Merry was the month of May in the year of our Lord
1052. Few were the boys, and few the lasses,
who overslept themselves on the first of that buxom
month. Long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought
mead and woodland, to cut poles and wreathe flowers.
Many a mead then lay fair and green beyond the village
of Charing, and behind the isle of Thorney, (amidst
the brakes and briars of which were then rising fast
and fair the Hall and Abbey of Westminster;) many a
wood lay dark in the starlight, along the higher ground
that sloped from the dank Strand, with its numerous
canals or dykes;—and on either side of the
great road into Kent:—flutes and horns sounded
far and near through the green places, and laughter
and song, and the crash of breaking boughs.
As the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming
faces bowed down to bathe in the May dew. Patient
oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows, all fragrant
with blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came
forth from the woods with lusty poles, followed by
girls with laps full of flowers, which they had caught
asleep. The poles were pranked with nosegays,
and a chaplet was hung round the horns of every ox.
Then towards daybreak, the processions streamed back
into the city, through all its gates; boys with their
May-gads (peeled willow wands twined with cowslips)
going before; and clear through the lively din of
the horns and flutes, and amidst the moving grove of
branches, choral voices, singing some early Saxon
stave, precursor of the later song—
“We have brought the
summer home.”
Often in the good old days before the Monk-king reigned,
kings and ealdermen had thus gone forth a-maying;
but these merriments, savouring of heathenesse, that
good prince misliked: nevertheless the song was
as blithe, and the boughs were as green, as if king
and ealderman had walked in the train.
On the great Kent road, the fairest meads for the
cowslip, and the greenest woods for the bough, surrounded
a large building that once had belonged to some voluptuous
Roman, now all defaced and despoiled; but the boys
and the lasses shunned those demesnes; and even in
their mirth, as they passed homeward along the road,
and saw near the ruined walls, and timbered outbuildings,
grey Druid stones (that spoke of an age before either
Saxon or Roman invader) gleaming through the dawn—
the song was hushed—the very youngest crossed
themselves; and the elder, in solemn whispers, suggested
the precaution of changing the song into a psalm.
For in that old building dwelt Hilda, of famous and
dark repute; Hilda, who, despite all law and canon,
was still believed to practise the dismal arts of
the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the witch and worshipper
of the dead). But once out of sight of those
fearful precincts, the psalm was forgotten, and again
broke, loud, clear, and silvery, the joyous chorus.
