The History of Initiation - The Masonic Trowel

INITIATION IN BRITAIN. 135
source of generation, and consisted in the elevation of
long poles decorated with crowns of gold and garlands
of flowers, under which the youth of both sexes performed
certain mysterious revolutions, for it was customary
to adore the sun by circular dances.7 These conti-
nued till the luminary had attained his meridian height ;
and then retiring to the woods, the most disgraceful
orgies were perpetrated, and the festival ended with de-
8
bauchery and intoxication.
The time of general meeting was figuratively said to
9 be when the Sun was at its due meridian ; in allusion to
morning star appears, or at dawn of day, for the propagation of
children and to remove barrenness." (Ibid., p. 93.)
7 Vid. Asiat. Res., vol. ii., p. 333. The mythic circle had also a
reference to the historical period, commencing with the union of
heaven and earth, and ending with the return of Ulysses to Ithaca.
(Procl. in Phot. Bibl., p. 982.) ^
8
This was doubtless the origin of the festivities which were practised
in many parts of England, down to a very recent period, at the
same season of the year. The following description of these games
by Stubbs, (Anatomie of Abuses, 1595,) most unequivocally points
out their origin: "Against Maie-day, every parish, town, or village
assemble themselves, both men, women, and children ; and either all
together, or dividing themselves into companies, they goe to the
woods and groves, some to the hills and mountains, some to one place,
and some to another, where they spend all the night in pleasant pastimes,
and in the morning they return bringing with them birch
boughes and branches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But
their chiefes.t jewel they bring from thence is the maie-pole, which
they bring home with great veneration, as thus ; they have twentie or
fourtie yoake of oxen, every oxe having a sweete nosegaie of flowrs
tied up to the tip of his homes, and these oxen drawe home the Maypoale,
which they covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bound
round with strings from the top to the bottome, and sometimes it was
painted with variable colours, having two or three hundred men, women,
and children, following it with great devotion. And thus
equipped it was reared with handkerchiefes and flaggs streaming on
the top, they strawe the ground round about it, they bind green
boughs about it, they set up summer halles, bowers, and arbours,
hard by it, and then fall they to banquetting and feasting, to leaping,
and dancing, about it as the heathen people did at the dedication of
their idols. I have heard it credeblie reported, by men of great
gravity, credite, and reputation,
that of fourtie, threescore, or a
hundred maides going to the wood, there have scarcelie the third
parte of them returned home again as they went."
9
Their Gorseddaw were held in the open air, while the sun remained
above the horizon. The bards assembled within a circle of
stones, and the presiding Druid stood before a large stone in the
centre. (Turn. Anglo Sax., vol. i., p. 197.)