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Chapter 10. Relics of Tree Worship in Modern Europe
From the foregoing review of the beneficent qualities commonly ascribed to
tree-spirits, it is easy to understand why customs like the May-tree or
May-pole have prevailed so widely and figured so prominently in the popular
festivals of European peasants. In spring or early summer or even on Midsummer
Day, it was and still is in many parts of Europe the custom to go out to the
woods, cut down a tree and bring it into the village, where it is set up amid
general rejoicings; or the people cut branches in the woods, and fasten them
on every house. The intention of these customs is to bring home to the
village, and to each house, the blessings which the tree-spirit has in its
power to bestow. Hence the custom in some places of planting a May-tree before
every house, or of carrying the village May-tree from door to door, that every
household may receive its share of the blessing. Out of the mass of evidence
on this subject a few examples may be selected.
Sir Henry Piers, in his Description of Westmeath, writing in 1682 says:
On May-eve, every family sets up before their door a green bush, strewed over
with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully. In countries where
timber is plentiful, they erect tall slender trees, which stand high, and they
continue almost the whole year; so as a stranger would go nigh to imagine that
they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses. In
Northamptonshire a young tree ten or twelve feet high used to be planted
before each house on May Day so as to appear growing; flowers were thrown over
it and strewn about the door. Among ancient customs still retained by the
Cornish, may be reckoned that of decking their doors and porches on the first
of May with green boughs of sycamore and hawthorn, and of planting trees, or
rather stumps of trees, before their houses. In the north of England it was
formerly the custom for young people to rise a little after midnight on the
morning of the first of May, and go out with music and the blowing of horns
into the woods, where they broke branches and adorned them with nosegays and
crowns of flowers. This done, they returned about sunrise and fastened the
flower-decked branches over the doors and windows of their houses. At Abingdon
in Berkshire young people formerly went about in groups on May morning,
singing a carol of which the following are two of the verses:
We've been rambling all the night,
And sometime of this day;
And now returning back again,
We bring a garland gay.
A garland gay we bring you here;
And at your door we stand;
It is a sprout well budded out,
The work of our Lord's hand.
At the towns of Saffron Walden and Debden in Essex on the first of May
little girls go about in parties from door to door singing a song almost
identical with the above and carrying garlands; a doll dressed in white is
usually placed in the middle of each garland. Similar customs have been and
indeed are still observed in various parts of England. The garlands are
generally in the form of hoops intersecting each other at right angles. It
appears that a hoop wreathed with rowan and marsh marigold, and bearing
suspended within it two balls, is still carried on May Day by villagers in
some parts of Ireland. The balls, which are sometimes covered with gold and
silver paper, are said to have originally represented the sun and moon.
In some villages of the Vosges Mountains on the first Sunday of May young
girls go in bands from house to house, singing a song in praise of May, in
which mention is made of the bread and meal that come in May. If money is
given them, they fasten a green bough to the door; if it is refused, they wish
the family many children and no bread to feed them. In the French department
of Mayenne, boys who bore the name of Maillotins used to go about from farm
to farm on the first of May singing carols, for which they received money or a
drink; they planted a small tree or a branch of a tree. Near Saverne in Alsace
bands of people go about carrying May-trees. Amongst them is a man dressed in
a white shirt with his face blackened; in front of him is carried a large
May-tree, but each member of the band also carries a smaller one. One of the
company bears a huge basket, in which he collects eggs, bacon, and so forth.
On the Thursday before Whitsunday the Russian villagers go out into the
woods, sing songs, weave garlands, and cut down a young birch-tree, which they
dress up in woman's clothes, or adorn with many-coloured shreds and ribbons.
After that comes a feast, at the end of which they take the dressed-up
birch-tree, carry it home to their village with joyful dance and song, and set
it up in one of the houses, where it remains as an honoured guest till
Whitsunday. On the two intervening days they pay visits to the house where
their 'guest' is; but on the third day, Whitsunday, they take her to a stream
and fling her into its waters, throwing their garlands after her. In this
Russian custom the dressing of the birch in woman's clothes shows how clearly
the tree is personified; and the throwing it into a stream is most probably a
raincharm.
In some parts of Sweden on the eve of May Day lads go about carrying each
a bunch of fresh birch twigs wholly or partly in leaf. With the village
fiddler at their head, they make the round of the houses singing May songs;
the burden of their songs is a prayer for fine weather, a plentiful harvest,
and worldly and spiritual blessings. One of them carries a basket in which he
collects gifts of eggs and the like. If they are well received, they stick a
leafy twig in the roof over the cottage door. But in Sweden midsummer is the
season when these ceremonies are chiefly observed. On the Eve of St. John (the
twenty-third of June) the houses are thoroughly cleansed and garnished with
green boughs and flowers. Young fir-trees are raised at the doorway and
elsewhere about the homestead; and very often small umbrageous arbours are
constructed in the garden. In Stockholm on this day a leaf-market is held at
which thousands of May-poles (Maj Stanger), from six inches to twelve feet
high, decorated with leaves, flowers, slips of coloured paper, gilt egg-shells
strung on reeds, and so on, are exposed for sale. Bonfires are lit on the
hills, and the people dance round them and jump over them. But the chief event
of the day is setting up the May-pole. This consists of a straight and tall
sprucepine tree, stripped of its branches. At times hoops and at others
pieces of wood, placed crosswise, are attached to it at intervals; whilst at
others it is provided with bows, representing, so to say, a man with his arms
akimbo. From top to bottom not only the 'Maj Stang' (May-pole) itself, but the
hoops, bows, etc., are ornamented with leaves, flowers, slips of various
cloth, gilt egg-shells, etc.; and on the top of it is a large vane, or it may
be a flag. The raising of the May-pole, the decoration of which is done by
the village maidens, is an affair of much ceremony; the people flock to it
from all quarters, and dance round it in a great ring. Midsummer customs of
the same sort used to be observed in some parts of Germany. Thus in the towns
of the Upper Harz Mountains tall fir-trees, with the bark peeled off their
lower trunks, were set up in open places and decked with flowers and eggs,
which were painted yellow and red. Round these trees the young folk danced by
day and the old folk in the evening. In some parts of Bohemia also a May-pole
or midsummer-tree is erected on St. John's Eve. The lads fetch a tall fir or
pine from the wood and set it up on a height, where the girls deck it with
nosegays, garlands, and red ribbons. It is afterwards burned.
It would be needless to illustrate at length the custom, which has
prevailed in various parts of Europe, such as England, France, and Germany, of
setting up a village May-tree or May-pole on May Day. A few examples will
suffice. The puritanical writer Phillip Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses,
first published at London in 1583, has described with manifest disgust how
they used to bring in the May-pole in the days of good Queen Bess. His
description affords us a vivid glimpse of merry England in the olden time.
Against May, Whitsonday, or other time, all the yung men and maides, olde men
and wives, run gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils, and mountains,
where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; and in the morning they
return, bringing with them birch and branches of trees, to deck their
assemblies withall. And no mervaile, for there is a great Lord present amongst
them, as superintendent and Lord over their pastimes and sportes, namely,
Sathan, prince of hel. But the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their
May-pole, which they bring home with great veneration, as thus. They have
twentie or fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweet nose-gay of flouers
placed on the tip of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this May-pole (this
stinkyng ydol, rather), which is covered all over with floures and hearbs,
bound round about with strings, from the top to the bottome, and sometime
painted with variable colours, with two or three hundred men, women and
children following it with great devotion. And thus beeing reared up, with
handkercheefs and flags hovering on the top, they straw the ground rounde
about, binde green boughes about it, set up sommer haules, bowers, and arbors
hard by it. And then fall they to daunce about it, like as the heathen people
did at the dedication of the Idols, whereof this is a perfect pattern, or
rather the thing itself. I have heard it credibly reported (and that viva
voce) by men of great gravitie and reputation, that of fortie, threescore, or
a hundred maides going to the wood over night, there have scaresly the third
part of them returned home againe undefiled.
In Swabia on the first of May a tall fir-tree used to be fetched into the
village, where it was decked with ribbons and set up; then the people danced
round it merrily to music. The tree stood on the village green the whole year
through, until a fresh tree was brought in next May Day. In Saxony people
were not content with bringing the summer symbolically (as king or queen) into
the village; they brought the fresh green itself from the woods even into the
houses: that is the May or Whitsuntide trees, which are mentioned in documents
from the thirteenth century onwards. The fetching in of the May-tree was also
a festival. The people went out into the woods to seek the May (majum
quaerere), brought young trees, especially firs and birches, to the village
and set them up before the doors of the houses or of the cattle-stalls or in
the rooms. Young fellows erected such May-trees, as we have already said,
before the chambers of their sweethearts. Besides these household Mays, a
great May-tree or May-pole, which had also been brought in solemn procession
to the village, was set up in the middle of the village or in the market-place
of the town. It had been chosen by the whole community, who watched over it
most carefully. Generally the tree was stripped of its branches and leaves,
nothing but the crown being left, on which were displayed, in addition to
many-coloured ribbons and cloths, a variety of victuals such as sausages,
cakes, and eggs. The young folk exerted themselves to obtain these prizes. In
the greasy poles which are still to be seen at our fairs we have a relic of
these old May-poles. Not uncommonly there was a race on foot or on horseback
to the May-treea Whitsunday pastime which in course of time has been divested
of its goal and survives as a popular custom to this day in many parts of
Germany. At Bordeaux on the first of May the boys of each street used to
erect in it a May-pole, which they adorned with garlands and a great crown;
and every evening during the whole of the month the young people of both sexes
danced singing about the pole. Down to the present day May-trees decked with
flowers and ribbons are set up on May Day in every village and hamlet of gay
Provence. Under them the young folk make merry and the old folk rest.
In all these cases, apparently, the custom is or was to bring in a new
May-tree each year. However, in England the village May-pole seems as a rule,
at least in later times, to have been permanent, not renewed annually.
Villages of Upper Bavaria renew their May-pole once every three, four, or five
years. It is a fir-tree fetched from the forest, and amid all the wreaths,
flags, and inscriptions with which it is bedecked, an essential part is the
bunch of dark green foliage left at the top as a memento that in it we have
to do, not with a dead pole, but with a living tree from the greenwood. We
can hardly doubt that originally the practice everywhere was to set up a new
May-tree every year. As the object of the custom was to bring in the
fructifying spirit of vegetation, newly awakened in spring, the end would have
been defeated if, instead of a living tree, green and sappy, an old withered
one had been erected year after year or allowed to stand permanently. When,
however, the meaning of the custom had been forgotten, and the May-tree was
regarded simply as a centre for holiday merry-making, people saw no reason for
felling a fresh tree every year, and preferred to let the same tree stand
permanently, only decking it with fresh flowers on May Day. But even when the
May-pole had thus become a fixture, the need of giving it the appearance of
being a green tree, not a dead pole, was sometimes felt. Thus at Weverham in
Cheshire are two May-poles, which are decorated on this day (May Day) with
all due attention to the ancient solemnity; the sides are hung with garlands,
and the top terminated by a birch or other tall slender tree with its leaves
on; the bark being peeled, and the stem spliced to the pole, so as to give the
appearance of one tree from the summit. Thus the renewal of the May-tree is
like the renewal of the Harvest-May; each is intended to secure a fresh
portion of the fertilising spirit of vegetation, and to preserve it throughout
the year. But whereas the efficacy of the Harvest-May is restricted to
promoting the growth of the crops, that of the May-tree or May-branch extends
also, as we have seen, to women and cattle. Lastly, it is worth noting that
the old May-tree is sometimes burned at the end of the year. Thus in the
district of Prague young people break pieces of the public May-tree and place
them behind the holy pictures in their rooms, where they remain till next May
Day, and are then burned on the hearth. In Würtemberg the bushes which are set
up on the houses on Palm Sunday are sometimes left there for a year and then
burnt.
So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or immanent in the
tree. We have now to show that the tree-spirit is often conceived and
represented as detached from the tree and clothed in human form, and even as
embodied in living men or women. The evidence for this anthropomorphic
representation of the tree-spirit is largely to be found in the popular
customs of European peasantry.
There is an instructive class of cases in which the tree-spirit is
represented simultaneously in vegetable form and in human form, which are set
side by side as if for the express purpose of explaining each other. In these
cases the human representative of the tree-spirit is sometimes a doll or
puppet, sometimes a living person, but whether a puppet or a person, it is
placed beside a tree or bough; so that together the person or puppet, and the
tree or bough, form a sort of bilingual inscription, the one being, so to
speak, a translation of the other. Here, therefore, there is no room left for
doubt that the spirit of the tree is actually represented in human form. Thus
in Bohemia, on the fourth Sunday in Lent, young people throw a puppet called
Death into the water; then the girls go into the wood, cut down a young tree,
and fasten to it a puppet dressed in white clothes to look like a woman; with
this tree and puppet they go from house to house collecting gratuities and
singing songs with the refrain:
We carry Death out of the village,
We bring Summer into the village.
Here, as we shall see later on, the Summer is the spirit of vegetation
returning or reviving in spring. In some parts of our own country children go
about asking for pence with some small imitations of May-poles, and with a
finely-dressed doll which they call the Lady of the May. In these cases the
tree and the puppet are obviously regarded as equivalent.
At Thann, in Alsace, a girl called the Little May Rose, dressed in white,
carries a small May-tree, which is gay with garlands and ribbons. Her
companions collect gifts from door to door, singing a song:
Little May Rose turn round three times,
Let us look at you round and round!
Rose of the May, come to the greenwood away,
We will be merry all.
So we go from the May to the roses.
In the course of the song a wish is expressed that those who give nothing may
lose their fowls by the marten, that their vine may bear no clusters, their
tree no nuts, their field no corn; the produce of the year is supposed to
depend on the gifts offered to these May singers. Here and in the cases
mentioned above, where children go about with green boughs or garlands on May
Day singing and collecting money, the meaning is that with the spirit of
vegetation they bring plenty and good luck to the house, and they expect to be
paid for the service. In Russian Lithuania, on the first of May, they used to
set up a green tree before the village. Then the rustic swains chose the
prettiest girl, crowned her, swathed her in birch branches and set her beside
the May-tree, where they danced, sang, and shouted O May! O May! In Brie
(Isle de France) a May-tree is erected in the midst of the village; its top is
crowned with flowers; lower down it is twined with leaves and twigs, still
lower with huge green branches. The girls dance round it, and at the same time
a lad wrapt in leaves and called Father May is led about. In the small towns
of the Franken Wald mountains in Northern Bavaria, on the second of May, a
Walber tree is erected before a tavern, and a man dances round it, enveloped
in straw from head to foot in such a way that the ears of corn unite above his
head to form a crown. He is called the Walber, and used to be led in
procession through the streets, which were adorned with sprigs of birch.
Amongst the Slavs of Carinthia, on St. George's Day (the twentythird of
April), the young people deck with flowers and garlands a tree which has been
felled on the eve of the festival. The tree is then carried in procession,
accompanied with music and joyful acclamations, the chief figure in the
procession being the Green George, a young fellow clad from head to foot in
green birch branches. At the close of the ceremonies the Green George, that is
an effigy of him, is thrown into the water. It is the aim of the lad who acts
Green George to step out of his leafy envelope and substitute the effigy so
adroitly that no one shall perceive the change. In many places, however, the
lad himself who plays the part of Green George is ducked in a river or pond,
with the express intention of thus ensuring rain to make the fields and
meadows green in summer. In some places the cattle are crowned and driven from
their stalls to the accompaniment of a song:
Green George we bring,
Green George we accompany,
May he feed our herds well.
If not, to the water with him.
Here we see that the same powers of making rain and fostering the cattle,
which are ascribed to the tree-spirit regarded as incorporate in the tree, are
also attributed to the tree-spirit represented by a living man.
Among the gypsies of Transylvania and Roumania the festival of Green
George is the chief celebration of spring. Some of them keep it on Easter
Monday, others on St. George's Day (the twentythird of April). On the eve of
the festival a young willow tree is cut down, adorned with garlands and
leaves, and set up in the ground. Women with child place one of their garments
under the tree, and leave it there over night; if next morning they find a
leaf of the tree lying on the garment, they know that their delivery will be
easy. Sick and old people go to the tree in the evening, spit on it thrice,
and say, You will soon die, but let us live. Next morning the gypsies gather
about the willow. The chief figure of the festival is Green George, a lad who
is concealed from top to toe in green leaves and blossoms. He throws a few
handfuls of grass to the beasts of the tribe, in order that they may have no
lack of fodder throughout the year. Then he takes three iron nails, which have
lain for three days and nights in water, and knocks them into the willow;
after which he pulls them out and flings them into a running stream to
propitiate the water-spirits. Finally, a pretence is made of throwing Green
George into the water, but in fact it is only a puppet made of branches and
leaves which is ducked in the stream. In this version of the custom the powers
of granting an easy delivery to women and of communicating vital energy to the
sick and old are clearly ascribed to the willow; while Green George, the human
double of the tree, bestows food on the cattle, and further ensures the favour
of the water-spirits by putting them in indirect communication with the tree.
Without citing more examples to the same effect, we may sum up the results
of the preceding pages in the words of Mannhardt: The customs quoted suffice
to establish with certainty the conclusion that in these spring processions
the spirit of vegetation is often represented both by the May-tree and in
addition by a man dressed in green leaves or flowers or by a girl similarly
adorned. It is the same spirit which animates the tree and is active in the
inferior plants and which we have recognised in the May-tree and the
Harvest-May. Quite consistently the spirit is also supposed to manifest his
presence in the first flower of spring and reveals himself both in a girl
representing a May-rose, and also, as giver of harvest, in the person of the
Walber. The procession with this representative of the divinity was supposed
to produce the same beneficial effects on the fowls, the fruit-trees, and the
crops as the presence of the deity himself. In other words the mummer was
regarded not as an image but as an actual representative of the spirit of
vegetation; hence the wish expressed by the attendants on the May-rose and the
May-tree that those who refuse them gifts of eggs, bacon, and so forth, may
have no share in the blessings which it is in the power of the itinerant
spirit to bestow. We may conclude that these begging processions with
May-trees or May-boughs from door to door ('bringing the May or the summer')
had everywhere originally a serious and, so to speak, sacramental
significance; people really believed that the god of growth was present unseen
in the bough; by the procession he was brought to each house to bestow his
blessing. The names May, Father May, May Lady, Queen of the May, by which the
anthropomorphic spirit of vegetation is often denoted, show that the idea of
the spirit of vegetation is blent with a personification of the season at
which his powers are most strikingly manifested.
So far we have seen that the tree-spirit or the spirit of vegetation in
general is represented either in vegetable form alone, as by a tree, bough, or
flower; or in vegetable and human form simultaneously, as by a tree, bough, or
flower in combination with a puppet or a living person. It remains to show
that the representation of him by a tree, bough, or flower is sometimes
entirely dropped, while the representation of him by a living person remains.
In this case the representative character of the person is generally marked by
dressing him or her in leaves or flowers; sometimes, too, it is indicated by
the name he or she bears.
Thus in some parts of Russia on St. George's Day (the twenty-third of
April) a youth is dressed out, like our Jack-in-the-Green, with leaves and
flowers. The Slovenes call him the Green George. Holding a lighted torch in
one hand and a pie in the other, he goes out to the corn-fields, followed by
girls singing appropriate songs. A circle of brushwood is next lighted, in the
middle of which is set the pie. All who take part in the ceremony then sit
down around the fire and divide the pie among them. In this custom the Green
George dressed in leaves and flowers is plainly identical with the similarly
disguised Green George who is associated with a tree in the Carinthian,
Transylvanian, and Roumanian customs observed on the same day. Again, we saw
that in Russia at Whitsuntide a birch-tree is dressed in woman's clothes and
set up in the house. Clearly equivalent to this is the custom observed on
Whit-Monday by Russian girls in the district of Pinsk. They choose the
prettiest of their number, envelop her in a mass of foliage taken from the
birch-trees and maples, and carry her about through the village.
In Ruhla as soon as the trees begin to grow green in spring, the children
assemble on a Sunday and go out into the woods, where they choose one of their
playmates to be the Little Leaf Man. They break branches from the trees and
twine them about the child till only his shoes peep out from the leafy mantle.
Holes are made in it for him to see through, and two of the children lead the
Little Leaf Man that he may not stumble or fall. Singing and dancing they take
him from house to house, asking for gifts of food such as eggs, cream,
sausages, and cakes. Lastly, they sprinkle the Leaf Man with water and feast
on the food they have collected. In the Fricktal, Switzerland, at Whitsuntide
boys go out into a wood and swathe one of their number in leafy boughs. He is
called the Whitsuntide-lout, and being mounted on horseback with a green
branch in his hand he is led back into the village. At the village-well a halt
is called and the leaf-clad lout is dismounted and ducked in the trough.
Thereby he acquires the right of sprinkling water on everybody, and he
exercises the right specially on girls and street urchins. The urchins march
before him in bands begging him to give them a Whitsuntide wetting.
In England the best-known example of these leaf-clad mummers is the
Jack-in-the-Green, a chimney-sweeper who walks encased in a pyramidal
framework of wickerwork, which is covered with holly and ivy, and surmounted
by a crown of flowers and ribbons. Thus arrayed he dances on May Day at the
head of a troop of chimney-sweeps, who collect pence. In Fricktal a similar
frame of basketwork is called the Whitsuntide Basket. As soon as the trees
begin to bud, a spot is chosen in the wood, and here the village lads make the
frame with all secrecy, lest others should forestall them. Leafy branches are
twined round two hoops, one of which rests on the shoulders of the wearer, the
other encircles his claves; holes are made for his eyes and mouth; and a large
nosegay crowns the whole. In this guise he appears suddenly in the village at
the hour of vespers, preceded by three boys blowing on horns made of willow
bark. The great object of his supporters is to set up the Whitsuntide Basket
on the village well, and to keep it and him there, despite the efforts of the
lads from neighbouring villages, who seek to carry off the Whitsuntide Basket
and set it up on their own well.
In the class of cases of which the foregoing are specimens it is obvious
that the leaf-clad person who is led about is equivalent to the May-tree,
May-bough, or May-doll, which is carried from house to house by children
begging. Both are representatives of the beneficent spirit of vegetation,
whose visit to the house is recompensed by a present of money or food.
Often the leaf-clad person who represents the spirit of vegetation is
known as the king or the queen; thus, for example, he or she is called the May
King, Whitsuntide King, Queen of May, and so on. These titles, as Mannhardt
observes, imply that the spirit incorporate in vegetation is a ruler, whose
creative power extends far and wide.
In a village near Salzwedel a May-tree is set up at Whitsuntide and the
boys race to it; he who reaches it first is king; a garland of flowers is put
round his neck and in his hand he carries a May-bush, with which, as the
procession moves along, he sweeps away the dew. At each house they sing a
song, wishing the inmates good luck, referring to the black cow in the stall
milking white milk, black hen on the nest laying white eggs, and begging a
gift of eggs, bacon, and so on. At the village of Ellgoth in Silesia a
ceremony called the King's Race is observed at Whitsuntide. A pole with a
cloth tied to it is set up in a meadow, and the young men ride past it on
horseback, each trying to snatch away the cloth as he gallops by. The one who
succeeds in carrying it off and dipping it in the neighbouring Oder is
proclaimed King. Here the pole is clearly a substitute for a May-tree. In some
villages of Brunswick at Whitsuntide a May King is completely enveloped in a
May-bush. In some parts of Thüringen also they have a May King at Whitsuntide,
but he is dressed up rather differently. A frame of wood is made in which a
man can stand; it is completely covered with birch boughs and is surmounted by
a crown of birch and flowers, in which a bell is fastened. This frame is
placed in the wood and the May King gets into it. The rest go out and look for
him, and when they have found him they lead him back into the village to the
magistrate, the clergyman, and others, who have to guess who is in the
verdurous frame. If they guess wrong, the May King rings his bell by shaking
his head, and a forfeit of beer or the like must be paid by the unsuccessful
guesser. At Wahrstedt the boys at Whitsuntide choose by lot a king and a
high-steward. The latter is completely concealed in a May-bush, wears a wooden
crown wreathen with flowers, and carries a wooden sword. The king, on the
other hand, is only distinguished by a nosegay in his cap, and a reed, with a
red ribbon tied to it, in his hand. They beg for eggs from house to house,
threatening that, where none are given, none will be laid by the hens
throughout the year. In this custom the high-steward appears, for some reason,
to have usurped the insignia of the king. At Hildesheim five or six young
fellows go about on the afternoon of Whit-Monday cracking long whips in
measured time and collecting eggs from the houses. The chief person of the
band is the Leaf King, a lad swathed so completely in birchen twigs that
nothing of him can be seen but his feet. A huge head-dress of birchen twigs
adds to his apparent stature. In his hand he carries a long crook, with which
he tries to catch stray dogs and children. In some parts of Bohemia on
Whit-Monday the young fellows disguise themselves in tall caps of birch bark
adorned with flowers. One of them is dressed as a king and dragged on a sledge
to the village green, and if on the way they pass a pool the sledge is always
overturned into it. Arrived at the green they gather round the king; the crier
jumps on a stone or climbs up a tree and recites lampoons about each house and
its inmates. Afterwards the disguises of bark are stripped off and they go
about the village in holiday attire, carrying a May-tree and begging. Cakes,
eggs, and corn are sometimes given them. At Grossvargula, near Langensalza, in
the eighteenth century a Grass King used to be led about in procession at
Whitsuntide. He was encased in a pyramid of poplar branches, the top of which
was adorned with a royal crown of branches and flowers. He rode on horseback
with the leafy pyramid over him, so that its lower end touched the ground, and
an opening was left in it only for his face. Surrounded by a cavalcade of
young fellows, he rode in procession to the town hall, the parsonage, and so
on, where they all got a drink of beer. Then under the seven lindens of the
neighbouring Sommerberg, the Grass King was stripped of his green casing; the
crown was handed to the Mayor, and the branches were stuck in the flax fields
in order to make the flax grow tall. In this last trait the fertilising
influence ascribed to the representative of the tree-spirit comes out clearly.
In the neighbourhood of Pilsen (Bohemia) a conical hut of green branches,
without any door, is erected at Whitsuntide in the midst of the village. To
this hut rides a troop of village lads with a king at their head. He wears a
sword at his side and a sugar-loaf hat of rushes on his head. In his train are
a judge, a crier, and a personage called the Frog-flayer or Hangman. This last
is a sort of ragged merryandrew, wearing a rusty old sword and bestriding a
sorry hack. On reaching the hut the crier dismounts and goes round it looking
for a door. Finding none, he says, Ah, this is perhaps an enchanted castle;
the witches creep through the leaves and need no door. At last he draws his
sword and hews his way into the hut, where there is a chair, on which he seats
himself and proceeds to criticise in rhyme the girls, farmers, and
farm-servants of the neighbourhood. When this is over, the Frog-flayer steps
forward and, after exhibiting a cage with frogs in it, sets up a gallows on
which he hangs the frogs in a row. In the neighbourhood of Plas the ceremony
differs in some points. The king and his soldiers are completely clad in bark,
adorned with flowers and ribbons; they all carry swords and ride horses, which
are gay with green branches and flowers. While the village dames and girls are
being criticised at the arbour, a frog is secretly pinched and poked by the
crier till it quacks. Sentence of death is passed on the frog by the king; the
hangman beheads it and flings the bleeding body among the spectators. Lastly,
the king is driven from the hut and pursued by the soldiers. The pinching and
beheading of the frog are doubtless, as Mannhardt observes, a rain-charm. We
have seen that some Indians of the Orinoco beat frogs for the express purpose
of producing rain, and that killing a frog is a European rain-charm.
Often the spirit of vegetation in spring is represented by a queen instead
of a king. In the neighbourhood of Libchowic (Bohemia), on the fourth Sunday
in Lent, girls dressed in white and wearing the first spring flowers, as
violets and daisies, in their hair, lead about the village a girl who is
called the Queen and is crowned with flowers. During the procession, which is
conducted with great solemnity, none of the girls may stand still, but must
keep whirling round continually and singing. In every house the Queen
announces the arrival of spring and wishes the inmates good luck and
blessings, for which she receives presents. In German Hungary the girls choose
the prettiest girl to be their Whitsuntide Queen, fasten a towering wreath on
her brow, and carry her singing through the streets. At every house they stop,
sing old ballads, and receive presents. In the south-east of Ireland on May
Day the prettiest girl used to be chosen Queen of the district for twelve
months. She was crowned with wild flowers; feasting, dancing, and rustic
sports followed, and were closed by a grand procession in the evening. During
her year of office she presided over rural gatherings of young people at
dances and merry-makings. If she married before next May Day, her authority
was at an end, but her successor was not elected till that day came round. The
May Queen is common In France and familiar in England.
Again the spirit of vegetation is sometimes represented by a king and
queen, a lord and lady, or a bridegroom and bride. Here again the parallelism
holds between the anthropomorphic and the vegetable representation of the
tree-spirit, for we have seen above that trees are sometimes married to each
other. At Halford in South Warwickshire the children go from house to house on
May Day, walking two and two in procession and headed by a King and Queen. Two
boys carry a May-pole some six or seven feet high, which is covered with
flowers and greenery. Fastened to it near the top are two cross-bars at right
angles to each other. These are also decked with flowers, and from the ends of
the bars hang hoops similarly adorned. At the houses the children sing May
songs and receive money, which is used to provide tea for them at the
schoolhouse in the afternoon. In a Bohemian village near Königgrätz on
Whit-Monday the children play the king's game, at which a king and queen march
about under a canopy, the queen wearing a garland, and the youngest girl
carrying two wreaths on a plate behind them. They are attended by boys and
girls called groomsmen and bridesmaids, and they go from house to house
collecting gifts. A regular feature in the popular celebration of Whitsuntide
in Silesia used to be, and to some extent still is, the contest for the
kingship. This contest took various forms, but the mark or goal was generally
the May-tree or May-pole. Sometimes the youth who succeeded in climbing the
smooth pole and bringing down the prize was proclaimed the Whitsuntide King
and his sweetheart the Whitsuntide Bride. Afterwards the king, carrying the
May-bush, repaired with the rest of the company to the alehouse, where a dance
and a feast ended the merry-making. Often the young farmers and labourers
raced on horseback to the May-pole, which was adorned with flowers, ribbons,
and a crown. He who first reached the pole was the Whitsuntide King, and the
rest had to obey his orders for that day. The worst rider became the clown. At
the May-tree all dismounted and hoisted the king on their shoulders. He nimbly
swarmed up the pole and brought down the May-bush and the crown, which had
been fastened to the top. Meanwhile the clown hurried to the alehouse and
proceeded to bolt thirty rolls of bread and to swig four quart bottles of
brandy with the utmost possible despatch. He was followed by the king, who
bore the May-bush and crown at the head of the company. If on their arrival
the clown had already disposed of the rolls and the brandy, and greeted the
king with a speech and a glass of beer, his score was paid by the king;
otherwise he had to settle it himself. After church time the stately
procession wound through the village. At the head of it rode the king, decked
with flowers and carrying the May-bush. Next came the clown with his clothes
turned inside out, a great flaxen beard on his chain, and the Whitsuntide
crown on his head. Two riders disguised as guards followed. The procession
drew up before every farmyard; the two guards dismounted, shut the clown into
the house, and claimed a contribution from the housewife to buy soap with
which to wash the clown's beard. Custom allowed them to carry off any victuals
which were not under lock and key. Last of all they came to the house in which
the king's sweetheart lived. She was greeted as Whitsuntide Queen and received
suitable presentsto wit, a many-coloured sash, a cloth, and an apron. The
king got as a prize, a vest, a neck-cloth, and so forth, and had the right of
setting up the May-bush or Whitsuntide-tree before his master's yard, where it
remained as an honourable token till the same day next year. Finally the
procession took its way to the tavern, where the king and queen opened the
dance. Sometimes the Whitsuntide King and Queen succeeded to office in a
different way. A man of straw, as large as life and crowned with a red cap,
was conveyed in a cart, between two men armed and disguised as guards, to a
place where a mock court was waiting to try him. A great crowd followed the
cart. After a formal trial the straw man was condemned to death and fastened
to a stake on the execution ground. The young men with bandaged eyes tried to
stab him with a spear. He who succeeded became king and his sweetheart queen.
The straw man was known as the Goliath.
In a parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at Whitsuntide to dress up
a little girl as the Whitsun-bride and a little boy as her groom. She was
decked in all the finery of a grown-up bride, and wore a crown of the freshest
flowers of spring on her head. Her groom was as gay as flowers, ribbons, and
knots could make him. The other children adorned themselves as best they could
with the yellow flowers of the trollius and caltha. Then they went in great
state from farmhouse to farmhouse, two little girls walking at the head of the
procession as bridesmaids, and six or eight outriders galloping ahead on
hobby-horses to announce their coming. Contributions of eggs, butter, loaves,
cream, coffee, sugar, and tallow-candles were received and conveyed away in
baskets. When they had made the round of the farms, some of the farmers' wives
helped to arrange the wedding feast, and the children danced merrily in clogs
on the stamped clay floor till the sun rose and the birds began to sing. All
this is now a thing of the past. Only the old folks still remember the little
Whitsun-bride and her mimic pomp.
We have seen that in Sweden the ceremonies associated elsewhere with May
Day or Whitsuntide commonly take place at Midsummer. Accordingly we find that
in some parts of the Swedish province of Blekinge they still choose a
Midsummer's Bride, to whom the church coronet is occasionally lent. The girl
selects for herself a Bridegroom, and a collection is made for the pair, who
for the time being are looked on as man and wife. The other youths also choose
each his bride. A similar ceremony seems to be still kept up in Norway.
In the neighbourhood of Briançon (Dauphiné) on May Day the lads wrap up in
green leaves a young fellow whose sweetheart has deserted him or married
another. He lies down on the ground and feigns to be asleep. Then a girl who
likes him, and would marry him, comes and wakes him, and raising him up offers
him her arm and a flag. So they go to the alehouse, where the pair lead off
the dancing. But they must marry within the year, or they are treated as old
bachelor and old maid, and are debarred the company of the young folks. The
lad is called the Bridegroom of the month of May. In the alehouse he puts off
his garment of leaves, out of which, mixed with flowers, his partner in the
dance makes a nosegay, and wears it at her breast next day, when he leads her
again to the alehouse. Like this is a Russian custom observed in the district
of Nerechta on the Thursday before Whitsunday. The girls go out into a
birch-wood, wind a girdle or band round a stately birch, twist its lower
branches into a wreath, and kiss each other in pairs through the wreath. The
girls who kiss through the wreath call each other gossips. Then one of the
girls steps forward, and mimicking a drunken man, flings herself on the
ground, rolls on the grass, and feigns to fall fast asleep. Another girl
wakens the pretended sleeper and kisses him; then the whole bevy trips singing
through the wood to twine garlands, which they throw into the water. In the
fate of the garlands floating on the stream they read their own. Here the part
of the sleeper was probably at one time played by a lad. In these French and
Russian customs we have a forsaken bridegroom, in the following a forsaken
bride. On Shrove Tuesday the Slovenes of Oberkrain drag a straw puppet with
joyous cries up and down the village; then they throw it into the water or
burn it, and from the height of the flames they judge of the abundance of the
next harvest. The noisy crew is followed by a female masker, who drags a great
board by a string and gives out that she is a forsaken bride.
Viewed in the light of what has gone before, the awakening of the forsaken
sleeper in these ceremonies probably represents the revival of vegetation in
spring. But it is not easy to assign their respective parts to the forsaken
bridegroom and to the girl who wakes him from his slumber. Is the sleeper the
leafless forest or the bare earth of winter? Is the girl who awakens him the
fresh verdure or the genial sunshine of spring? It is hardly possible, on the
evidence before us, to answer these questions.
In the Highlands of Scotland the revival of vegetation in spring used to
be graphically represented on St. Bride's Day, the first of February. Thus in
the Hebrides the mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats,
and dress it up in women's apparel, put it in a large basket and lay a wooden
club by it, and this they call Briid's bed; and then the mistress and servants
cry three times, 'Briid is come, Briid is welcome.' This they do just before
going to bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes,
expecting to see the impression of Briid's club there; which if they do, they
reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year, and the contrary
they take as an ill omen. The same custom is described by another witness
thus: Upon the night before Candlemas it is usual to make a bed with corn and
hay, over which some blankets are laid, in a part of the house, near the door.
When it is ready, a person goes out and repeats three times, 'Bridget,
Bridget, come in; thy bed is ready.' One or more candles are left burning near
it all night. Similarly in the Isle of Man on the eve of the first of
February, a festival was formerly kept, called, in the Manks language, Laa'l
Breeshey, in honour of the Irish lady who went over to the Isle of Man to
receive the veil from St. Maughold. The custom was to gather a bundle of green
rushes, and standing with them in the hand on the threshold of the door, to
invite the holy Saint Bridget to come and lodge with them that night. In the
Manks language, the invitation ran thus: 'Brede, Brede, tar gys my thie tar
dyn thie ayms noght Foshil jee yn dorrys da Brede, as lhig da Brede e heet
staigh.' In English: 'Bridget, Bridget, come to my house, come to my house
to-night. Open the door for Bridget, and let Bridget come in.' After these
words were repeated, the rushes were strewn on the floor by way of a carpet or
bed for St. Bridget. A custom very similar to this was also observed in some
of the Out-Isles of the ancient Kingdom of Man. In these Manx and Highland
ceremonies it is obvious that St. Bride, or St. Bridget, is an old heathen
goddess of fertility, disguised in a threadbare Christian cloak. Probably she
is no other than Brigit, the Celtic goddess of fire and apparently of the
crops.
Often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in spring, though not
directly represented, is implied by naming the human representative of the
spirit, the Bride, and dressing her in wedding attire. Thus in some villages
of Altmark at Whitsuntide, while the boys go about carrying a May-tree or
leading a boy enveloped in leaves and flowers, the girls lead about the May
Bride, a girl dressed as a bride with a great nosegay in her hair. They go
from house to house, the May Bride singing a song in which she asks for a
present and tells the inmates of each house that if they give her something
they will themselves have something the whole year through; but if they give
her nothing they will themselves have nothing. In some parts of Westphalia two
girls lead a flower-crowned girl called the Whitsuntide Bride from door to
door, singing a song in which they ask for eggs.
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