| Merriment in May
By Constance Watters Miles
"With the merry ring, adieu the merry spring, For summer is acome unto day."
–– Padstow Morning Song
 May Day celebrations, with children dancing around a maypole or forming processions in their spring finery, have largely become a faded memory in the Mountain State. But not in the Eastern Panhandle town of Shepherdstown. There, people gather on the first Saturday in May to dance, play music, and parade, as they joyfully embrace spring and celebrate their community.
Joanie Blanton, foreman of the local morris dance team, was instrumental in establishing the Shepherdstown May Day Celebration. Eighteen years ago she fashioned a 22-foot maypole from a cedar tree growing in her yard. Brackets were made by a local blacksmith and ribbons were created by a local ribbon maker. Since that time, each May Day Blanton gathers garlands of lilacs or other spring flowers and ivy, cools them in ice water, and decorates the maypole at a very early hour.
Four shades of purple, teal, aqua, and lavender ribbons are hung around the maypole in preparation for dancing. The colors and shades of the ribbons help determine the directions of the dancers. The wrapping of the maypole, often erected on the campus of Shepherd University, is a highlight of the day, and the spiral dance around the maypole is a favorite of the local morris dancers.
 A performance by the morris dancers is always a much-anticipated part of May Day in Shepherdstown. The team has danced for years on both sides of the Atlantic, sharing friendships and fun. While there are many kinds of morris dancing, the Shepherdstown group is a "border morris" team, practicing techniques originally used by medieval dancers along the border of England and Wales. They wear clogs with wooden soles that are handmade in England and morris bells on their legs or shoes to produce rhythmic sounds. They also wear rag-shirt costumes aflame in red, orange, and yellow, and paint their faces for anonymity, a custom dating back to the time of the Crusades. In addition, the dancers use sticks made of dogwood or maple as mock battle implements and to make percussive sounds to "wake up the Earth," Blanton says.
Calling themselves the "Hicks with Sticks," the group has traveled twice to England, where they danced with the "Wicked Sticks" in Sheffield and with teams in Hook and St. Albans. They frequently perform at the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford in Ontario, Canada, and at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. Accordions, dulcimers, a bagpipe, or a tuba provide acoustic accompaniment.
 Shepherdstown’s Morris Minis, a team of girls ages five and up, have also performed at the May Day festivities. The Morris Minors, a team of girls ages seven and up, perform Northwest-style stick-and-garland dances. They often go on to dance as the lovely Maidens in White when they are teenagers.
In addition to dancing, May Day in Shepherdstown features a children’s search for the Golden Arrow and a lively parade. The Padstow Hobbyhorse, an ancient English tradition, sometimes makes a surprise appearance, swirling down the street during the parade. According to an old English legend, if the horse brushes against a maiden, she will marry within the year. Chris Tawney, father of two Morris Minors alumni, dons the costume.
Children along the parade route blow bubbles and watch for the white unicorn bedecked with garlands of green. They touch its horn and make a wish, making the unicorn look well loved after a number of years. Laura First, an art therapist, plays the unicorn and helps arrange the day’s events.
Last year Cheryl Mansley joined the May Day festivities for the first time. She is known around town for the concert series she produces at various venues, including the Blue Moon Café, and for the exceptional eggs, colored in pink, blue, green, and brown hues, produced by her pastured hens. Last May Mansley played the Goddess of Spring in the town’s parade.
 The parade also features decorated wheelbarrows, often filled with decorated babies and pets. A bluegrass band riding in a truck marks the parade’s end and the beginning of the other festivities. The Shepherdstown Maidens in White, the Hicks with Sticks, storytellers, poets, and acoustic musicians offer up more entertainment.
Not all folklorists agree on the origins of May Day celebrations. Some say the tradition began in Asia before being adopted by the Greeks and Romans. Many believe that the Romans took the holiday to England. The tradition of the Queen of the May is thought to have begun in France. Many believed that May Day morning dew renewed beauty and a youthful appearance. Even young girls dabbed the May Day dew on their faces. Variations on customs and beliefs eventually came across the Atlantic and to West Virginia.
 Years ago, many West Virginia schools held annual May Day celebrations. A Queen of the May and her court wore long, white gowns and reigned over the day’s events. A king was also named. Maypoles were often made from maples, but sometimes flagpoles were magically transformed for the day.
Indeed, Moundsville’s renowned Fostoria Glass Company developed a popular stemware design called "Maypole" in honor of the seasonal celebrations. The glasses and goblets featured raised, intertwined ribbons of glass reminiscent of ribbons wrapped around a maypole.
Vernon and Virginia Burky of Mill Creek, West Virginia, recall May Days in the 1930s at the one-room Haslebacher schoolhouse at Hilltop, above Pickens and Helvetia in Randolph County. Girls wore patent-leather shoes, frilly pastel dresses, and fancy straw bonnets. Each class of three to four students sang songs, memorized poems, and danced around a wooden maypole about six to eight feet high. Parents of the 20 to 30 students who attended the school also enjoyed the event.
 In other schools, children spent days making crepe paper decorations and writing poems. They wove May baskets out of construction paper and filled them with candies, blossoms, and poems. They would then hang a basket on the doorknob of a neighbor or elderly person and call out "Happy May Day!" or "May Basket!" before hurrying away.
The first picnics of spring were often part of maypole celebrations at schools around West Virginia. Vintage photographs show parents wearing coats and young girls, oblivious to spring’s chill, wearing white summer dresses and flowers in their hair. Strawberries in baskets trimmed with ribbons and festive buffets or boxed lunches were served to all, as thoughts of winter’s ice and snow melted away.
At many Catholic schools around the state, the May Day celebration was a religious procession with the names of participating students reported in local papers. At St. Joseph High School in Wheeling in the 1920s, the day was spent in the May Procession to the Holy Virgin.
 Though once widespread throughout the state, school celebrations of May Day have largely disappeared. Memories and photos of smiling children and their parents are all that remain of most of the state’s early May Day events. Yet the tradition lives on in Shepherdstown for all who wish to celebrate spring and the promise of new life it brings.
For more information about the Shepherdstown May Day Celebration, visit http://smad.us/, call 304.702.0554, or e-mail riverhousemusic@frontiernet.net.
Constance Watters Miles writes from her home in The Woodlands, Texas. Contact her at cmiles777@yahoo.com.
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