The Tradition of the Maypole
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Transcript of The Tradition of the Maypole
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The Tradition of the Maypole
and the May Day Dance
by D G Mattichak jr
One of the great traditions of Beltane is the Maypole. It is the
focus of May Day celebrations across Europe and especially
Britain where traditionally the boys and girls of a village would
dance around it holding the ends of long green and red ribbons,
braiding them together in an intricate and beautiful pattern until
they all met at its base. For hundreds of years the Maypole has
been a symbol of resistance to oppressive rulers as successive
monarchs have alternatively prohibited it and reinstated its place
in May Day celebrations but it has a much longer history and its
origins are in the unknown past.
The month of May is named for the Greek goddess Maia, the
Roman Bona Dea, the Good Goddess whose fertility festivals
were held in May and was a festival for women only. Romanwomen brought the statue of Bona Dea, also called Fauna, to an
all night feast in her honor where there was music, wine and
games. But even though the name of the Maypole comes from the
Greek, the tradition of the pole itself is thought to have originated
among the ancient Germanic peoples.
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The Maypole is a tall wooden pole erected on May Day as the
focal point of the celebrations and even though the tradition of
the Maypole has survived the Christianization of Europe itsoriginal meaning is lost to us now. There is much speculation as
to what it represents including the axis of the world (axis mundi),
a remnant of Germanic tree worship, the Yggdrasil tree and most
recently it has been seen to be a phallic symbol. The latest
thinking is that they are merely a part of the general rejoicing at
the return of summers bounty much as the May Day garlands
are.
Although the tradition of the Maypole has continued in Europe,
especially in the villages of Bavaria, often it has been moved to
the Summer Solstice celebrations in June. Another common
practice is for young German men to erect a Maibaum in the yard
of their beloved, often decorating it with garlands of red flowers
and writing their sweethearts name in it. In Scandanavia the
practice has continued in an altered form called the midsummer
pole or midsommarstng.
But in the parts of Britain that are traditionally English the
practice of erecting Maypoles has survived to become an
essential part of English folk life. Villages compete for the honor
of having the tallest Maypole and there are often thefts of theneighboring villages pole and there are recorded instances where
this led to violence. Over the centuries several monarchs and
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parliaments have prohibited the erection of Maypoles only to face
defiance and eventual defeat and the tradition of erecting
maypoles has always been reinstated.
Maypoles were often permanent fixtures in English villages and
they prided themselves on the length of their poles. The tallest
Maypole was at the Strand, near the current St Mary-le-Strand
church which stood 130 feet tall until it was blown over in 1672.
Even in the modern day there are many English villages that have
a permanent Maypole as a fixture of their village.
The tradition of attaching ribbons to the Maypole and of the
famous dance around it seem to originate in the 19th
century
when characters like John Ruskin were revitalizing the rural
customs of Britain to encourage a sense of tradition and national
unity. The simplest dance is done by pairs of boys and girls (or
men and women) who stand alternately around the base of the
pole, each holding the end of a green or red ribbon. They weave
in and around each other, boys going one way and the girls going
the other until the ribbons are woven together around the pole
and the youthful merry-makers meet at the base. There are more
complex dances, related to Morris dancing, for set numbers of
practiced dancers called May Queen troupes, but gradually they
have mostly been forgotten.