Forlong - Rivers of Life

448
Fig 175.—THE ANCIENT GERMAN GOD TUISKO
OR TOTH.
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
nects May with Maya, the mother of Hermes by Jove, for May was sacred to the everbright
Apollo, the son of Jove by Leto. Except in the first week, it was thought to be
an unlucky month for marriage; at least, so say Ovid and other ancients, and Christians,
following these, proscribed all marriages from Rogation week to Trinity Sunday, or
from say the 7th to the 31st. From the 1st to 3d of May is the Floralia, sacred to the
goddess of Flowers and Love. It is still a charming fete in southern Europe; when all
in Sylva’s most lovely retreats, seek for Flora’s favours, and revel once more in fields and
vales, which wet and cold have for a long time previously prevented them enjoying.
Our Keltic fathers, then too, lighted fires on every hill-top to dear Bel or the Sun,
calling the first, Beltine-tide, and up to but a short time
ago, idle kings, courtiers, and corporations used then
to go out and pluck “May” and other treasures of fair
Flora.
The May-pole was once no trumpery matter, for
it was the symbol of “the Lord of Life;” it was called
“the Column of May (Māya, or Mary)—the great
Standard of Justice,” 1 a term only applied to Toths or
Jupiter-Stators, such as this Teuton TUISKO. Beside it,
Dr. Moresin tells us, was a judge with bough, wand, or rod
in hand, which came to be called a mace, and the holder
a Mayor, as presiding over these rites and ceremonies.
Our King’s crown, also, he derives from the phallic
crown at the top of the May-pole, saying we should call the pole itself Mai—the French
term, although we know May is the Queen of the day. This is no doubt correct, all
peoples calling the male and female—man and wife, indifferently by the same name,
just as Jews translate the Eduth, which they once worshipped, 2 before they had either
an ark or testimony, but which word they still use for “Teatimony,” and as the Irish
called their Round Towers Fied Nemads, after the Lingam articles deposited in their
most secret recesses. The May-pole, say the great antiquaries I have quoted, marked
the boundary of the year, the confines of summer and winter, and around it contended
two troops of youths, one in winter and the other in spring costume, the
latter, of course, winning with their triumphal branches and May flowers. As the fires
of love had to be renewed every midsummer by a ray from Sol himself, young men
and maids had to see that their May-pole was so firmly set in its place, that it would
stand there immovable and upright throughout the whole year. Some insisted that it
should be “as high as the mast of a vessel of one hundred tons,” and be worshipped
with garlands and dancings round it by the youths of both sexes, every day throughout
May. “It equally had its place, and was as important as the parish church, or
the parish stocks; and if anywhere one was wanting, the people selected a suitable
tree, fashioned it and brought it triumphantly, and erected it in the proper place,
1 Dr. Moresin in Bourne’s Ants., Brand, p. 26.
2 In Ex. xiv. 34.