May Day Delayed

“’Ear ye! ‘Ear ye! Today is Friday the firty-onest of April!”

“Oo sez?”

“By order of ‘Is Majesty King Arfur of Camelot!”

“What on earth is happening in the Fog Lake?” asked Little Plump Jo, the current Artisan in Residence in Malory Tennyson’s Cloudbank Cabin for Arthurian Studies.

Dagonet the Jester bounded in, juggling a stack of red and yellow balls. Jo, who had the ability to communicate with animals and fictional characters, repeated her question.

“The town crier has just announced that today is April 31st instead of May 1st ”

“Why?”

“Because Queen Guinevere always goes A-Maying on the First of May. And before The Glitch in the Fog Lake, that was the day that Queen Guinevere was abducted by Sir Meliagrance and Sir Lancelot would rescue her.

But episodes have been happening out of order in the Fog Lake since The Glitch. His Majesty calls it a post apocy-something.”

“Post Apocalypse?”

“Yes, that’s the one! Anyway, we have already just had the abduction of the Queen and her rescue by Sir Lancelot. But she wants to do it again! She’s like a little kid who goes on a scary high slippery slide and then says ‘Again, again!’ when they get off.”

“Maybe she is an adrenaline junkie.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Maybe she likes the thrill of getting abducted and rescued.

Surely if that episode has already happened, it would be highly unlikely to happen again in this iteration of the Fog Lake Reenactments” said Little Plump Jo.

“Well, you would think so” replied Dagonet. “People can be very superstitious about May Day. They love all the lusty month frolics and eating grapes and chasing each other around trees. And Queen Guinevere is always adamant that they go A-Maying. She says it is important for the flourishing of the kingdom.”

“So why can they not go today?

“Because it has been decreed that there will not be first of May this time. Today is 31st of April. Tomorrow the town crier will announce that it is May 2nd and say there was an error in yesterday’s news. Obviously, there is no such day as 31st April. Sorry folks, we will not be celebrating May Day this year.”

Little Plump Jo’s five canine writing companions, the Dabrowski dogs, were all disappointed. They had been looking forward to the May Day festivities.

“So, does King Arthur think that celebrating May Day is a pagan practice and want to put a stop to it? Surely everyone will say that if today is the last day of April, whatever you want to call it, tomorrow is the First of May and they will celebrate it anyway! And then all the calendars will be a day wrong” barked the Border Collie, Intellectual Dabrowski.

“I know! I tried to tell His Majesty that!” said Dagonet. “Merlin said we are allowed to put in an extra day every four years because of how many times the Earth goes round the sun or some such. But we already had an extra day this year. It was just after the Beaux Ball at the end of February and the ladies were allowed to ask the men to marry them on that one special day. Sir Lancelot hightailed it off to visit a monastery for the day! So, King Arthur said if we cannot add in another day this year, we will rename today and delete May the First.”

“How did Queen Guinevere take that news?”

“She went crying to Sir Lancelot saying ‘Lance darling. Arthur won’t let us have May Day’.

Lancelot said he was actually quite relieved because he had not recovered from performing the last rescue yet and he could not guarantee he could save her if she was abducted. He has been wearing gloves to hide a bandaged hand because he did not want to explain how the injury happened.”

“What did happen?” asked Little Plump Jo, trying to find out what Dagonet knew. Dagonet claimed to know the secrets and have the confidence of both His Majesty King Arthur and Sir Lancelot du Lac. For that reason, Dagonet was always angling for the position of overview narrator character for Jo’s stories.

“Well, I am sure you have heard the whole dramatic story about how Sir Lancelot rescued Her Majesty when she was abducted by Sir Meliagrance. But what you may not have heard is that the night before they returned to Camelot, Sir Lancelot climbed up the tower to Queen Guinevere’s room. He broke the iron bars out of the stone walls and cut his hand very badly. And then he climbed into her room and they did the plaisance and liking until dawn or, as you would say, Little Plump Jo, ‘the dot, dot, dot, bit’. And other people were blamed for all the blood on Her Majesty’s bed.”

“What did Queen Guinevere say to Sir Lancelot today?” asked Psycho Motor Dabrowski, bouncing enthusiastically.

“She started with that wheedling tone, and said ‘Oh come on, Lancey, it will be fun. And it’s not like it is your sword hand’.

He said grumpily ’Yes it is. I’m ambidextrous’.

She said ‘I insist on going A-Maying today with you to chaperone me. I command you to go and tell King Arthur now and make him send out a town crier date correction message.’ And she stamped her foot at him.

He obviously thought she was behaving like a brat and said, with cold dignity, ‘As my Lady commands. I will speak to His Majesty after the training session this morning’.

And he went first to find his cousin Sir Bors. They staged an ‘accident’ at the training session. And by the time Lancelot had finished with the physician it was much too late to talk to King Arthur, get the town crier to issue a change of date message and arrange for the court to go Maying today. Now his hand is heavily bandaged and splinted and he has his arm in a sling. The physician says it will take at least a month to heal. Her Majesty is fuming but there is nothing she can say.”

“So, what will happen now then? There is still the problem of tomorrow being the first day of May, even if it is not called the First of May, and also all the calendars now being a day out.”

“Here is the genius part!” said Dagonet, making a sweeping bow to Jo and the dogs. “I told His Majesty that we needed to have a month to settle and recalibrate. Everyone might feel differently in a month’s time. So, we just rename this month. And then, if they decide to go ahead with May Day celebrations, at least Sir Lancelot would be fit to save the Queen, if she happened to be abducted again.

So I went out and informed the town crier what the revised news broadcast should be. If you listen, you can probably hear it now.”

“’Ear ye! ‘Ear ye! News Update! Today is Friday the First of April!”

“Oo sez?”

“By order of ‘Is Majesty King Arfur of Camelot!”

“And that, O Best Beloved, is how I, Dagonet the Jester, have instigated April Fool’s Day.”