Welcoming the May in Oxford - Katherine Langrish

So on the First of May we got up in the grey twilight at 4.45am and drove into Oxford to listen to the choirboys singing the May in from the top of Magdalen Tower.

The sky was crimson, every moment changing and brightening towards amber and gold. We found a parking place somewhere near the station and hurried up through the town, which was strangely awake for such a time in the morning. Scattered pedestrians striding purposefully. Cyclists creaking by on ancient bicycles. Groups of worse-for-wear students who’d been up all night, noisy, laughing, hugging one another, stumbling along. Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young… All of us heading the same way and for the same reason.  Kebab and burger vans on Queen Street were doing a great trade. The air was chill, the buildings still shadowed. Towery city and branchy between towers, cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded… On the High, a homeless man sat in a college doorway and watched the crowd passing downhill towards Magdalen College and its bell tower.

No one is quite sure, it seems, how old this ceremony is, but it’s been going on for many hundreds of years. Every year at 6am on May Day, the choir of Magdalen College climbs to the top of Magdalen Tower to sing from the roof to celebrate the spring – first the Hymnus Eucharisticus and then English country songs and madrigals. 

As the crowd around the base of the tower became thicker, we came to a halt among a happy bunch of May morning sightseers – many in May costumes, crowned with real flowers and greenery. Tipping our heads back, we could just see the white robes of the choir moving between the finials of the tower top, and imagine the scene up there as Holman Hunt depicted it in his painting ‘May Morning on Magdalen Tower’ (1888-90).

This must be the most popular of Oxford’s colourful college traditions. Some are stranger than others. All Souls (full name: The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed) for example, owns to a custom as weird as anything out of Gormenghast: the Hunting of the Mallard. Once a century, the respectable Fellows of this wealthiest of colleges partake of a feast followed by a crazy ritual in which, led by a ‘Lord Mallard’ carried in a chair, they parade through the college with flaming torches in pursuit of a man carrying a wooden duck tied to a pole. This is to commemorate a huge mallard which, startled by workmen digging a drain, supposedly flew out of the foundations when the college was being built in 1437.  Whilst parading, the participants sing the Mallard Song, which dates from about 1660.

The Griffine, Bustard, Turkey & Capon

Let other hungry Mortalls gape on

And on their bones with Stomacks fall hard,

But let All Souls’ Men have the Mallard.

Chorus:

Hough the bloud of King Edward.

By the bloud of King Edward

It was a swapping, swapping mallard!

I have sometimes wondered, if Mervyn Peake knew of this ceremony, whether it inspired any of Gormenghast’s strange rituals, such as the ceremony to Honour the Poet.  Barquentine,  Master of Rituals, outlines the requirements to Steerpike. Have the cloisters been painted the correct shade of darkest red? Has the Poet completed his poem? Has he been told about the magpie?

‘I told him that he must rise to his feet and declaim within twelve seconds of the magpie’s release from the wire cage. That while declaiming his left hand must be clasping the beaker of moat-water in which the Countess has previously placed the blue pebble from Gormenghast river.’

            ‘That is so, boy.  And that he shall be wearing the Poet’s Gown, that his feet shall be bare, did you tell him that?’

            ‘I did,’ said Steerpike.

            ‘And the yellow benches for the Professors, were they found?’

All Souls’ Mallard ceremony was last held in 2001 and so will not be held again until 2101, but the song (which has six verses) is apparently still sung twice a year. I don’t know if the Fellows have re-included the fifth verse which was ‘expunged on grounds of decency’ in 1821 – but most 21^st century sensibilities will find it enjoyably ridiculous rather than obscene. Anyhow, no one prepared to canter through college after a duck on a pole has any right to complain.

Hee was swapping all from bill to eye,

Hee was swapping all from wing to thigh,

His swapping tool of generation

Oute swapped all the winged Nation.

Chorus:

Hough the bloud of King Edward.

By the bloud of King Edward

It was a swapping, swapping mallard!

Hunting the Mallard is a ceremony exclusively for the lofty Fellows of All Souls College, but the Magdalen College ceremony is for everyone, town and gown. As we watched, the corner of the tower slowly glowed in the sunrise. The clock chimed six. The crowd, five thousand strong by now, hushed. The chimes faded and the choir at the tower top began to sing. Their voices were amplified – and for a moment, braced as I’d been to listen for the high, clear, distant notes, I was disappointed. Then I realised that it was the only practical solution, given the numbers waiting below. And it was still lovely.  

After the Latin hymn, a prayer was read thanking God for the light of morning, remembering St Mary Magdalene and the women who were witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus at the break of day, and praising God’s creation Mother Earth with all her spring flowers. As a happy combination of Christianity and nature worship, it seemed faultlessly medieval. Then the choir sang Thomas Morley's songs ‘Now is the Month of Maying’ and 'My Bonnie Lass She Smileth' – and it was over, the sun was up, and it was time to wander back through the city with the rest of the teeming multitude and find somewhere to eat breakfast. Our attention was caught by someone waving aloft a hand-written placard declaring the existence of  ‘Free Bacon Sandwiches at the Wesley Memorial Church on New Inn Hall Street’ – but that seemed too far away from the action. 

 

The thump of a big drum lured us into Radcliffe Square where we found a colourful band playing oddly dirge-like marches on the cobbles around the Radcliffe camera. Then we looped back to the High for an expensive but delicious breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon, bacon rolls and coffee. And one Bucks Fizz, which we shared between us. It was still only 7am.  

Merry May!  

Jack-in-the-Green and the living ritual, by H.M. Castor

Jack-in-the-Green, Bristol, 2014
(Note the face above the yellow flower!)
[All photos copyright H.M. Castor unless otherwise labelled]

[O]ne of my colleagues [was] asked by a friend about our collaboration with [Joseph] Campbell: "Why do you need the mythology?" She held the familiar, modern opinion that "all these Greek gods and stuff" are irrelevant to the human condition today. What she did not know — what most do not know — is that the remnants of all that "stuff" line the walls of our interior system of belief, like shards of broken pottery in an archaeological site. But as we are organic beings, there is energy in all that "stuff." Rituals evoke it.

(Extract from Bill Moyers’ introduction to The Power of Myth 

– a series of conversations with Joseph Campbell.)

Compared to the lives of our ancestors, our lives in the 21^st century are very short on ritual. Shout me down if you will, but I’ll hazard a guess that, unless you attend a daily religious service, are a warden of the Tower of London (say), or – at certain times of the year – happen to be the Queen, you are likely to take part in what might be called a ritual much less frequently than the vast majority of your forebears. On the power of ritual, and what we might have lost as a society through its decline, there is much to be said – I won’t go into it here. Instead, I’d just like to tell you what happened to me the Saturday before last.

It was the first Saturday in May – the day, I’d (just) heard, when the Bristol Jack-in-the-Green would be making his annual appearance. Setting off in the morning, he would spend several hours processing through town, and by mid-afternoon would be passing along the main shopping street near where I live. From there, he would go on to be ritually ‘slain’ on a common not far away.

I didn’t know Bristol had a Jack-in-the-Green.

I didn’t, if truth be told, know what a Jack-in-the-Green was.

Hastily I reached for my copy of Steve Roud’s excellent book The English Year: a month-by-month guide to the nation’s customs and festivals, from May Day to Mischief Night. Roud told me that, from the late 18^th to the early 20^th century, Jack-in-the-Green had appeared as “an integral part of the [May Day] celebrations put on by chimney sweeps,” during which they collected money “to help see them through the summer, the lean period of the trade.”

And there was a vivid description of Jack’s appearance, from A.R. Bennett’s memoir of a south London childhood in the 1860s:

A lusty sweep — for strength and endurance were necessary for the due performance of the part — covered himself down to the boots with a circular wicker frame of bee-hive contour, carried on the shoulders, and terminating in a dome or pinnacle above his head. The frame was entirely concealed by green boughs and flowers… A small window gave egress to his gaze, but was not very obvious from without, and one seldom caught a glimpse of the perspiring countenance within.

[quoted in The English Year by Steve Roud, p.210]

Wikimedia Commons also provided some fascinating pictures, including one (the second below) from Germany:

18th-century print (hand-coloured by Simon Garbutt, 2006),
of the chimney-sweeps' May Day "Jack in the Green" in London
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons (ownership and copyright
of the original hand-coloured artwork retained by Simon Garbutt)

Jack im Grünen, 1863

Otto von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld: Das festliche Jahr in Sitten, Gebräuchen und Festen der germanischen Völker. Mit gegen 130 in den Text gedruckten Illustrationen, vielen Tonbildern u. s. w. Spamer, Leipzig 1863. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München
[Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

Illustration from an article, 'May Day in Cheltenham', 1893

Journal “Folk-Lore: A Quarterly Review of Myth, Tradition, Institution & Custom" 

Vol. 4, 1893. 

[Published by David Nutt; public domain via Wikimedia Commons]

The historian in me pounced on the German connection with interest: since Jack-in-the-Green appeared in England in the late 18^th century, when many things from Germany were in vogue, was he a straightforward import? Was he connected with chimney sweeps in Germany too? How far did the tradition there date back?

But I didn’t get any further with this – I had to go and see the real Jack. With my (rather reluctant) 10-year-old daughter for company I set off, and on the main street we soon heard drums signalling Jack’s approach.

An account from 1900, quoted in The English Year, said that Jack-in-the-Green looked like “a big bush… bobbing up and down” – I soon saw that this was a perfect description. Jack bobbed, jigged and spun around while his band of green companions (I’ve seen them called ‘bogeys’ or ‘bogies’ on some websites) played instruments, sang, walked backwards to warn him of upcoming obstacles, and daubed the noses of any willing bystanders with a smear of green face-paint.

A 'bogie' at Jack in the Green, Hastings 2004

by Nicklott (Own work) [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Some of Jack's followers in Bristol this year were younger than others...

The procession halted at one point for a bit of morris dancing (with Jack twirling in the centre of the circle), and then progress was resumed. Jack was picking up a fair few followers as he went, but plenty of other people he passed just waved, grinned or took pictures.

My daughter and I hadn’t planned on following him, but we were beguiled, and a short while later found ourselves accompanying Jack onto the common.

In the middle of the common Jack stopped, surrounded by his green companions and a circle of onlookers. He moved around the crowd, bobbing little bows here and there, approaching people as if investigating them… but any attempts at escape were blocked by the ‘bogeys’ with admonishing shouts of “Now, Jack!” 

There was more dancing… and the recitation of a poem about ‘the Green Man’.

And then, after a swift surreptitious escape was made…

…Jack was hoisted into the air…

...toppled...

… and ‘slain’ with ferocious jabs of a stick.

After that the kids piled in (my daughter included) and pieces of Jack’s greenery were pulled off and handed out for everyone to take home.

So, what had we just witnessed? A bit of silliness? A meaningful tradition? Given the inclusion of a poem about the Green Man, some people – The English Year’s author Steve Roud included – might not have approved.

[Jack-in-the-Green’s] history and reputation have been sadly misrepresented. Despite the fact that Jack dates from the late eighteenth century, lasted for little more than 150 years, and was an urban rather than rural custom, he is routinely claimed as an ancient pagan tree-spirit, or as a personification of a vegetation god who dances to welcome the spring. He has also become inextricably tangled up in the complex modern persona of ‘the Green Man’, that powerful symbol used by the romantic wing of various eco-friendly and New Age groups. He has thus been absorbed into the amorphous blend of foliate heads (as the Green Man carvings in churches were previously called), medieval wildmen, Robin Hood, Gawain and the Green Knight, and anything or anyone else ‘green’, who are all now equated with vegetation and nature spirits. Needless to say, there is not the slightest evidence that Jack-in-the-Green has any connections with these other characters, but it is probably impossible now to rescue him from such dubious company.

[The English Year by Steve Roud, p.212]

With my historian’s hat on, I do appreciate the important distinctions Steve Roud makes, but the Jack-in-the-Green procession I saw was not performed as a historical re-enactment – it was performed as a living ritual. And a question springs to mind: what is wrong with letting Jack-in-the-Green evolve? May Day celebrations have been many and varied over the centuries, and new versions of them have always developed – surely – out of what has gone before. Jack-in-the-Green did not appear in the 18^th century out of the blue (as it were); in making such a feature of green boughs and flowers the chimney sweeps were continuing a much older tradition of welcoming in the spring/summer, and in symbolising this new season in the form of a figure, were they not drawing inspiration from other figures? Strictly speaking, it might be ‘wrong’ to equate Jack with ‘the Green Man’, but he was a green man, a figure of nature, a figure of the May, without doubt.

Would it be better if, today, Jack’s followers smeared their faces with chimney soot and carried sweep’s brushes, since that would be sticking to Jack’s specific and particular origins? Personally, I don’t think so (though neither am I objecting, if they want to). The heart of the ritual is the marking of May Day, and I think you can let some bath water go while still hanging on to the baby.

I also think it’s important to remember that legends, myths and symbols inevitably shift and alter as they are viewed from different perspectives in different eras. Indeed they must if they are to continue to carry any meaning. In the current climate (literal and metaphorical) it is not surprising that a symbol like ‘the Green Man’ is gaining new popularity, and while any claims made to a straightforward lineage might be mistaken, it is not true (either) to say that the Green Man is a new invention. We have a soup of traditional figures and stories that – for centuries – has been energetically stirred. And we must go on stirring, because setting symbols in aspic will eventually render them lifeless and irrelevant.

So, for me, the point lies in asking ourselves whether a symbol or a ritual still carries some living energy – can it still mean something to us? I don’t know about you, but the coming of sunshine and warmer weather has a profound effect on me (not as profound as if I had lived before central heating and tarmacked roads, but profound enough nevertheless). And to my surprise, I found last week that doing something more to mark summer’s arrival than putting away my jumpers and saying ‘What lovely sunshine’ could have meaning. I wasn’t the only one.

My 10-year-old daughter, as I mentioned, had been reluctant to come with me to find Jack-in-the-Green. Go and look at a man dressed in leaves? She didn’t see the point. But at bedtime that night she told me it had been ‘the best thing ever’. Why? Neither of us could quite put our finger on it. Something to do with the feeling of community? Something to do with the fact that the only point was the ritual itself (no presents, no sweets, no commercialization!)? Something to do with how it was playful, symbolic, silly and serious, all at once? We didn’t know. But we’d gone with no expectations, except of seeing a curiosity. And we’d come back having – rather mysteriously – loved it.

Thanks to Mike Slater, there's footage on Youtube showing the whole of the final part of Jack's journey in Bristol on May 3rd 2014, including the morris dancing and the ‘slaying’. It can be seen here (the action begins at 2:09 mins).