With maypole only a week away, it means it is time to stop and smell the flowers! Maypole, which happens on May Day  (May 1st) is a day full of lovely traditions. It is a day to wear flowers in your hair, sing and skip with ribbons and to leave flower offerings on the doorsteps of neighbours or those you care for. While Maypole and May Day are european traditions and so coincide with Spring, the act of making a cone and filling it with flowers can also transfer to the southern hemisphere if you look at the cone as a horn of plenty and fill it with Autumn gatherings.

We will be making  flower cones and delivering them, and this year for the first time we are gong to host a maypole at our home with our homeschool friends. This will involve making a maypole for our yard, making flower crowns and singing songs. Here are the songs we sing! We learnt of these song through the Waldorf Playgroup Maypole we have attended annually since the girls were little.

Maypole Song

Here’s a branch of snowy may,
A branch the fairies gave me.
Who would like to dance today,
With the branch the fairies gave me?

Dance away, dance away,
Holding high the branch of may.

Dance Away, dance away,
Holding high the branch of may.

 

Now We Go Round The Maypole High (sung to the tune of “Here we go round the mulberry bush”)

Now we go round the maypole high,
maypole high, maypole high,
Now we go round the maypole high,
Let coloured ribbons fly.

See lasses and Lads go tripping by,
tripping by, tripping by.
See lasses and lads gor tripping by,
Let coloured ribbons fly.

In rainbow hues make garlands gay,
Garland gay, garlands gay,
In rainbow hues make garland gay,
Let coloured ribbons fly,
Let coloured ribbons fly.

This was such a delightful moment with Elle. We foraged the seasonal flowers from the neighborhood and made the crown, and when I handed her the snowy branch of may, she pretended the blossom bough was a guitar.

Beautiful dress handmade in Brooklyn, By Wovenplay.