The most well known symbol of May Day merrymaking is the Maypole. During the medieval period it was traditional for the adults to go to the woods on May Eve where they spent the night in pleasant pastimes. At dawn the following day they returned bringing with them branches of trees, particularly hawthorn, which they used to decorate the door of each house, believing that this would bring good luck and fertility for the coming year. Geoffrey Chaucer refers to this maying in his 'Knight's Tale'.
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| Morris Men in the Market Square |
But the highlight of the morning was the bringing home of the maypole. Drawn by oxen, with nosegays of flowers on their horns, it would be decorated with fresch garlands and greenery, flowers and sometimes ribbons and set up to become the focal point for the celebrations. With great joy and merriment people danced round it, but not plaiting ribbons as in the modern revival. In the earlier form, they either held hands in a ring, danced solo in a circle or wove in and out in a circle and there are reports of people kissing each other as they met.
Maypoles were banned under Cromwell but were brought back with great enthusiasm after the restoration of Charles II. Pepys described the beginning of King Charles' reign as "The happiest May Day that hath been many a year in England".
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| Uffington White Horse atop the Maypole |
A local story of the Highworth area has it that nearby Longcot's maypole was greatly envied by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages in the Vale and that it was stolen one night by a group of Ashbury lads who erected it in front of the Crown Inn. It was stolen from them in turn by the men of Uffington and then in turn by the men of Lambourn, not without a fight breaking out in which boiling water was used by the Uffington men. Parson Watts of Uffington, was so horrified at this that he ordered that the maypole should be cut up into small pieces and the wood given to the poor at Christmas.
