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by
Amanda Castleman
The
hymn pipes out at dawn from the golden tower, as the Magdalen
Boy's Choir welcomes spring to Oxford, England. The innocent
soprano voices melt into the morning sky, as thousands of
revellers fall silent below.
Many
wear elegant ball gowns and tuxedos, rumpled from a riotous night of drink and
dancing at a college ball. Some sport carnival costumes: fairy wings, masks, trailing
ivy wreaths, togas, smears and sprinkles of glitter. Others appear bundled up,
still bleary from bed, but game - even at six in the morning. "Te
adoramus, O Jesu," the boys carol in Latin, high pure voices trailing like
river mist 144 feet above the crowd. A fellow of Magdalen College, part of the
hallowed Oxford University, wrote the Hymnus Eucharisticus in the late 18th century.
But the tradition stretches back much farther: In 1650, the city summoned Spring
at the early-bird hour of 4.00am. Enthusiasm
for this ancient tradition was revived by Richard Attenborough's 1993 film Shadowlands,
which depicted the bittersweet romance between children's author and scholar C.S.
Lewis and his cancer-striken wife Joy. Over 11,000 people gather each year on
May 1st, unperturbed by the event's blithe mix of cassocked choir boys and fertility
rituals; mystical music and drunken carnage.  | Magdalen
Tower |
Victorian
artist William Holman Hunt emphasised the ethereal side of the event in his often-reproduced
May Morning on Magdalen Tower. He omitted the tipsy undergraduates and their "youthful
frolic", adding a mass of blossoms and, quite curiously, a Persian sun worshipper.
Changes aside, the flowing painting captures the simple beauty of this festival.
Real-life
doesn't censor the frolic, however, and the crowd usually manages some mild hijinks.
After all, May Morning misbehavior is a time-honored tradition. "Magdalen
College men and the rabble of the towns came on May Day to their disturbance,"
complained a 16th-century local. Two hundred years later, spectators were regularly
pelted with rotten eggs and other unpleasant missiles.
(CONTINUE...)
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