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> Waterson:Carthy > Songs > May Song
> John Kirkpatrick > Songs > The First of May

May Song / Northill May Song / The First of May / Arise, Arise

[ Roud 305 ; Ballad Index JRSF238 ; Wiltshire 629 ; Mudcat 32490 ; trad.]

Mrs Church and Mrs Hall of Biddenham, Bedfordshire sang the Huntingdonshire May Carol in a recording made by Peter Kennedy made on 22 October 1952 (BBC recording 19338) that was included on the anthology Songs of Ceremony (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 9; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1970).

Cynthia Gooding sang The May-Day Carol in 1953 on her Elektra album of early English folksongs, Queen of Hearts. She noted:

The May Song is really a May carol and appears as such in The Oxford Book of Carols in two versions. Originally, the words were entirely about the May Day ceremony of bringing a branch of the May tree to the door of a sweetheart; if she took it in, the suit was accepted. When the Puritans tried, as others had before them, to do away with the Pagan nature of May Day, they gave religious words to the song. Now the two visions of May co‑exist and the simplest sort of compromise has been made. The tune itself is of a rather liturgical nature and may have come from the church.

Pete and Chris Coe sang the Cheshire May Day Carol in 1972 on their Trailer album Open the Door and Let Us In. They noted:

Text from Egerton-Leigh’s Lays and Legends of Cheshire, the tune is more usually associated with the Painful Plough. The names mentioned belong to old Cheshire families.

Pete Coe also sang the Northill May Song (Night Song) in 2004 on his CD In Paper Houses where he noted:

Fred Hamer took up a challenge to prove that there were singers and songs to be found nearer his home in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. This was the night song, sung to him by Chris Marsom (and others) and published in Garners Gay.

Martin Carthy sang and played the May Song on his 1979 album Because It’s There; John Kirkpatrick played concertina. They also did it with Brass Monkey, e.g. at the 18^th Cambridge Folk Festival in 1982. I don’t know if this recording is commercially available, and would be very grateful if anyone would let me know the details if so.

Martin Carthy noted on his album:

May Song came from a Cynthia Gooding record [see above] which I lost 16 years ago, words stuck in my head.

Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson sang May Song with some new verses at William Noble’s Barn, Denby Dale, Yorkshire on 27 September 1986, too. This recording was included in the EFDSS sponsored cassette, The Holme Valley Tradition: Will’s Barn, and in 2004 on the Watersons’ 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song. A further recording by Waterson:Carthy is on their 2006 album, Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man. Martin Carthy noted:

There must be dozens of May Day songs from all over the country and the collector Fred Hamer had his own extensive collection, a selection of which was printed in the EFDSS journal of 1961 along with an article on the subject. He says that a part of the ritual saw Mayers making their feelings known about particular individuals while they were doing their rounds. It was important for people to have the branch of May placed at their doors because a lack of it would certainly be seen as more than just a slight: but indeed it went further. A briar might be left to indicate a liar, and either elder or hemlock and stinging nettles for people of bad moral character; in all probability there were other examples as well. There are songs for night and for day, and what we sing here is a mixture. The tune is from Buckworth in North Huntingdonshire and North Bedfordshire and was sung to Fred Hamer by a Mrs Johnstone who lived in Bedford itself.

Mrs Margery ‘Mum’ Johnstone’s just mentioned version of the May Song was published in 1971 on the EFDSS album of English folk songs recorded by Fred Hamer, Garners Gay, and in his book of the same title. Album and book also have another May Song from Bedfordshire that Mrs Johnstone learned from her grandmother who came from Carlton.

White Hart, a vocal trio from Warrington, sang the Bedfordshire May Day Carol in 1979 on their Traditional Sound album In Search of Reward. See below for the notes to Lisa Knapp’s 2017 version. This track was included on 2002 on the Fellside anthology of the calendar in traditional song, Seasons, Ceremonies & Rituals.

Andy Turner sang the Swalcliffe May Day Carol in 1994 on Magpie Lane’s Beautiful Jo album of songs and tunes of Oxfordshire, The Oxford Ramble. They noted:

A folk carol sung by the children of Swalcliffe near Banbury as they marched on procession on May Day in 1921. Villagers would at one time spend much of the night and early May morning roaming woods and field to gather flowering branches which were brought home in triumph at sunrise.

Turner also sang the Northill May Song in 1998 on Magpie Lane’s Beautiful Jo album Jack-in-the-Green. They noted:

The opening song was obtained by Fred Hamer, a collector of the 1950s and 1960s, from Chris Marsom, a native of Northill near Bedford. The words are for the Night Song which was sung as groups of men, bearing a May garland, approached houses in the village after midnight; a much longer Day Song, to the same tune, was sung on May Day itself. The tune [The Cuckoo’s Nest] which follows is from Sherborne in Gloucestershire.

And Andy Turner sang the Northill May Song as the 30 April 2012 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. In following year he presented Magpie Lane singing the Swalcliffe May Day Carol as the 29 April 2013 entry of A Folk Song a Week. And another year later, he sang Mrs Johnstone’s Bedfordshire May Song as Good Morning Lords and Ladies as the 1 May 2014 entry of A Folk Song a Week.

This video shows Magpie Lane singing the Swalcliffe May Day Carol at their 30^th anniversary concert on 29 April 2023 at Holywell Music Room, Oxford (video by Tim McElwaine):

The New Scorpion Band sang the Cambridgeshire May Song in 1999 on their first CD, Folk Songs and Tunes From the British Isles. They noted:

The month of May in Britain sees the most joyful and spectacular celebration of growth, fertility and the beginning of summer in song, dance and ritual. Hobby horses in Cornwall and Somerset, maypoles and morris all over England, and an ancient need to fetch greenery from the woods to decorate houses. This song combines joy and solemnity on the First day of May. From Hoppy Flack, via A. L. Lloyd’s Folk Song in England.

Roy Clinging and Neil Brookes sang the Cheshire May Song in 2005 on their WildGoose CD Another Round. Roy Clinging noted:

I learned the Cheshire May Song from Reg Holmes, a retired railway man from Morley. Cheshire. Songs like this one were in fact usually sung in April as they were heralding the approach of this special time of year rather than celebrating its arrival.

The Claque sang Joyful May in 2008 on their WildGoose CD Sounding Now. They noted:

Joyful May has a well-embraced theme and here the song is assembled from several texts. Barry [Lister] and Sean [O’Shea] sing this as a duet and they learned it in the late seventies from they know not where, they declare.

Kerfuffle recorded the Northill May Song from Bedfordshire with the title Arise, Arise in 2008 for their fourth CD, To the Ground.

The Wilson Family sang Cheshire May Day Song on their 2009 CD A Grey Lock or Two. They noted:

Pete & Chris Coe are responsible for all the hard work in tracking down and arranging this song back in the seventies and we have them to thank for allowing us to ‘borrow’ it. What makes it unique within its genre is that the litany of names, to whom praises are offered, are all of old Cheshire families. The tune is more commonly associated with The Painful Plough.

John Kirkpatrick sang The First of May on his 2011 CD God Speed the Plough. He referred in his liner notes to Fred Hamer too:

There are many glorious May songs from all round the country, and this one first caught my eye in a selection published in the 1961 Journal of The English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS). Fred Hamer found quite a handful of May songs in Bedfordshire, including this one, in 1956, from Mrs Johnstone, who lived in Bedford, who hat learned it from her grandmother, who had sung it in Carlton in the north of the county. The same tune with similar words crop up all over the south-eastern Midlands.

On the same CD John Kirkpatrick also sang The Sweet Month of May, also known as the Cheshire May-Day Carol. He noted:

Here we have another song celebrating May Day, quite literally full of the joys of spring. The mention of mountains is all rather distracting, but can be explained because this joyous hymn to the glories of nature comes from Cheshire—a county not in itself renowned for its high peaks, but from whence splendid views of those in neighbouring Wales might be obtained if you happen to be facing the right direction.

Dorothy Dearnley published a small book called Seven Cheshire Folk-Songs in 1967, with no background information except the names of the people who had sung the songs to her. This was one of two May Day Carols she had learned from her mother, Alice.

Shirley Collins sang May Carol on her 2016 album Lodestar. She noted:

May carols, a Pagan survival and once widely known throughout the English countryside, were sung from village to village and door to door, to welcome in the Spring, the Mayers bringing branches of hawthorn to the households they visited. Such customs also gave farm labourers, having survived a lean winter, a chance to collect a bit of money: “all we lack is a few small pence…”

Lisa Knapp and Mary Hampton sang the Bedfordshire May Day Carol on Lisa’s 2017 CD Till April Is Dead. She noted:

Collected by Lucy Broadwood in 1908 and published in English Traditional Songs and Carols.

I’m a long time admirer of Mary Hampton’s singing and songwriting work so it was a real privilege to sing with her. We are joined by Gerry [Diver]’s sensitive and light to the touch banjo and the subtle and beautiful concertina playing of Dave East, also a wonderful singer, who co-runs the Court Session Folk Club where I first started singing and playing traditional folk music in public, many moons ago.

Lisa Knapp also sang the May Song on her 2018 EP The Summer Draws Near (A Branch of May Chapter Two). She noted:

I fell in love with this song after hearing the version made by Martin Carthy with John Kirkpatrick on his album Because It’s There. It’s one of the May songs which sparked my curiosity of the theme of May in British Folk song and lore.

Jack Sharp sang the Bedfordshire May Carol on Stick in the Wheel’s 2017 anthology of English folk field recordings, From Here.

Dila Vardar sang the Bedfordshire May Carol in a 2021 video about Wrest Park in Bedfordshire This is part of a video series Songs of England which explores traditional songs and their connections to historic places. It was commissioned by English Heritage and the Nest Collective.

Nick Hart sang May Song on his 2022 CD Nick Hart Sings Ten English Folk Songs. He noted:

Carols are not just for Christmas.The term essentially means a folk song with a religious theme, and this is the first of three on this album. The tune and the more austere verses come from Fowlmere in Cambridgeshire, where my father was born, with additional verses coming from the Essex village of Debden, where he has lived for the last few decades.

The Gigspanner Big Band sang The May Day Carol on their 2022 album with Raynor Winn, Saltlines. They noted:

Another from Baring-Gould. He notes: “Still sung, till of late years, in my neighbourhood, where a bunch of flowers at the end of a stick is carried about by children. The history of this carol is curious. It was customary in England … for a lover on May morning to take a green bough to the house of the beloved. If she opens the door and takes it in, it is a token of acceptance.”

Lyrics

Cynthia Gooding sings May-Day Carol

A branch of May we bear about
Before the door it stands;
There’s not a sprout unbudded out
’Tis the work of God’s own hand.

Awake, awake, you pretty maids
And take the May bush in.
Or ’twill be gone and tomorrow morn
And you’ll have none within.

The heavenly gates are opened wide
To let escape the dew.
And heavenly grace falls on each place
It falls on us and you.

The life of man is but a span,
He blossoms as the flower;
He makes no stay, is here today
And vanished in an hour.

My song is done, I must be gone,
Nor make a longer stay.
God bless you all both great and small
And send you gladsome May.

Martin Carthy sings May Song on Because It’s There

We have been rambling all of the night,
The best part of this day;
We are returning here back again
And we’ve brought you a garland gay.

A bunch of May we bear about
Before the door it stands;
It is but a sprout and it’s all budded out
And it’s the work of God’s own hand.

Oh wake up you, wake up pretty maid,
To take the May bush in.
For it will be gone and tomorrow morn
And you will have none within.

The heavenly gates are open wide
To let escape the dew.
It makes no delay, it is here today
And it falls on me and you.

For the life of a man is but a span,
He’s cut down like the flower;
He makes no delay, he is here today
And he’s vanished all in an hour.

And when you are dead and you’re in your grave
You’re covered in the cold, cold clay.
The worms they will eat your flesh, good man,
And your bones they will waste away.

My song is done, I must be gone,
I can no longer stay.
God bless us all both great and small
And wish us a gladsome May.

Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson sing May Song at Will’s Barn

Now I’ve been a-rambling all of the night
And the best part of this day;
And now I’m returning here back again
And I’ve brought you a garland gay.

A bunch of May I bear to you
Here at the door I stand;
It’s nothing but a sprout but it’s well budded out
By the work of God’s own hand.

Why don’t you do as we have done
On the very first day of May
When from our parents we have come
To run your wood so gay.

Today a man is alive, my dear,
With many an hundred pounds.
Tomorrow morning he May be gone
And his body be underground.

And when you are dead and in your grave
Covered in the clay so cold,
The worms will eat your flesh, good man,
And your bones turn to good mould.

Why don’t you do as we have done
On the very first day of May,
When from our parents we have come
To run your wood so gay.

For the life of a man is but a span,
He’s cut down like the grass;
Here’s a health unto the green leaf of the tree
For as long as life shall last.

And now our song is almost done,
We can no longer stay.
God bless us all both great and small
And we wish you a joyful May.

Waterson:Carthy sing May Song on Holy Heathens and the Old Green Man

We’ve been a-rambling all of the night
And the rest part of the day,
And now we are returning again,
We’ve brought you a branch of May.

A branch of May so fine and gay,
Up at your door it stands,
It’s nothing but a sprout but it’s well budded out
By the work of Our Lord’s hand.

Wake up, wake up, you pretty fair maid,
Wake from your drowsy dream
And step into your dairy house
And fetch us a cup of cream.

Remember us old mayers here,
And now we do begin
To lead a life in righteousness
For fear of death in sin.

Repent, repent you wicked old men,
Don’t die before you do.
And when the day of judgement comes
The Lord will think on you.

The hedges and fields are clothed all round
With several sorts of green;
Our heavenly Father waters them
With his heavenly showers of rain.

I have a purse here in my hand
Rolled up with a silken string,
And all that it wants is a coin or two
To line it well within.

The clock strikes one, it’s time to be gone,
No longer can we stay.
God bless you all both great and small
And send you a peaceful May.

Mrs Johnstone sings May Song—North Bedfordshire

A branch of May it does look gay,
As before your door it stands,
It is but a sprout, but it’s well spread about
By the work of our poor hands.

I have a bag upon my arm,
It is drawn with a silken string,
It only wants a few more pence
To line it well within.

Arise, arise, my pretty fair maids,
And take our May bush in,
For if it is gone before morning comes,
You’ll say we have never been.

Come give us a cup of your sweet cream,
Or a jug of your brown beer,
And if we live to tarry the town,
We’ll call another year.

Mrs Johnstone sings May Song—Bedfordshire

Good morning lords and ladies, it is the first day of May,
We hope you’ll view our garland, it is so bright and gay,
For it is the first of May, oh it is the first of May,
Remember lords and ladies, it is the first of May.

We gathered them this morning all in the early dew,
And now we bring their beauty and fragrance all for you,
For it is the first of May, oh it is the first of May,
Remember lords and ladies, it is the first of May.

The cuckoo comes in April, it sings its song in May,
In June it changes tune, in July it flies away,
For it is the first of May, oh it is the first of May,
Remember lords and ladies, it is the first of May.

And now you’ve seen our garland we must be on our way,
So remember lords and ladies, it is the first of May,
For it is the first of May, oh it is the first of May,
Remember lords and ladies, it is the first of May.

Magpie Lane sing the Swalcliffe May Day Carol

Awake! Awake! Lift up your eyes
And pray to God for grace.
Repent! Repent! of your former sins
While ye have time and space.

I have been wandering all this night
And most part of this day,
So now I come for to sing you a song
And to show you a branch of May.

A branch of May I have brought you
And at your door it stands.
It doth spread out and it spreads all about
By the work of our Lord’s hands.

Man is but a man, his life’s but a span,
He is much like a flower.
He’s here today and gone tomorrow
So he’s all gone down in an hour.

So now I’ve sung you my little short song,
I can no longer stay.
God bless you all, both great and small,
And I wish you a happy May.

Chris Marsom sings Northill May Song (Night Song)

Arise, arise, my pretty fair maid,
And take your May bush in,
For if it is gone by tomorrow morrow morn,
You’ll say we have brought you none.

We have been wandering all this night
And almost all this day,
And now return-ed back again,
We’ve brought you a branch of May.

A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands,
It’s nothing but a sprout but it’s well budded out
By the work of Our Lord’s own hands.

The clock strikes one, it’s time to be gone,
No longer can we stay.
Heaven bless you all both great and small
And send you a joyful May.

Kerfuffle sing Arise, Arise

Arise, arise, you pretty fair maid,
And bring your May bush in,
For if it is gone by tomorrow morrow morn,
You’ll say we have brought you none.

We have been wandering all this night
And almost all of the day,
And now we’re returning back again,
We’ve brought you a branch of May.

A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands,
It’s nothing but a sprout but it’s well budded out
By the work of Our Lord’s hand.

The clock strikes one, it’s time to be gone,
We can no longer stay.
God bless you all both great and small
And send you a joyful May.

Lisa Knapp sings the Bedfordshire May Day Carol

I have been rambling all the night
And the best part of the day.
And now I am returning back again,
I have brought you a branch of May.

A branch of May, my dear I say,
Before your door I stand.
It’s nothing but a sprout but it’s well budded out
By the work of our Lord’s hand.

Go down in your dairy and fetch me a cup,
A cup of your sweet cream,
And if I should live to tarry the town
I’ll call on you next year.

The hedges and the fields they are so green,
As green as any leaf.
Our heavenly Father waters them
With his heavenly dew so sweet.

When I am dead and in my grave
And covered with cold clay,
The nightingale will sit and sing
And pass the time away.

Take a bible in your hand
And read a chapter through,
And when the day of Judgement comes
The Lord will think on you.

I have a bag on my right arm,
Draws up with a silken string.
Nothing does it want but a little silver
To line it well within.

And now my song is almost done,
I can no longer stay.
God bless you all both great and small
I wish you a joyful May.

Acknowledgements

The first lyrics on this page were transcribed by Wolfgang Hell, for the most part; a few changes made by Garry Gillard. Thanks also to Cíarilì O’Brien. Garry Gillard also transcribed the Waterson:Carthy version. Tim McElwaine provided the Swalcliffe lyrics.