Labour and socialist movements and by the 20th Century, it was rooted as part of the socialist calendar.
The Labour movement in the UK chose May Day as International Labour Day, and there are now anti capitalist demonstrations held in London every May Day, unfortunately these are often used as an excuse to damage property and some violence has occurred in recent years. In recent years the anti-capitalist movement has organised a number of large protests in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Doncaster. In London, these have resulted in clashes with the police.
https://www.timeanddate.com/
May Day, or Labor Day, is a public holiday in many countries worldwide. It usually occurs around May 1, but the date varies across countries. It is associated the start of spring as well as the celebration of workers.
https://www.infoplease.com/
May Day
May Day, first day of May. Its celebration probably originated in the spring fertility festivals of India and Egypt. The festival of the Roman goddess of spring, Flora, was celebrated from Apr. 28 to May 3. In medieval England the chief feature of the celebration of May Day was the Maypole this was decorated with flowers and streamers, the loose ends of which were held by dancers, who encircled the pole, weaving intricate patterns as they passed each other in the dance. These dances are still performed for exhibition purposes in England and the United States. The Second Socialist International in 1889 designated May Day as the holiday for labor, and since that time it has been the occasion for demonstrations, parades, and speeches among socialists and communists.
http://iww.org/
ORIGINS
The origins of International Workers’ Day go back to 1886, when hundreds of thousands workers across the United States went on strike. Workers demanded that their 10- and 12-hour workdays be shortened to an 8-hour day with no reduction in pay. Over the next few years, thousands of workers won the 8-hour workday that many of us still enjoy today.
REMEMBERING THE HAYMARKET MARTYRS
We also celebrate in memory of the Haymarket massacre, in which eight labor activists were framed and put on trial by the government. On May 4, 1886, there was a rally at Chicago’s Haymarket Square in support of striking workers from a nearby factory.
The rally at Haymarket was peaceful until a person threw a bomb into the crowd. Although the identity of the person was, and still is, unknown, the government arrested eight local labor activists, of which only two were actually in attendance at the rally. All eight were labor agitators who were well-known by the government and despised for their political views.
In a trial riddled with falsities and contradictions, all eight were found guilty of the bomb-throwing. Four were hanged, one committed suicide in prison, two were sentenced to life imprisonment, and one was sentenced to fifteen years. The Haymarket trial is regarded as one of the most grossly unjust trials in US history.
On May 1st we honor the Haymarket martyrs' legacy as fighters for social justice.
