Forlong - Rivers of Life

Sun Worship.
there from year to year to remain.” 1 London was very famous for its May-poles; the
parishioners of St. Andrew’s-under-Shaft set up every May morning a shaft that was
higher than the church steeple, and after the usual observances put it carefully away
under the eaves of their homes—built so as to protect it. The Puritans cut this to
pieces, as they did all other May-poles they could get hold of, showing thereby very
distinctly their true appreciation of May-poles in matters of worship, i.e., Lingam-worship;
and their desire to suppress this old faith. Some May-poles embraced tree
worship also, having as large a tree as possible in a vessel at the top of the pole. The
Parliament of 1644 passed an act for the suppression of May-poles; and though the
Restoration favoured their retention, yet increasing intelligence and that sceptical
spirit the Churches are so afraid of, became too strong for such faiths or frolics.
We are not yet without remnants of the old “Nature-worship” amongst us. Mr.
F. Buckland tells us, in Land and Water, 2 that on the 1st of May all the choristers of
Magdalen College, Oxford, still meet on the summit of their tower, 150 feet high, and
sing a Latin hymn as the sun rises; whist the fine peal of ten bells simultaneously
welcomes the gracious Apollo. In former days high mass was held here, and the
Rector of Slymbridge, in Gloucestershire it appears, has still to pay £10 yearly for the
due performance of sundry pieces of choir music, at 5 A.M., on the top of this tower.
This May music, Christian priests explain, is for the repose of the souls of kings and
others, which of course is quite an after-thought. Early mass for Sol used also to be
held in the College Chapel, but it is now explained, that owing to this having been forbidden
at the Reformation, it has since been performed on the rop of the tower! After
the present hymn is sung by choristers—boys dressed in womanly raiment—the lads
throw down eggs upon the crowd beneath and blow long, loud blasts to Sol through
bright new tin horns—showing us that the Bacchic and Jewish trumpet fetes are not
yet forgotten by Christians. Long before daybreak, the youths of both sexes used to rise
and go to great distances to gather boughs and flowers, and reach home at sun-rise
to deck all doors, windows, and loved spots. This May fete is said to be “the most
ancient of all,” and to have ever been accompanied “with all manner of obscenity and
lewdness.” This we can well imagine, for the godess was notorious in this way,
and long before man was able to appreciate ploughing and harvesting, he keenly
felt the force of the winter and vernal equinoxes, and was ready to appreciate
the joyous warmth of the May sun, and its energising power on himself as well
as on fruit and flowers. The May fete of our “Pagan” ancestors used to occupy
the last four days of April, and on May’s day—the 1 st —“Jack in the Green” and
“the Merry Morris dancers,” made their appearance; a dissipated riotous set, ready
for any excesses, and more emblematical of Bacchus and his crew, than of Apollo—the
ever fresh and joyous god of the early summer. It is IAKO’s name, too, that these
roisterers vociferate, as with mirth and laughter they dance around the “green pillar
1 Chambers’ Book of Days, Art. “1st May.”
2 See London Times of 3d May, 1875.
449