May Day is perhaps most closely associated by Britons with a three-day bank holiday weekend.

But the traditions of the day have their roots in pagan festivals celebrating spring and fertility and the date has come to be linked to everything from maypole dancing to anti-capitalist protests.

The national holiday itself is a recent invention, with the Labour government only introducing it to the calendar in 1978.

Three different celebrations in late April have merged to give 1 May its special significance.

Gaelic May Day in Ireland and Scotland, known as Beltane, was held halfway between the spring equinox in the middle of March and the summer solstice in the middle of June.

Marking the beginning of summer, Beltane was celebrated by villagers with bonfires and rituals to protect crops and cattle, along with a big feast.

In Germany, Finland and Sweden, meanwhile, Walpurgis Night celebrated that saint with a feast on 1 May that included dancing and young women being kissed - and was sometimes seen as a night when witches would await the arrival of spring.

Another festival held by the Romans to celebrate Flora, the goddess of flowers, in late April also marked the arrival of summer.

May Day is synonymous with the maypole, believed to be rooted in a pagan tradition of cutting down young trees and sticking them in the ground to mark the arrival of summer - and then dancing around them in rival performances between villages.

The day is also associated with Morris dancing, usually by groups of men wearing different coloured clothes depending on the part of the country they dance in.

Well-dressing and making flower garlands can be part of the festivities, while a May Queen and sometimes a "Green Man" might also make an appearance as the embodiments of spring.