May Day is an ancient springtime festivity traditionally associated with abundance and rebirth, a moment in the seasonal cycle to celebrate the virtual explosion of life embodied in blooming flowers, lovers, and longer days.

European cultures have been observing May Day for millennia. From the Celtic Beltane and Germanic Walpurgishnacht to Last of April in parts of Scandinavia, the period of April 30-May 1 initiated a crucial phase in the natural cycle of the year and heralded the transition from spring to summer. (For the ancient Romans and others, February 1 was the first day of spring and May 1 the start of summer, which accounts for the term midsummer to describe the summer solstice festivities starting around June 21 and culminating with the Feast of John the Baptist on June 24.)

May Day lives on in various revived folk customs and re-enacted rites of pre-Christian Europe. Song and dance play a major role in these contemporary observances, in a manner reminiscent of other performative calendar customs aligned with the changing of seasons (wassailing, mumming, guising, trick-or-treating, and so on). In Italy, Calendimaggio (from the Latin 𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑖𝑎, meaning calends of May), goes by other popular names that reflect this day’s strong association with song: 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑖𝑜 or 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑖𝑜, both related to the Italian word cantare, to sing. 

Head out to the Italian countryside today and you might spot troupes of flower-adorned musicians frolicking about, singing their auspicious, entertaining songs in exchange for offerings of eggs, wine, cakes and other sweets. These are the maggerini, or maggiaioli, the May Day singers who delight crowds with lively and symbolic 𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑖 𝑙𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖 (a “maggio” in this context is a type of rhymed couplet), songs proclaiming the joys of the season and young love, always with a good dose of lyrical flair and wit.

As part of the customary farewell to winter darkness and winter habits, Italian women would clean out their larder stores on or around this day, in preparation for the summer bounty to come. Some rather tasty and inventive “pantry soups” derive from this tradition, recipes meant to make use of one’s stored goods. These include garmugia (Lucca), le virtù (Abruzzo), and the Sicilian specialty macco di fave, typically prepared on or around the feast of Saint Joseph (March 19).

This is day to rejoice in all the precious springtime favorites, like delicate wild asparagus, agretti, May wine infused with sweet woodruff, mint, fresh strawberries, women adorned with pretty flower wreaths and men in verdant leaves and branches. And thoughts of hope, change, and progress as we clear out the cupboards and set a pot on the fire and inhale the intoxicating joy a bouquet of aromatic flowering herbs brings.

image: John Collier’s “Queen Guinevere’s Maying” (1900)