AH, the merrie month of May is upon us – with a “Hey and a Ho and a Hey Nonny No!” as we children used to sing badly out of tune in Cowdenbeath every May Day. And the Morris dancing that the miners of West Fife engaged in, hopping on one leg round the Maypole while humming sweet praises to the mine owners amid the colourful, streaming ribbons, was also a treat. (Spoiler alert: not everything in this column will prove to be one hundred per cent accurate. As a post-modern New Testament scholar whose sensational five-volume treatise on The Use of the Subjunctive in Q – “A tour de force of fantastic scholarship” – Fake News Telegraph – took the European academies by storm, I don’t feel obliged to traffic solely in facts. So that’s that little matter sorted.)
Anyway, pin back your lugs for the real story. My research assistant, Professor Stan Google, informs me that the origins of the May Day festivities go all the way back to your actual Middle Ages. Dancing, drinking, obeisance to some greetin’ faced pagan deity and wee outbreaks of procreation and stabbing went on, while the polis (ie the city) turned a blind eye to such unPresbyterian excesses.