ABSTRACT
Tennyson's May Queen and New Year's Eve are quite unbiased. He had merely seen and taken part in May Games such as Lincolnshire had practised and enjoyed for many centuries. Consequently he has the root o f the matter in his poems. In them you find May Day, a Maypole, a May Queen, garlands, and dancing round the pole on a village green. Effie's little friend, on her day o f glory, had no notion that she was placating any hostile deity, or helping the farmer to a bumper crop. It was May Day, the sun was out again and strong, the May blossom was on the hedgerows, the air was scented w i th it. The long winter, whose cruel oppressiveness only recent times have lightened for mankind, was well past and over. And the birds were singing again. W h y should not village folk go out in the fresh morning and gather the May, symbol o f all this renewed brightness,- choose one o f themselves to preside over their festivities, garland her, enthrone her, and dance round her w i th song and mirth? I t all seems a very Hkely thing to occur to them, the more likely indeed, the more primitive they were.
