May Day is a public holiday usually celebrated on 1 May or the first Monday of May. It was chosen as the date for International Workers’ Day.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about this day.
- May Day is a public holiday in some regions
- It is usually celebrated on 1 May or the first Monday of May
- It is an ancient festival marking the first day of summer
- And a current traditional spring holiday in many European cultures
- Dances, singing, and cake are usually part of the festivities
- In 1889, May Day was chosen as the date for International Workers’ Day by the socialists and communists of the Second International
- As well as anarchists, labor activists, and leftists in general around the world
- It was chosen to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago and the struggle for an eight-hour working day
- International Workers’ Day is also called “May Day”
- But it is a different celebration from the traditional May Day
- The earliest known May celebrations appeared with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers
- It was held from 27 April – 3 May during the Roman Republic era, and the Maiouma or Maiuma
- A festival celebrating Dionysus and Aphrodite held every three years during the month of May
- The Floralia opened with theatrical performances
- In the Floralia, Ovid says that hares and goats were released as part of the festivities
- Persius writes that crowds were pelted with vetches, beans, and lupins
- A ritual called the Florifertum was performed on either 27 April or 3 May
- During which a bundle of wheat ears was carried into a shrine, though it is not clear if this devotion was made to Flora or Ceres
- Floralia concluded with competitive events and spectacles, and a sacrifice to Flora
- Maiouma was celebrated at least as early as the 2nd century AD
- Then records show expenses for the month-long festival were appropriated by Emperor Commodus
- According to the 6th-century chronicles of John Malalas, the Maiouma was a “nocturnal dramatic festival, held every three years and known as Orgies, that is, the Mysteries of Dionysus and Aphrodite”
- It was “known as the Maioumas because it is celebrated in the month of May-Artemisios”
- During this time, enough money was set aside by the government for torches, lights, and other expenses to cover a thirty-day festival of “all-night revels”
- The Maiouma was celebrated with splendorous banquets and offerings
- Its reputation for licentiousness caused it to be suppressed during the reign of Emperor Constantine
- Though a less debauched version of it was briefly restored during the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius
- Only to be suppressed again during the same period
- A later May festival celebrated in Germanic countries, Walpurgis Night, commemorates the official canonization of Saint Walpurga on 1 May 870
- In Gaelic culture, the evening of April 30th was the celebration of Beltane (which translates to “lucky fire”)
- As well as the similar Welsh Calan Mai, and marks the start of the summer season
- First attested in 900 AD, the celebration mainly focused on the symbolic use of fire to bless cattle and other livestock as they were moved to summer pastures
- This custom continued into the early 19th century
- During which time cattle would be made to jump over fires to protect their milk from being stolen by fairies
- People would also leap over the fires for luck
- Since the 18th century, many Roman Catholics have observed May – and May Day – with various May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary
- In works of art, school skits, and so forth, Mary’s head will often be adorned with flowers in a May crowning
- 1 May is also one of two feast days of the Catholic patron saint of workers St Joseph the Worker, a carpenter, husband to Mother Mary, and foster father of Jesus
- Replacing another feast to St. Joseph, this date was chosen by Pope Pius XII in 1955 as a counterpoint to the communist International Workers’ Day celebrations on May Day
- The best known modern May Day traditions, observed both in Europe and North America, include dancing around the maypole and crowning the Queen of May
- Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the tradition of giving of “May baskets,” small baskets of sweets or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbours’ doorsteps
- In the late 20th century, many neopagans began reconstructing some of the older pagan festivals
- And combining them with more recently developed European secular and Catholic traditions
- And celebrating May Day as a pagan religious festival
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