May Morning

‘May Morning on Magdalen Tower’ 1890, by Holman Hunt

Hunt attended the May Morning ceremony and made initial observations about it in 1888. The Walker Art Gallery has a watercolour study of the details of the tower, which Hunt studied for several weeks. For the figures in the painting he chose boys from Magdalen College but also used the choir of Westminster Abbey. Not only did Hunt have problems with the choice of models but he also realised that the ceremony was not popular with people outside the Magdalen College, as he confessed in a letter to his wife after his second stay in Oxford in December 1888. The vivid and individual expressions of all the figures suggest that they were all modelled from the choir as well as members of the College. The youth of the boys reflects the fertility and blossoming of nature during May. The young boy looking directly out at us is holding a lily, the symbol for St Mary the Virgin and St Mary Magdalen to whom the College was dedicated.

[National Museums Liverpool]

Te Deum Patrem colimus,

Te Laudibus prosequimus,

qui corpus cibo reficis,

coelesti mentem gratia.

Te adoramus, O Jesu,

Te, Fili unigenite,

Te, qui non dedignatus es

subire claustra Virginis.

          

Actus in crucem, factus est

irato Deo victima

per te, Salvator unice

vitae spes nobis rediit.

                    

Tibi, aeterne Spiritus

cuius afflatu peperit

infantem Deum Maria,

aeternum benedicimus.

                              

Triune Deus, hominum

salutis auctor optime,

immensum hoc mysterium

orante lingua canimus.

[Dr Nathaniel Ingelo and Benjamin Rogers, Hymnus Eucharisticus]

Back in 2013, Auntie did the honours here.

St Mark

The above is from the front of the Doge's Palace in Venice.

Today is of course also the Robigalia - one of those old crop fertility festivals dedicated to extra-cruel chthonic deities, to whom the Romans would sacrifice animals of the non-edible variety (normally puppies).

And I just couldn't resist this.

The sun and moon (often personified as Sol and Luna) appear frequently in Crucifixion scenes across Christian art, primarily to visualize the biblical darkness that fell during Jesus’ death and to emphasize the event’s cosmic, universal significance.

Biblical Foundation

The Gospels describe “darkness over the whole land” from the sixth to the ninth hour (noon to 3 p.m.) while Jesus hung on the cross (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44–45). Luke specifically notes that “the sun was darkened” (or “the sun’s light failed” / “τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος”). This supernatural daytime darkness—sometimes linked to apocalyptic imagery like Revelation 6:12 (sun turning black, moon blood-red)—gave artists a powerful visual hook. The presence of both sun and moon together (unnatural in reality) underscores the miracle and the universe’s response to Christ’s death.

Earliest Depictions (6th Century)

Crucifixion imagery itself was rare before the 5th–6th centuries (early Christians often avoided graphic suffering scenes). One of the oldest surviving examples with the celestial bodies is the Rabbula Gospels (Syriac manuscript, completed 586 CE, now in Florence). Here, a partly eclipsed sun and a personified moon (with a face) hover above the cross against a light sky, with shading hinting at darkness. This sets the pattern: the sun and moon signal both the literal darkness and the cosmic scale of the event.

Medieval Standardization and Personification (8th–13th Centuries)

By the Carolingian period (8th–9th centuries) and onward through Romanesque and Gothic art, sun and moon became standard features in both Eastern (Byzantine/Orthodox) and Western traditions. They are typically shown as:

• Personified busts or figures: Labeled SOL (sun, often male with rays or in a chariot) on one side and LUNA (moon, veiled or crescent-shaped female) on the other. They frequently turn away, weep into their hands, or look sorrowful—symbolizing the universe mourning or God’s cosmic anger at the death of His Son.
• Position: Flanking the top of the cross, sometimes perched on the cross-arms themselves.

This draws from classical Roman iconography (Sol and Luna as powerful deities in imperial art and chariot motifs) but repurposes it for Christian meaning. In Byzantine icons and frescoes, they remain stylized disks with faces or rays (sun often darkened, moon sometimes red). In Western manuscripts, ivories, and enamels, they appear in elaborate scenes alongside angels, Mary, John, and sometimes Ecclesia/Synagoga (Church and Synagogue) or Earth/Sea personifications.

Examples include:

• Ottonian Sacramentary of Henry II (early 11th century): Weeping Sol (rayed) and veiled Luna turn away in grief.
• 12th-century Limoges enamel plaques and Romanesque crucifixes: Sun and moon as medallions or figures emphasizing Christ’s “cosmic sovereignty.”

Symbolism and Interpretations

• Cosmic/universal witness: The entire creation reacts—Christ’s death is not just a local event but affects heaven and earth (echoing patristic ideas and prophecies like Amos 8:9).
• Mourning and divine anger: Personifications often show sorrow or aversion.
• Typology: In some readings (influenced by St. Augustine), they represent Old and New Testaments or Church vs. Synagogue.
• Sovereignty and triumph: They affirm Christ’s eternal reign over creation, adapting pagan solar imagery (e.g., Sol Invictus) into a Christian framework.

Later Evolution (14th Century Onward)

The motif peaks in the High Middle Ages but evolves with artistic styles. By the late Gothic and early Renaissance, artists sometimes shift to realistic dark or stormy skies, solar eclipses, or starry nights (e.g., Jan van Eyck’s Crucifixion, c. 1420s, with a waning moon). Personified Sol/Luna become rarer in naturalistic Western painting but persist strongly in traditional Byzantine/Orthodox icons to this day (sun on the left with rays, moon on the right). By the 16th–17th centuries, they largely fade in the West except in conservative or symbolic works (e.g., Raphael’s Mond Crucifixion, c. 1502–1503, with gold/silver orbs).

Note: In some 14th-century frescoes (e.g., Visoki Dečani Monastery, Serbia), the stylized sun and moon have occasionally been misidentified online as “UFOs,” but art historians universally recognize them as traditional symbolic personifications of the celestial bodies witnessing the Crucifixion.

In short, what began as a literal illustration of Gospel darkness grew into one of the richest symbols of Christ’s universal redemptive power—visible from 6th-century manuscripts to modern icons. The sun and moon remind viewers that the Crucifixion was a cosmic turning point witnessed by all creation.

Celtic Magic

As for what actually remains of the old traditions, [in Celtic Magic, St Andrews University philologist Brigid] Ehrmantraut has, through textual scholarship and archaeology, attempted to piece together “the activities that regular people might have practised on a daily basis”. Celtic cultures passed their knowledge down orally. Written accounts of them tend to come from Roman enemies and Christian successors. But there was occasional contact with the Greek alphabet in Gaul, and the invention of later rudimentary scripts in Ireland. These are the records that allow Ehrmantraut to weave original curses or incantations into her lively account of the transmission of this knowledge.

There is no first-hand evidence, she writes, of people being burned in a wicker man — a large figure made of woven branches. Julius Caesar, whose writings provide the earliest surviving report of this, may even be drawing from a much earlier Greek philosopher whose own writings have since been lost.

The practices we do have evidence for tend to be cultural hybrids — especially in early Christian Ireland, where, Ehrmantraut shows, people might have combined a protection spell with a prayer to St Patrick for good measure. As for the remedy for worms: “The medical practitioner is to sing the following charm nine times in the afflicted person’s ear, followed by the Paternoster: ‘gonomil orgomil marbumil’. These words are slightly garbled Old Irish for ‘I wound the beast.’”

[In search of Albion — the folklore, myths and magic that built British culture]

Masks

The word "mask" meaning a covering for the face entered English only in the 1530s as "maske" or similar, borrowed from Middle French masque ("a covering to hide or guard the face"). From there, it traces its way back to Italian maschera (or its variant mascara, attested from the 13th century), meaning "mask" or "disguise." This Italian term derives from Medieval Latin masca (or mascha), recorded from around the 7th–8th centuries, where it meant "mask," but also extended to "specter," "nightmare," or "evil spirit."

After that, of course, the trail goes cold. One possible "ultimate origin" is Arabic maskharah (مَسْخَرَة), meaning "buffoon," "mockery," or "object of ridicule," derived from the verb sakhira ("to ridicule" or "to mock"), which could just about tie into the idea of a mask as something used in jest, disguise, or theatrical mockery. (In classical Latin, meanwhile, the term for a theatrical mask was persona, which evolved into our word "person," but originally meant the "mask" through which an actor's voice sounded—per sonare "to sound through".)

An alternative Romance/Germanic or pre-Indo-European root might be via Provençal/Occitan mascarar ("to blacken" or "smear the face"), Catalan mascarar, or Old French mascurer ("to black the face"), which links to words for darkening or soiling the face (as a form of disguise), possibly from a root mask- meaning "black" or related to "smear/blacken." Some then connect this to a pre-Indo-European substrate in southern Europe, or even a distant link to Germanic words like English "mesh" (from Old English mæscre or Proto-Germanic maskōn, meaning "net" or "mesh"—perhaps evoking a net-like face covering).*

In any case, the word entered English and replaced older English terms like grīma (Old English for "mask," surviving in "grime") and displaced borrowings like viser (from Old French for "visor"). Meanwhile, Old Norse had gríma (“a kind of face mask”) and of course Óðinn's given name Grímr - sometimes translated "the Masked One" and sometimes "the Hooded One". We would have to reconstruct the equivalent for his Old English cognate Woden, but it's easily enough done. *Grim may well survive not just in the English surname Grim, but also in place names such as Grim's Ditch and Grim's Dyke - not to mention figures from folklore and symbolism such as the Church Grim and of course the Grim Reaper.

The Swedish word mask on the other hand means 'worm', and is cognate with the English word 'maggot', which of course ultimately comes from Old English maþa, and thither from Proto-Germanic. It's cognate with the English word 'mawk', meaning a slattern - although we also get the word 'mawkish' from it, which traditionally meant literally sickly rather than in the metaphorical modern "sentimental" sense.

And then of course we have the Latin word musca, meaning 'a fly' - and whence of course "mosquito", and so on. Jonson was perhaps having a certain amount of fun with the (somewhat recondite) wordplay in Volpone, when he has Mosca (a man whose name means 'fly' and who is literally a parasite - i.e. one who eats at another man's table) declare

"Tut, forget, sir.
The weeping of an heir should still be laughter

Under a visor."

In any case, it's a declaration that neatly sums up the cynicism of a play that is all about disguises, deception and corruption.

One wonders of course what went through Tolkien's mind when he came up with character names like Farmer Maggot and Gríma Wormtongue. He insisted that the former was just a meaningless Hobbitish name, and I suppose we have to take his word for it. (The idea of associating a humble arable farmer, working in the boggy soil of the Marish, with earthworms clearly just wouldn't do!) The latter though of course seems much more likely. (Wormtongue is a character with more than one mask!)

But deeper and further back one cannot help but think of the original grim-faced, masked warriors of Tolkien's legendarium - his dwarves, who were themselves the literary descendants of "the maggot folk of Ymir" in Gylfaginning.

It was their custom moreover to wear great masks in battle hideous to look upon; and those stood them in good stead against the dragons. For the Naugrim could withstand both fire and the wrack of battle better than any of the other speaking peoples; and it is said that the iron of their helms and their axes and their mail was so hard that the blows of the Orcs were turned aside or broken. 

[The Silmarillion]

At the Nirnaeth Arnoediad it was their masks that allowed the Dwarves of Belegost momentarily to the turn the tide, and even to wound and force the retreat of great worm Glaurung himself.

Much goes on beneath a mask!

*Wiktionary notes "mask" (face covering) as a doublet of "mesh" in this sense. And alas there is no direct connection to unrelated words like Hebrew masekhah, which means "molten image" in biblical Hebrew and has been repurposed in modern Hebrew for "mask" partly due to phonetic similarity.

Coots and Clockwork Oranges

Interestingly, in The Lord of the Rings Tom Bombadil is simply 'queer'.

In 'Bombadil Goes Boating' though he has 'gone mad as a coot'!

The phrase 'queer as a coot' was probably quite standard in Tolkien's time.

The phrase 'queer as a clockwork* orange' was probably less so.

*The original of that particular phrase probably was indeed (pace Ali G) this.