This photograph was taken in 1927 in Colne, a small village near St Ives. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, May Day was often a school holiday in Huntingdonshire, and in this photograph you can see some of Colne's schoolchildren preparing to dance around the maypole.
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Some of Colne's schoolchildren preparing to dance around the maypole.
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May Day, which follows the spring equinox by ten days, probably originated as a pagan festival marking the defeat of darkness by the light. Over time it became associated with fertility, and many of its rituals and customs grew to reflect people's desire to find a lover.
Different villages in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire had different customs. In Glatton, for example, boys cut branches from hawthorn trees, and fastened them to their sweethearts' bedroom windows. In Gransden, on the other hand, maidens cut the hawthorn branches themselves on May Day eve, and hung them on a signpost: the direction in which they were blown in the morning indicated where their lovers would come from. Hopes of finding lovers this way were dashed if the branches were blown away completely.
Source:
The original of this photograph is held at Huntingdonshire Archives, reference WH100A/11. More information about Huntingdonshire's May Day customs can be found in C. F. Tebbutt's book Huntingdonshire Folklore, published by The Friends of the Norris Museum in 1984 (ISBN 0950720933).