* containing flowers and a clever verse, ’ wreath on her head and shouts of ap- ‘” with their hoops, before the scholar- THE COLLEGE NEWS % . ¢ » Page Eleven Little May Day Brings Relaxation From Daily Grind Senior Class President Crowns’ Miss Park as Queen With Floral \Wreath ee SCHOLARSHIP HONORS ARE READ IN CHAPEL May-1.—In the midst of the turbu- lent, nerye-wracking preparations for Big May Day, the undergraduates of Bryn Mawr took a five-hour recre- ation to carry on one of the nicest traditions that Bryn Mawr now pos- sesses—Little May Day. Five a. m. found the sophomores rising reluctantly from their beds to peer out the window at a darkened sky which,yfor all its unwelcome obscurity, gave promise of an early dawn passing on to a warm and sunny day. ~ Soon the hails were echoing with loud, and sometimes sour, notes .of the sophomores’ Waking Song which woke not only the intended seniors, but also every other i a sessing normal auditory ability. ak- ing the seniors with 4 lusty challenge to “wake up all” and a May basket e was not sufficient to arouse some of them from their beds to which they had so recently retired. The added stimulus of coffee and rolls proved more effective at: the specified hour of 6 o’clock. It was the seniors’ turn next to wake Miss Park and conduct her with a double column procession to Rocke- feller Tower, where, a little after 7 a. m., the seniors greeted the sun with a Latin hymn while the lesser under- graduates and a few of the faculty watched from below. Headed by Eleanor Fabyan and the Bryn Mawr band, famous for such gatherings as Parade Night and other traditional ceremonies, after a special breakfast the seniors ‘‘one, two, three- hopped” from Rockefeller Arch around in front of Taylor, down Senior Row and onto the upper hockey field, where five Maypoles stood in formation wait- ing to be wound—each by a different class. Making a large circle outside the Maypoles the rest of the college hopped, skipped and jumped to the strains of To the. Maypole. After sufficient winding of the various Maypoles, everyone closed in on the largest one in the center, where Jane Matteson, president of the Senior Class, was presented with a necklace, a floral crown and an invitation to breakfast a year from that date by Miss Park.- Miss Matteson thanked Miss Park and accepted her invitation on behalf of the class. She ended her speech by placing her floral crown on Miss Park’s head, saying: “I don’t want to make next week seem like an anti- climax, or take Robin Hood’s job away from him, but I should like to crown the real Maid Marion May Queen.” The speech over, Miss Park emerged from the mob with a May plause on every side. The crowd soon dispersed and went by various paths to Goodhart, where the seniors, in time to accompanying clapping, danced and skipped around the auditorium ships, graduate and undergraduate, were announced. The list of awards was long and distinguished—too long to be reprinted in full in this issue of the News— but there were two outstanding this time. The Charles S.'Hinchman Memorial Scholarship, awarded to the student whose record shows the great- est“ability in her major subject, was given this year to Leigh Davis Stein- hardt, ’87,.a philosophy major. The Maria L. Eastman Brooke Hall Memorial Scholarship, given each year on the ground of scholarship to the member of the junior class with the highest average, was awarded this year to Elizabeth Duncan Lyle,’ of Lennox, Mass. After Chapel was over, the student body repaired to Senior Row, where of hoops, sticks and everything else imaginable were accomplished. We note that Dr. Nahm was the recipient of a relic well known all over the .|campus—Pauline Manship’s blue cape. Making a square with sister classes opposite each other, each class was called upon to sing her May Day songs and finally “Thou Gracious Inspira- tion”’—whereupon Little May Day with all its colored trappings was over for another year, and 10 o’clock classes were next in the order of the day. Worship of Spring is Ancient Celebration Continued from Page One in every year, they were always deco- rated in this same way, and around them the people always danced with a-great abandon. The wantonness of their merrymaking, in fact, so shocked the Puritans that it caused them to brand the pole as a very “stinckyng idoll.” Justified or not, however, they put no damper on the enthusiasm of the villagers for their customary revelling. They even failed to subdue the ardor of the reverend clergy, for one honest priest, delivering his ser- mon on May morning and finding his pews suddenly emptied at the sound of music on the Green, with no re- criminations simply up and followed the throng, as eager as any of them to see the Maypole reared. ; Origin of Morris Dancing Celtic Besides the circular dancing around the pole, another sort of dance was commonly associated with the festival. This was the Morris dance, named from “Morisco,” the Spanish word for Moor. Although it is,said by some to have been introduced into England from Spain in the reign of Edward IV, there is another explanation of its presence which makes it a far older tradition and a completely na- tive one. It goes back to, the pre- Roman age when the Celts ‘built their sacrificial fires on the Druid’s mounds. Just as they imitated the burning of human victims by drawing each other through the, blaze, so the revellers imitated the slaughter of: human off- erings by sword-dances where the ges- ture of killing was made. By some miracle, the dancer thus symbolically put to death was usually revived again as the summer revives from winter, for it was this changing of the sea- sons that the dance was meant to represent and it was the deity of sum- mer that the dance was meant to honor. As further insurance of the blessing of the god, the performers also blackened their faces with ashes from the mounds where likewise he had been honored. These rites they continued for generation after gen- eration, after the Romans had con- quered their country and after Chris- tianity had become their. religion, until the significance of the move- ments they went through were for- gotten and the movements themselves changed. For the clangor of the swords they substituted the jingle of bells which they bound about their awards which bear some mention at Montgomery Avenue Bryn Mawr Are you curious about Culottes? Come in and try them on. See how they flatter the “figger.” Yet give the freedom of shorts. Linen Suede Cloth—Flannel $2.95. up KITTY McLEAN BRYN MAWR, PA. Seat 3 When you come to Bryn Mawr - .00 : MONTGOMERY INN _. PHILADELPHIA’S FINEST SUBURBAN HOTEL legs and wrists, and although they ELUTE Stop at 3 Minutes From the College J. K. Winters, Prop. PT TT the hoop-rolling and ‘the .bequeathing Kingly s plendor Lucia Holiday as King Richard in the first May Day. still smeared their faces, they did. not know why. St. George Once Symbolic Dance From the same source of symbolical dancing was derived another May Day ceremony, the play of St. George and the Dragon. Here, however, the swords were retained, the revivifica- tion .was..embodied into. the story rather than discarded as an unneces- sary gesture, and although made comic and Christian, the whole play gave evidence of its origin. When individual characters were separated from the drama to appear alone as figures in a procession or even as Morris dancers, their significance was of course obscured, yet because the play remained to supplement them, they never became quite disconnected from their traditional beginning. And almost always a St. George or a hob- by-horse, a man wearing a pasteboard effigy of a horse about his waist so that he seemed to be riding, did take part in the Morris dance, while ‘some- times a dragon followed along, too, with whom the Horse kept up a desul- tory battle. Nor were these two the only extraneous actors in the Morris performance. Robin Hood and Maid Marian came to be the leading people in it, although originally they were even less, connected with it than St. George. Féte Demands “Lord and Lady” Since no country folk could hold a festival without a festival leader, the May Day dances, both Morris and Maypole, were early ruled by a lord and lady. Eventually they became known to everyone as Robin and Marian in addition to their loftier titles. That these two names and no others should have been attached to them, was a result of the popu- larity during the twelfth century of certain French pastourelles deal- ing with the loves of a Robin and a Marian, type shepherds like the English May leaders. As soon as the name of Robin became widespread, it was at once associated with the purely -English Robin Hood, whom the Vision of Piers Plowman mentioned and whose praises the ballads were begin- ning to sing. The shepherd was transformed into the outlaw, and the shepherdess, although Robin . Hood had: at first ho swéetheart to match her, was transformed into an outlawed lady whose character was gradually created to meet the occasion. Decline of May Day Traditions When at last the Puritans gained control of the government, they put their léng-continued resentment into action and banned the Maypole with its accompanying wantonness. After the Restoration of Charles II, the king who loved his pleasure so well, the Maypole was restored to its former freedom, but the best of its spirit was gone. The old gay songs had been dulled with Puritanical strains- of sin and Hell; the Maid Marian had degenerated into a boy clown; and the Morris dances had been taken over by chimney sweeps because their sooty skins well suited the black faces of the dancers. The Maypoles disappeared from the cities and villages one by one; in 1717 the last in London was taken down. Enough of the ancient tradition re- mained for Pepys to be able to record in his diary that his wife had gone to wash her face in the May dew like the Elizabethan country girls, and in certain districts the customs were still unadulterated. But in these dis- tricts, too, the strength of the prac- tice waned when factories began to invade the fields and the Maypoles stood in sight of smoky factories. Only recently, since a greater consciousness of the value of popular traditions has arisen, have the ceremonies been to some extent revived. Directed by peo- ple well learned in the histories of the old rites, those customs which were slowly dying have been preserved and those already scarcely more than re- membered have been given a new life. Not with quite the same spontaneity, yet with the same symbolism of dance ‘and flowers and sacred sacrifice and tree, England still does observance to May and the vitality of a new year. William Kempe Famous Fool William Kempe, the fool who ac- companies one band of Morris dancers, was a famous fool in Shakespeare’s company of actors, as well as a noted composer of jigs. His association with the Morris men comes from the fact that he won much notoriety by dancing a Morris dance from London to Norwich. SS a ee MARINELLO GUILD APPROVED SALON National Bank Building Bryn Mawr, Pa. Bryn Mawr 809 ge a ae ee Beauty Craft in all its branches Sa i i i i a a a ee ll el HAPPY MAY DAYS topped off by wearing a cool chiffon printed with flowers from garden and field, or a gay gingham evening dress at $22.75 from new arrivals of daytime’ and dinner gowns at JEANNE BETTS 30 Bryn Mawr Avenue | “" &® Club Breakfast .......... Table d’Hote Luncheons. . Telephone: Bryn Mawr 386 BRYN MAWR COLLEGE INN _ TEA ROOM MAY DAY SPECIALS whan ceed ede ses s0l—Elo-~ICE Served from 7:30—11 A. M. 12 to 2:30 P. M. Table d’Hote Dinmers.........eeceeee0s 6:30 to 8:30 P. M. Meals served on the Terrace when weather permits The. Public is Invited wee ee DOC—75C a Eight Choir Members Broadcast Over WOR Continued from Page One ner played Sacrapant in Old Wive’s Tale, and he himself was the cdstume director. After Mr. Skinner’s short talk, the Bryn Mawr singers, accompied per. | Willoughby on the piano, sang the Harvestors Song from Old Wive’s Tale, Here is a Pottell of Malmsey, the drinking song of the Gossips in The Deluge, and one verse of Down in. a Leafy Dell, a sentimental ballad to the familiar strains of Gathering Peascods. A most amusing dialogue, which Mr. Skinner said reminded him of Eddie Cantor, followed between Mrs. Wrench and Mrs. Jacobs, who played the parts of two mothers at again, two songs from Robin Hood, one verse of Alan-a-Dale’s song, The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington, ac- companied by Mr. Willoughby, and the round Follow, Follow, unaccom- panied. The program closed with To the Maypole, the last part of which was hummed to make a real fade-out. ———— BUSINESS 3 SCIENCE COURSES ® Specialized Training for College Men and Women. @ Summer Session of six weeks, begins June 29th. @ Placement Service. PEIRCE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Gees PHILADELPHIA ee sana — HAVE YOU CONSIDERED LIBRARY WORK AS A PROFESSION? Carnegie Library School of Car- negie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, _ offers fully dccredited one year courses which will interest- you. Send for Bulletin Old Covered Wagon Inn on the Lincoln Highway at Strafford, Pa. 10 minutes from Bryn Mawr i College Quality Food Daily Luncheons and Dinners Res. Phone: Wayne 1169 — 1969 We make obeisance We, too, celebrate May Day! For 30 years it has been our ptivilege to serve Bryn Mawr College — for 30 more years, and longer, we hope to warrant a continu: © ance of that privilege. * "The John C. Winston Co. Printers and Publishers Philadelphia : cee elas icles ein Zi RE NOM MG Pee rita sea =, Se Big May Day. The singers then sang/ — aa