On the first of May, Britain gets up early. In Oxford a choir sings from the top of Magdalen Tower at six o'clock. In Padstow a hobby horse weaves through the streets. On village greens from Devon to Northumberland, children who have spent a fortnight practising plait ribbons round a pole that has stood there longer than anyone can remember. It is one of the few dates in the calendar that has quietly refused to die, and it has collected a full set of rules along the way.

May Day sits on the hinge between spring and summer. Beltane in the Celtic year, the Roman Floralia, the parish maypole and the school May Queen all landed on the same few days for the same reason: the light is winning, the hedges are opening, and everyone wants to be outside. What follows is what the folklore actually says — the plants, the water, the ribbons and the small, bossy superstitions attached to them.

May Eve and the Hawthorn

The magic belonged to the night before. May Eve was when people went out to gather greenery — hawthorn blossom above all, but also primroses, rowan, and whatever else the local hedgerows offered. This was "bringing in the May", and in many places it was done at dawn, so that the first thing the household saw on the first of May was a branch of new blossom at the door.

Hawthorn is the plant of the day. Its flowering varies enormously by region and by year, which is why the old saying "ne'er cast a clout till May be out" is argued about: the May in question may be the month, or it may be the may blossom itself. Either way, the advice is the same — don't be fooled by a warm April into ditching your coat.

Notice the contradiction, though, because it is a real one. May blossom was hung outside — over doorways, on byre doors, on gates — and it was widely held to be unlucky to bring it indoors. The usual explanation was that it invited illness or death into the house, and in some telling it was especially feared for babies in the cradle. Plenty of families keep to the rule today without quite knowing why. Decorate the porch, not the kitchen table.

The same evening carried a more anxious set of customs. May Eve was a night when milk could be stolen by ill-wishing neighbours, or by hares that were not really hares. Rowan crosses bound with red thread, a pinch of salt in the churn, iron over the threshold — all of it was household insurance, and all of it cost nothing.

The Maypole, the Queen and the Ribbons

The maypole is the great survivor. Banned and pulled down under the Puritans in the 1640s, it came back with the Restoration and has been reappearing ever since, usually on a village green or a school field. A few villages keep a permanent pole; others store one in a barn and raise it each year with ropes, muscle and a certain amount of swearing.

The shape of the thing is simple: a tall pole, a garland or a crown of flowers at the top, ribbons from the crown, and dancers who move in alternating directions so the ribbons plait themselves into a pattern down the pole. A May Queen is crowned, often a child from the local school, and often with a garland rather than a metal crown.

If you are running one — for a school, a fete or a street party — a few practical points make the difference:

• Use an even number of dancers and alternate them: half walk clockwise, half anticlockwise.
• Keep ribbon tension even. One child pulling hard ruins the plait for everyone.
• Shorter ribbons suit shorter children, and they get a finished plait rather than a tangled pole.
• Two modest poles work better for a small group than one heroic pole.
• Mark each dancer's starting spot on the grass. The second year is always easier than the first.

Dew on the First Morning

The oldest beauty treatment in Britain cost nothing and required an alarm clock. May dew, gathered before sunrise on the first of May, was said to keep a complexion fresh for the year. Women washed their faces in it, sometimes rolled in it, and in some places walked out to a well or a high place to do it — the climb up Arthur's Seat above Edinburgh on May morning is the best-remembered version.

The practical version is straightforward. Get out while the grass is still wet, before the sun takes the dew, and use it on your face and hands. A clean cloth helps. If you are doing this with children, keep it to a few minutes and have a towel waiting; May mornings are cold, and the folklore never promised otherwise.

Superstitions of the First of May

These are the ones that turn up again and again in different counties, wearing different clothes:

• Marry in May and you'll rue the day. The month was thought unlucky for weddings, a suspicion inherited from Roman times. June has done very well out of it ever since.
• Never bring may blossom indoors. Fine at the door, unlucky on the mantelpiece.
• Don't lend anything out on May morning — fire, salt, money or milk. Luck leaves with it.
• Don't sweep the hearth clean on the first of May. Sweeping out the dust was said to sweep out the household's fortune.
• Wash your face in May dew before sunrise, for beauty and for luck.
• Turn over a coin when you hear the first cuckoo of the year, and keep that coin in your pocket.
• Cattle were protected, not decorated. Rowan, salt and iron on May Eve, because the herd was the household's wealth.
• Children born or christened on May Day were said in some districts to have the sight, or simply to be lucky. The two were not always far apart.

Weather Lore and the Turning Year

May Day was a forecasting day as much as a festive one, and the rhymes are worth knowing because they are still roughly sensible:

A dry March and a wet May / Fill barns and bays with corn and hay.

The oak-and-ash saying is the one to watch in a hedgerow near you: if the oak comes into leaf before the ash, the summer is meant to be drier; ash before oak, and you can expect a soaking. It is not meteorology, but it is a pleasant way to spend ten minutes on a walk.

May Day rain was generally read as unwelcome, and a cold, blowing May as a good sign for the harvest. Take the rhymes as seasoning rather than forecast.

Marking May Day Yourself

You do not need a maypole or a village. A few small things carry the day perfectly well.

1. Go outside before breakfast and wash your face in the dew. One minute is enough.
2. Find a hawthorn hedge and look at it properly. If it is in flower, take a photograph rather than a cutting.
3. Hang a little greenery outside your front door, not inside.
4. Look up your nearest Morris side. Many dance at dawn on the first of May and are delighted to have an audience.
5. If you have children, make a simple garland from garden flowers and a length of ribbon. It takes ten minutes and it is remembered for years.

Then check the weather, note which tree leafed first, and get on with the day. May Day has survived for centuries precisely because it asks very little of anyone: a bit of blossom, a bit of cold grass, and an early start.

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