The Ancient Briton calendar made great importance of the official first day of the new seasons. The fire of Bel or Beltane welcomed Summer. Today we call it May Day and is still an important day in traditional folklore.
The Church tried to stop May celebrations because of its pagan connections but there are still remnants of May, Beltane, celebrations which continue today. May fairs, Maypole dancing, Crowning of May Queens are but a few examples. The Catholic Church introduced the crowning of Mary, Our Lady to supersede the ancient tradition of May Queen.
Last weekend, I went to a May Fair but it was a declining event from previous years, Is this because the organisers were charging too much, or because of our atrocious weather or are we just too sophisticated these days to acknowledge these traditions?
Maybe ... It was a combination of all these factors.
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In Stockport, the May Crowning is at the grotto in the grounds.
The second paragraph to your introduction advises us that "The Catholic Church introduced the crowning of Mary, Our Lady to supersede the ancient tradition of May Queen."
Does the crowning Our Lady Mary event have as venue Church grounds?
Yes it's a lovely time and we can still resect the old traditions . Every season has its beauty and I think we should acknowledge it.
I always wanted to experience this as a kid, I remember reading about it in books.
Derdriu Hello there !
NO I haven't seen that film but it sounds very quirky and super talented. I like quirky tihngs and his guitars were just amazing.
Veronica, The Route 66 guitar makes me think of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay's instruments! Have you seen the film Landfill Harmonic, short-listed for the environmental award at the 2015 or 2016 Sheffield International Documentary Festival?
Integration is how it should be.
In Britain After Rome Professor Robyn Fleming cited an archaeological site in the Midlands where a British village was sited next to a village of Anglo-Saxon incomers.The graves were revealing. The first generation of incomers kept their distinct burial customs. These were the older people, but by generation three the differences had disappeared. It was one community.As she says"When the women of both villages have the same babies to coo over, you have a community."
That suggests that maypole dancing could be both Celt and Saxon. Excellent. What a remarkable page this has turned in to.
If you want to seek the German roots of English customs, look to the far north of Germany and Denmark. The Saxons came from Saxony in Germany, but the Angles from Schleswig-Holstein, then part of Denmark, and the Jutes, according to King Alfred, from the Danish island of Fyn. The Angles and Jutes were South Scandinavians, belonging to a broad group known as the Ingwine [ Ings, hence we are English.] You can read more of this in Beowulf and Grendel by Grigsby.
Tacitus says that the Angles, a tribe friendly to Rome, were one of the tribes dwelling on the Baltic coast who worshipped the goddess. So they brought her cultus to England with them when they migrated, and it almost certainly fused with similar cults in British society.