"The sun," says the writer, "was propitiated here by sacrifices of fire: one was on the first of May, for a blessing on the seed sown. The first of May is called, in the Irish language, La Beal-tine, that is, the day of Beal's fire. Vossius says it is well known that Apollo was called Belinus, and for this he quotes Herodian, and an inscription at Aquileia, Apollini Belino. The gods of Tyre were Baal, Ashtaroth, and all the host of heaven, as we learn from the frequent rebukes given to the backsliding Jews for following after Sidonian idols and the Phenician Baal, or Baalam, like the Irish Beal, or Bealin, denotes the sun, as Asturoth does the moon." Aubrey in his Remains of Gentilisme, informs us that "Tis commonly sayd in Germany that the witches do meet in the night before the first day of May, upon an high mountain called the Blocks-berg, situated in Ascanien" (Hercynia, the Hartz-forest), "where they, together with the devils, doe dance and feast; and the common people doe, the night before the said day, fetch a certain thorn, and stick it at their house-door, believing the witches can then doe them no harm." Bourne cites Polydore Vergil to the effect that, among the Italians, the youth of both sexes were accustomed to go into the fields on the Calends of May, and bring thence the branches of trees, singing all the way as they came, and so place them on the doors of their houses. This, he observes, is the relic of an ancient custom among the heathens, who observed the four last days of April, and the 1st of May, in honour of the Goddess Flora, who was imagined the deity presiding over the fruit and flowers : a festival that was observed with all manner of obscenity and lewdness. Moresin follows Polydore Vergil in regard to the origin of this custom. MAY POLES. QOURNE on the topic of the 1st of May writes: "The after-part a called a May Poll; which, being placed in a convenient part of the village, stands there as it were consecrated to the Goddess of Flowers, without the least violation offer'd to it, in the whole circle of the year." Stubbs, a puritanical writer of Queen Elizabeth's days, in continuation of a passage recently quoted from his Anatomie of Abuses, says"But their cheefest jewell they bring from thence" [the woods] "is their Maie poole, whiche they bring home with greate veneration, as thus. They have twentie or fourtie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a swee e nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this Maie poole (this stinckyng Idoll rather), which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes, from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with twoo or three hundred men, women, and children followyng it, with greate devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkercheifes and flagges streamyng on the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughes about it, sett up Sommer haules, Bowers, and Arbours hard by it. And then fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the Heathen people did at the dedication of their Idolles, whereof this is a perfect patterne, or rather the thyng itself." In Vox Graculi we read: "This day shall be erected long wooden Idols, called May Poles; whereat many greasie churles shall murmure, that will not bestow so much as a faggot-sticke towards the warming of the poore: an humour that, while it seemes to smell of conscience, savours indeed of nothing but covetousnesse." Stevenson, in The Twelve Moneths (1661), testifies: "The tall young oak is cut down for a May Pole, and the frolick fry of the town prevent the rising sun, and, with joy in their faces and boughs in their hands, they march before it to the place of erection." The following is from A Pleasant Grove of New Fancies (1657)— "THE MAY POLE. The May Pole is up, I'll drink to the garlands around it, But first unto those Whose hands did compose The glory of flowers that crown'd it." In Northbrooke's Treatise wherein "Dicing, Dauncing, Vaine Playes, or Enterluds, with other Idle Pastimes, &c. commonly used on the Sabboth Day," are reproved (1577), is the following passage: "What adoe make our yong men at the time of May? Do they not use nightwatchings to rob and steale yong trees out of other mens grounde, and bring them home into their parishe, with minstrels playing before: and, when they have set it up, they will decke it with floures and garlandes, and daunce rounde (men and women togither, moste unseemely and intollerable, as I have proved before), about the tree, like unto the children of Israell that daunced about the golden calfe that they had set up," &c. Owen, in his Welsh Dictionary, v. Bedwen, a birch-tree, explains it also by "a May Pole, because it was always (he says) made of birch. It was customary to have games of various sorts round the Bedwen; but the chief aim, and on which the fame of the village depended, was, to preserve it from being stolen away, as parties from other places were continually on the watch for an opportunity; who, if successful, had their feats recorded in songs on the occasion." In the Chapel Wardens' Accounts of Brentford, under the year 1623, is the following article: "Received for the May-pole, £1. 4s." Tollett, of Betley in Staffordshire, in the account of his painted window printed in Steevens's Shakespeare at the end of the play of King Henry IV. part I., writes: "The May Pole there represented is painted yellow and black, in spiral lines. Spelman's Glossary mentions the custom of erecting a tall May Pole, painted with various colours: and Shakespeare, in the play of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iii, sc. 2, speaks of a painted May Pole. Upon our Pole adds Tollett) are displayed St. George's red cross, or the banner of England, and a white penon or streamer, emblazoned with a red cross, terminating like the blade of a sword, but the delineation thereof is much faded." "Keysler" (he goes on to observe) "in p. 78 of his Northern and Celtic Antiquities, gives pens, rhaps, the original of May Poles; and that the French used to erect them appears also from Mezeray's History of their King Henry IV. and from a passage in Stow's Chronicle, in the year 1560. Theobald and Warburton acquaint us that the May Games, and particularly some of the characters in them, became exceptionable to the puritanical humour of former times. By an ordinance of the [Long] Parliament, in April 1644, all May Poles were taken down, and removed by the constables, churchwardens, &c. After the Restoration, they were permitted to be erected again." Lodge in his Wits Miserie (1596), describing usury, says: "His Spectacles hang beating... like the Flag in the Top of a May Pole." Borlase, speaking of the manners of the Cornish people, says: "From towns they make excursions on May Eve into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most public part, and, upon holidays and festivals, dress it with garlands of flowers, or ensigns and streamers." By King Charles I.'s warrant, dated Oct. 18, 1633, it was enacted that "for his good people's lawfull recreation, after the end of Divine Service, his good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged from any lawfull recreation: such as dancing, either men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreations; nor from having of May Games, Whitson Ales, and Morris Dances, and the setting up of MAY POLES, and other sports therewith used; so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of Divine Service. And that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church, for the decorating of it, according to their old custom. But with all his Majesty doth hereby account still as prohibited, all unlawful games to be used on Sundays only, as bear and bull-baitings, interludes, and, at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling." The following were the words of the ordinance for their destruction (1644). "And because the prophanation of the Lord's Day hath been heretofore greatly occasioned by May Poles (a heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness), the Lords and Commons do further order and ordain, that all and singular May Poles, that are or shall be erected, shall be taken down and removed by the constables, borsholders, tything men, petty constables, and churchwardens of the parishes, when the same be; and that no May Pole shall be hereafter set up, erected, or suffered to be within this kingdom of England or dominion of Wales. The said officers to be fined five shillings weekly till the said May Pole be taken downe." In Burton's Judgements upon Sabbath Breakers, a work written professedly against the Book of Sports, and published in 1641, are some curious particulars illustrating May games. Example 16 runs "At Dartmouth, 1634, upon the coming forth and publishing of the Book of Sports, a company of younkers on May-day morning before day, went into the country, to fetch home a May-pole with Drumme and Trumpet, whereat the neighbouring Inhabitants were affrighted, supposing some enemies had landed to sack them. The Pole being thus brought home, and set up, they began to drink healths about it, and to it, till they could not stand so steady as the Pole did, whereupon the Major and Justice bound the ringleaders over to the Sessions, whereupon these complaining to the Archbishop's Vicar Generall, then in his Visitation, he prohibited the Justices to proceed against them in regard of the King's Book. But the Justices acquainted him they did it for their disorder, in transgressing the bounds of the book. Hereupon these libertines scorning at Authority, one of them fell suddenly into a Consumption, whereof he shortly after died; now although this revelling was not on the Lord's Day, yet being upon any other day and especially May-day, the May Pole set up thereon giving occasion to the prophanation of the Lord's Day the whole yeer after, it was sufficient to provoke God to send plagues and judgements among them." The greater part of the examples is levelled at summer-poles. In Pasquil's Palinodia (1634) is preserved a curious description of May poles "Fairley we marched on, till our approach Within the spacious passage of the Strand, "Stay, quoth my Muse, and here behold a Signe To mount the rod of peace, and none withstood : Nor over-wise church-warden, spoyl'd the sport. "Happy the age, and harmlesse were the dayes When every village did a May Pole raise, And Whitson-ales and MAY-GAMES did abound: With merry lasses daunc'd the rod about, Then Friendship to their banquets bid the guests, "The lords of castles, mannors, townes, and towers, "But since the SUMMER POLES were overthrown, Alas, poore May Poles; what should be the cause Your greatest crime was harmlesse, honest mirth : "Some fiery, zealous brother, full of spleene, That all the world in his deepe wisdom scornes, By which the wicked merry Greeks came in. "But I doe hope once more the day will come, That you shall mount and pearch your cocks as high And that all fidlers, which in corners lurke, And have been almost starv'd for want of worke, * "And you, my native town, which was, of old (When as thy bon-fires burn'd and May Poles stood, The summer bower of peace and neighbourhood. That thou mayst see once more thy happy daies." Douce in his Illustrations of Shakespeare and of Ancient Manners, observes that "during the reign of Elizabeth the Puritans made considerable havoc among the May Games, by their preachings and invectives. Poor Maid Marian was assimilated to the Whore of Babylon; Friar Tuck was deemed a remnant of Popery; and the Hobbyhorse as an impious and Pagan superstition: and they were at length most completely put to the rout, as the bitterest enemies of religion. King James's Book of Sports restored the Lady and the Hobby-horse : but, during the Commonwealth, they were again attacked by a new set of fanatics; and, together with the whole of the May festivities, the Whitsun-ales, &c., in many parts of England, degraded." * Leed. [Leeds?] |