This year’s Annual May Day celebration, hosted by Thornden Morris, will take place on Friday, May 1st at 6:00 a.m. (dawn) at the Thornden Park Water Tower. This year marks the 45th traditional and entertaining celebration, which has always been enthusiastically supported by the local community. This year’s guest team is the Bassett Street Hounds.

The festivities begin with dancers from all the teams performing the Winster Processional to take the stage. The procession is followed by Morris dancing, interspersed with speeches and singing. For fertility and good luck, there is the handing out of branches of May greenery. Next, at approximately 6:30, a mumming play will be performed. Finally, a participatory May Pole Dance closes the event. The audience, often numbering from 100 to 200, particularly enjoys the play and the May Pole dance.

Every May Day morning marks the once-only performance of a new mumming play. These 15-minute comedies follow an ancient plot model, a protagonist who is brought down by his character flaws but learns from the experience and emerges a wiser person. The play celebrates the themes of light and dark, death and renewal, the end of winter and return of the sun, as well as fertility of the soil. The plays are written in rhyming verse and often have topical themes.

To see pictures from past years’ celebrations, explore thorndenmorris.org, or facebook.com/thorndenmorris/.