May Day

Happy May Day! May Day is a very important holiday here in Oxford, and the town has its own unique ways to celebrate it.

Festivities begin at 6am on May 1, when the choristers from Magdalen College sing "Hymnus Eucharisticus" and "Now is the Month of Maying." Lots of students and Oxfordians come to High Street, just below Magdalen Tower, to listen.

The crowd on High Street, approx. 5:50am BST

A portion of "Hymnus Eucharisticus":

Where the choristers sang.

The past few years, however, some Oxfordians have adopted the peculiar habit of jumping off Magdalen Bridge into the River Isis to celebrate May Day.  As an attempt to stop this, the police closed off the bridge from 4:30-7:30am to pedestrians, but judging by the number of people that I saw who were soaking wet their efforts were in vain.

High Street closed for the festivities.

Because most of my friends and I live on the opposite side of Magdalen Bridge, we had to cross the bridge before it closed if we wanted to see the events.  Unless you take a very long detour, crossing the bridge is the only way to get into the city center from where we live.  So, our May Day started very early -- at about 4 am! (That's 11pm EST, East Coast readers!)

A pub open at 7am.

After the singing had ended, we walked around some of the streets of Oxford to watch the different groups of Morris Dancers.  Morris Dancing is a form of English folk dancing.  You can see some pictures and videos below:

An Irish band.

Some friends of mine joined in the dancing.

Morris Dancers.

Another group of Morris Dancers.

A third group - all of these groups of dancers were very near to each other.  All we had to do was simply turn a street corner and another group was performing.

Then after watching the dancing, we headed over to Wesley Memorial Methodist Church because they were serving a traditional English Breakfast (eggs, baked beans, bacon, tomatoes, tea) for free!  It was good to know that even across the pond Methodists still like to feed people -- just like the Methodists I know in the states!