# The Maypole



## Pergamum (Oct 7, 2010)

In early America and maybe other places, it seems that a strong temptation for many was the May-Pole. Can anyone tell me more about dancing around the May-Pole and what this entailed? We don’t see much of this anymore, when did it cease? When did it start? Richard Baxter in his biography speaks of peoples dancing around the Maypole on the Sabbath.


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## ericfromcowtown (Oct 7, 2010)

It hasn't ceased, but is probably pretty rare in North America now. Although most of the "modern" participants probably had little idea of what they were partaking in, dancing around the maypole was/is a remnant from pre-Christian pagan Europe with phallic symbolism.


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## Elizabeth (Oct 7, 2010)

Hawthorne wrote a little story called The Maypole of Merry Mount, which pits Endicott against maypolers at a wedding. Interesting little read. I have it in an old, much cherished volume of Twice Told Tales. It can be found online.


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## ericfromcowtown (Oct 7, 2010)

Here's a short video of elementary school children performing a maypole dance just a few years ago in B.C., Canada.

YouTube - May Pole Dance 2009


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## Pergamum (Oct 7, 2010)

Eric,

If kids were doing this as a lesson in history would it still count as pagan worship and sin, or a mere recreation of old history?


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## ericfromcowtown (Oct 7, 2010)

No one is teaching these kids that the maypole is pagan worship, but I suspect that in early America few were making the connection between the maypole and paganism either. Yet, it seems that the consciences of some Christians in early America were being affected/torn. What do you think?

It all looks pretty innocent on the surface, and the question that I have to ask myself is whether the maypole dance those kids are doing is any more pagan than the Christmas tree that I'm going to stuff into my living room in a couple of months.


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## christiana (Oct 7, 2010)

I did this Maypole dance when in elemenary school in the 30s and loved it! Now, reading its history and significance I'm shocked and horrified and wonder how and why we were doing it. We had a yearly festival and this was a great highlight and I loved weaving in and out the streamers until they were woven to the pole! Sad to learn now it is so pagan.
The History of Maypole Dance | eHow.com


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## Pilgrim Standard (Oct 7, 2010)

I would not get to caught up in "the specific meaning" of the May Pole as it had far too many meanings that are still debated today. It is agreed though that it is pagan and religious in origin.

Presbyterianism had a large part in banning the May Pole in Scotland 
source: Hutton, Ronald (1996). The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page 236.

At Castle Bytham a village in Lincolnshire, there is a may pole that was cut in half and made into a ladder after the may pole festivities were banned there. Carved upon it is the date it was cut.


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## Pergamum (Oct 7, 2010)

If the link between the present and past is severed and the act becomes void of the beliefs that the originators intended, is it still pagan to dance around a pole? If it is not sensual and is a fun thing for kids, who are not influenced to become Wiccan by it, then what is the big deal?


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## Jack K (Oct 7, 2010)

I would agree that if the practice has indeed become void of its original evil meaning, it is now no big deal.

Additionally, I wonder how strong the evidence is that this was pagan celebration based on a phallic symbol. I mean, this is exactly the sort of thing where some historian or anthropologist, not knowing what to make of the custom, might easily speculate there's a phallic meaning. Then his speculation, since it sounds both reasonable and kinda sexy, gets repeated by another historian and before you know it everyone accepts it as fact.

I'm not saying I have any personal interest in defending maypoles. Really, who cares? But none of us who did these dances as kids should feel bad about it. They're actually one of our current culture's more _non-sexual_ dance options.


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## PuritanZealot (Oct 8, 2010)

The may pole is definitely pagan and wiccan in origin. It comes from the Welsh tribal rituals surrounding the rebirth of 'Mother Earth' in Spring time. The village virgins who had that year turned 16 (or whatever age it was consensual to marry in that area/time) would dance around the maypole/phallic symbol in a gradually more and more frantic fashion. It was all a form of seductive dance to entice the village males. 
It may no longer have this meaning but just because the people doing it no longer understand what it symbolises does that mean God doesn't mind? I would think it is a grey area in need of a lot of prayer and study. A symbol is a very, very powerful thing even if the people doing it don't realise what it is. And in my experience of witchcraft (I did ten years in the prison of Satanic black magic) it doesn't matter if the person doing the ritual knows what they're doing, it still has the same effect.
It is much the same as if the Egyptians or Iraqis now started 'pretending' to sacrifice humans on bonfires to their gods, just because they weren't really sacrificing any real humans to an idol, and were only burning effigies on a bonfire or something, would that not still make the symbols potent and violent/sexual?
I may be tainted by my past, and have a slightly stunted view of any form of paganism but equally, the symbols of Christmas can be stripped of their significance to the point of being no ritualistic. We don't stand around our tree and sing, or dance around it, it just sits in the corner, no ritualism, no risk.


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## Pergamum (Oct 8, 2010)

> A symbol is a very, very powerful thing even if the people doing it don't realise what it is.



I am not so sure. A symbol gains it power precisely because people associate a symbol with something else.


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## PuritanZealot (Oct 8, 2010)

So you wouldn't have a problem with an upside down cross or a pentagram? Or a goats head on a stick? As long as no one was associating it with Satanism? 
I can assure you brother, Satanists heap a whole lot of effort into symbols, the black magicians of the medieval and Victorian periods were obsessed with the subtlety of symbols polluting the minds of the weak.


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## SRoper (Oct 8, 2010)

The meaning of a symbol can change with the context. In _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ the pentagram was a Christian symbol.


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