he newly-awakened
energy of the forest might be communicated to the village, and in many
parts this feature of the custom appears to have survived, as we may
gather from the Puritan accounts above quoted. Elsewhere, as the
intention of the ceremony was lost sight of, a permanent May-pole was
substituted for the annual tree, and was converted on May-day, by means
of garlands and flowers, into the semblance of a living growth. The
May-tree of the German village, for instance, is a permanent
construction, made up of several tall trunks.[350] On May-day, cakes,
sausages, eggs, and other desirable things are hung upon it, the
villagers dance around it, and the young men climb it to secured its
gifts. In some parts the May-pole is surmounted by a cross, and the
symbol of a dead faith is consecrated by that of a living one.

Yet the old faith long left its traces in several quaint observances.
Amongst the Wends of the Elbe the cattle were driven every year round
the village tree. The bride imported from another village must dance
around it and pay it her footing. The wounded villager also gave it
money and got himself healed by rubbing himself against it.[351] Such
usages are only intelligible on the theory that the tree was once
seriously believed to be the local habitation of a spirit, who
concentrated in himself the marvellous fruitfulness and healing
beneficence of nature.

The custom so often met with on the Continent[352] of attaching a young
sapling or a branch to the roof of a house newly built, or in process of
erection, is another survival, descended, no doubt, from the ancient
belief in the benign influence of the tree-inhabiting spirit. In some
places it is usual to decorate the bough with flowers, ribbons, and
strings of eggs, which last are clearly intended to symbolise the
life-giving power assumed to be the spirit's special attribute.

(3) But the conception which underlay and actuated the May celebrations
is illustrated still more clearly by their third feature--the choice of
a youth or maiden, or both,