Maypole

“ Bright were the days at Merry Mount, when the Maypole was the banner staff of that gay colony! They who reared it, should their banner be triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England's rugged hills, and scatter flower seeds throughout the soil. Jollity and gloom were contending for an empire. Midsummer eve had come, bringing deep verdure to the forest, and roses in her lap, of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of Spring. ”

“ Among other ancient customs of Oriental origin is a species of maypole dancing, but it has little or no resemblance to what was once the delight of the merry lads and lasses of Old England. The peasant-women and girls fix upon a small fir-tree or bush; they then attach streamers to it of as many gay colours as they can obtain; the ends are held in their hands, and they continue to walk round and round the maypole, singing a monotonous chant one after the other until they are tired. ”

“ When English lads and lasses had youth, innocence, health and fun in their composition, a dance round the Maypole hand in hand, did them good and did nobody harm. But now there are no lads and lasses,—enervated old men and women in their teens walk the world wearily, speculating on the uses of life,—probing vice, and sneering down sentiment, and such innocent diversions as the Maypole no longer appeal to our jaded youth. ”

“ Nor think ye, young ones, that they are the happiest, even in our lifetime of a moment, who misspend it in dancing round a Maypole!"
And Endicott, the severest Puritan of all who laid the rock foundation of New England, lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the Maypole, and threw it, with his own gauntleted hand, over the heads of the Lord and Lady of the May. It was a deed of prophecy. As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. ”

“ The Maypole was an old building, with more [Pg 76] gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zigzag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty. ”

“ Gabriel resumed his seat, and looked wistfully up the road by which the traveller had come; murmuring in a half whisper:
‘The Maypole—two miles to the Maypole. I came the other road from the Warren after a long day’s work at locks and bells, on purpose that I should not come by the Maypole and break my promise to Martha by looking in—there’s resolution! It would be dangerous to go on to London without a light; and it’s four miles, and a good half mile besides, to the Halfway-House; and between this and that is the very place where one needs a light most. Two miles to the Maypole! ”

“ But there is another thing which the town is proud of too, and that is its lofty Maypole, which, standing in a firm socket of stone, is guarded round by iron rails. There are far more Maypoles in Yorkshire than in any other county, and it is pleasing to find the people are thus conservative; though truly when they get blown down, they don't often trouble themselves enough to put them up again. ”

“ The orchards were abloom and sweetened all the air. The evergreens sent out a resinous, pungent fragrance, the grass was odorous with the night dews. The maypole was raised anew, for generally the winter winds blowing fiercely over from the great western lake demolished it, though they always let it stand as long as it would, and in the autumn again danced about it. It had been the old French symbol of welcome and good wishes to their Seigneurs, as well as to the spring. And now it was a legend of past things and a merrymaking. ”

“ The interior of Aysgarth has a new appearance, but the splendid painted screen from Jervaulx (placed east and west instead of across the chancel) is worth a hunt for the key. Another screen, dated 1536, has upon it the grotesque carving of a fool's head with long-eared cap. Here again in the village are the stocks; but the Maypole, which once was its pride, long since has made its exit. ”

“ The field selected for the purpose is beautifully and picturesquely situated, opposite the park of Necton-hall. Near the centre is a raised mound of earth fenced round to protect it from the pressure of the crowd, on which is erected a “Maypole,” crowned with a streamer or pennant, and encircled by numerous garlands of flowers and evergreens, suspended longitudinally from the top to the bottom of the pole:—this is called [671, 672] the Maypole-stand. At a convenient distance are placed the stalls, canteens, and booths ”

“ The real “Maypole,” identified with the “King’s Head” at Chigwell, in Epping Forest, is not the leastest littlest bit like that. The laziest man on the hottest day could easily count its gables, which number three large ones [17] and a small would-be-a-gable-if-it-could, that looks as though it were blighted in its youth and had never grown to maturity. The front of the house is not of red brick, and never was: the present white plaster face being a survival of its early years; while the front of the ground-floor is weather-boarded. ”

“ Wreaths do not become us, and we have allowed our joints to grow too stiff for Maypole dancing. But we who used to sigh for whole holidays can give them! We can prepare the cakes and cream, and provide ribbons for the Maypole, and show how garlands were made in our young days. ”

“ Climbing a Maypole would be nothing to such a feat. It may seem easy enough to cling to a pole six inches in diameter, and even to “swarm” along it for some yards, but when you come to talk of a hundred feet of such progression, and that over a yawning chasm, the very sight of which is enough to make the head giddy and the heart faint, then the thing becomes a feat indeed. Had there been no other mode of getting over, like enough our heroes would have endeavoured to cross in that way.
Ossaroo, who had “swarmed” up the stem of many a bamboo and tall palm-tree, would have thought nothing of it ”

“ Summerhall, Stubbs, in the “Anatomy of Abuses,” speaking of the maypole, tells how villagers, when they have reared it up, “with handkerchiefs and flags streaming on the top, they strew the ground about, bind green boughs about it, set up summerhalls, bowers, and arbours hard by it, and then fall they to banquet and feast, and leap and dance about it.” ”

“ But their distribution outside of southeastern Europe is very sparse. Traces of the worship of an earth mother,165 though vague and few, can still be discovered in the superstitions of the peasant folk of northern Germany. A primitive belief in spirits of the earth, of vegetation, of fertility—of dæmons [Pg 222] who preside over the crops, who die in the autumn or winter and reappear in the spring—is common in the folk-lore and customs of the peasants in many parts of Europe. Our Maypole has an interesting history and is probably the last survival of an ancient cult. ”

“ The next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window, there stood the Maypole in the middle of the green, its top cutting into the sky. It had sprung up in the night, or rather early morning, like Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a better view of the garlands and posies that adorned it. The sweet perfume of the flowers had already spread into the surrounding air, which, being free from every taint, conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance received from the spire of blossom in its midst. ”

“ Tollet, and which he was disposed to think as old as the time of Henry VIII. The pole is planted in a mound of earth, and has affixed to it St. George’s red-cross banner, and a white pennon or streamer with a forked end. The shaft of the pole is painted in a diagonal line of black colour upon a yellow ground, a characteristic decoration of all these ancient maypoles, as alluded to by Shakespeare in his Midsummer Night’s Dream, where it gives point to Hermia’s allusion to her rival Helena as, “a painted maypole.”—Book of Days, vol. i. p. 575.—See Brand’s Pop. Antiq. ”

“ Maypoles, which in the hypocriticall times, 'twas ... to sett-up, now were sett up in every crosse-way: and at the Strand, neer Drury-lane, was sett-up the most prodigious one for height, that (perhaps) was ever seen; they were faine (I remember) to have the assistance of the sea-men's art to elevate it; that which remaines (being broken with a high wind anno ..., I thinke about 1672) is but two parts of three of the whole height from the grownd, besides what is in the earth. ”

“ Out from among these the blossoms seem to peer shyly, like sweet little Pilgrim children, ready to draw back behind their [142] mother’s aprons if they do not like the appearance of the coming stranger. Perhaps they do withdraw at discretion, and this is very likely why some people who come from far to hunt find many mayflowers, while others get few or none.
Just as the Mayflower in which the Pilgrims sailed to Plymouth seems to have been but one of many English ships of that name, so the trailing arbutus is not the only flower to be called mayflower in New England. ”

“ It is always known as the Mayflower throughout New England and the old story of its being Flora’s first offering to the ocean-tossed pilgrims as they landed at Plymouth, in appreciation of which they named it the Mayflower in memory of their vessel, has endeared the beautiful plant to every New England heart and has caused it to be placed in Cupid’s keeping, along with the Scotch blue bell, the German corn flower and the Swiss edelweiss. ”

“ Though May-pole and Morris dancing were the most common, there were other curious customs in different parts of the kingdom. In one place, the Mayers went out very early to the woods, and gathering green boughs, decorated every door with one. A house containing a sweetheart had a branch of birch, the door of a scold was disgraced with alder, and a slatternly person had the mortification to find a branch of a nut-tree at hers, while the young people who overslept found their doors closed by a nail over the latch. ”

“ Mayfield is a city on a hill on the skirts of the hot hop district of which Burwash is the Sussex centre. To walk about it even in April is no exhilaration; but in August one thinks of Sahara. I lived in Mayfield one August and could barely keep awake; and we used to look across at the rolling chalk Downs in the south, between Ditchling and Lewes, and long for their cool, wind-swept heights. They can be hot too, but chalk is never so hot as sand, and a steady climb to a summit, over turf odorous of wild thyme, is restful beside the eternal hills and valleys of the hop district. ”

“ Mrs Vanderlyn and Lady Julia?
Mrs Vanderlyn and Mr Carlile?
He shook his head in a dissatisifed manner, murmuring: 'C'est plus simple que ça.'
Then he added a few short sentences.
Did Lord Mayfield see a 'shadow'? If not, why did he say he did? Did Sir George see anything? He was positive he had seen nothing AFTER I examined flower-bed. Note: Lord Mayfield is near-sighted, can read without glasses but has to use a monocle to look across a room. Sir George is long-sighted. Therefore, from the far end of the terrace, his sight is more to be depended upon than Lord Mayfield's. ”

“ And, so, with the April mildness on land and sea, came the last night when the lights of the Mayflower shone to them out of the darkness. On the morning of its departure, how visible the scene is to us. The women watch from places of vantage, in groups or singly, in company with some men or with the children clinging to them, from the hill beside the street, their wistful eyes following the battered sails out of the harbor, while the guns from the Fort ring out in parting salute the farewell to their ever-ready shelter, to the only connecting link between them and the rest of their race. ”

“ I am bound to add, of my own experience, that Maybole is tumble-down and dreary. Prosperous enough in reality, it has an air of decay; and though the population has increased, a roofless house every here and there seems to protest the contrary. The women are more than well-favoured, and the men fine tall fellows; but they look slipshod and dissipated. As they slouched at street corners, or stood about gossiping in the snow, it seemed they would have been more at home in the slums of a large city than here in a country place betwixt a village and a town. ”

“ The bagpipe and the morris bells
That they are not far hence us tells.'
From out of the leafy Arden are they bringing in the May-pole. The oxen move slowly with the ponderous wain; they are garlanded, but not for the sacrifice. Around the spoil of the forest are the pipers and the dancers—maidens in blue kirtles, and foresters in green tunics. Amidst the shouts of young and old, childhood leaping and clapping its hands, is the May-pole raised. But there are great personages forthcoming—not so great, however, as in more ancient times. ”

“ THE MAYFLOWERS The trailing arbutus, or mayflower, grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after their fearful winter. The name mayflower was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows, but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection with _Epigma repens _dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it, in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association. ”