In the merry morning of May

“Today is May Day, a day on which you should wash your face with morning dew to keep yourself looking young and beautiful. You should also gather wildflowers and green branches, make some floral garlands, and set up a Maypole to dance around.”

This is advice offered by Garrison Keillor, of The Writer’s Almanac. This five-minute daily radio program is one of my favorite resources. It combines history and literature and gentle humor. Tune in on your local NPR station, or you can read it here.

May Day has long been celebrated as the coming of spring, a time for young maidens to select a partner, and celebrate the beauty of nature. I don’t think we’ll be setting up any maypoles in the front yard, but the image of dressing Dear Daughter in a white dress with a flower garland around her lovely hair is kind of nice. It would be a great look for her on May Day, or any other day, for that matter…

Of course, another “May Day” is the universal distress call used by aviators and sailors. Here is an explanation of how this came into use: “The 'Mayday' distress signal: 'was devised by the late Frederick Stanley Mockford, born in 1897 in the East Sussex village of Selmeston. While he was senior radio officer at Croydon airport in 1923, he was asked to think up a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. As much of the traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget (Paris) he proposed the word 'Mayday' from the French m'aidez'.'”

I found that blurb on a interesting forum called Linguistica, where people of all ilks gather to discuss the vagaries of language, both written and spoken. It’s an interesting place to kill some time.

Lastly, there is a delightful song by Canada’s Rankin Family called “Padstow” that merrily sings the joys of a May morning. We love to sing it in the car—it’s happy and bright and catches in your mind and heart:

Unite and unite, oh let us all unite
For summer is a'coming today
And whither we are going, we all will unite
In the merry month of May.
Oh, where are the young men that now here should dance
For summer is a'coming today
Well some there are in England and some are in France
In the merry month of May
Oh, where are the maidens that now here should sing
For summer is a'coming today
They're all out in the meadows a flower gathering
In the merry month of May
The young men of Padstow they might if the would
For summer is a'coming today
They might have built a ship and gilded it with gold
In the merry month of May
Oh where is Saint George, oh where is he oh
He's down in his longboat upon the salt sea oh
Up flies the kite, down falls the lark-o
And Ursula Birdwood, she had an old ewe
And she died in her park-o
With a merry ring and joyful spring
For summer is a'coming today
Oh happy are the little birds and merrily do they sing
In the merry morning of May
Unite and unite oh let us all unite
For summer is a'coming today
And whither we are going we all will unite
In the merry month of May
In the merry month of May