maypole

Yeah, Swedish Christmas.

So Gabe doesn't do Christmas because he does Maypole.

Mo doesn't do Christmas because he does Eid.

Connie does Easter.

Perhaps they sang, too.

Perhaps they sang the pretty old Maypole song.

Do you know it? come lassies and lads get leave of your dads and away to the maypole high for every fair has a sweetheart there and the fiddlers standing by for willie shall dance with jane and johnny has got his joan to trip it trip it trip it trip it trip it up and down you're out says dick not i says nick twas the fiddler played it wrong tis true says hugh and so says hugh and so says every one the fiddler then begins to play the tune again and every girl did trip it trip it trip it to the men then when the feast and dance and song were all over it was time to reform the procession and take up the homeward march the two sisters florence and ponethay had disappeared during the dancing but now as the procession passed along the terrace there they were standing behind a long table a table at sight of which the children's eyes grew round and bright for it was covered from end to end with presents such delightful presents books and pretty boxes and baskets thimble cases and needle-books and pin-cushions dolls too i am sure for the little ones and scrap-books and-but you can fill up the list for yourself with everything you like best in the way of pretty simple and useful gifts i am quite sure that florence would not have wished to give the children foolish or elaborate gimcracks and that mr nightingale would never have allowed it if she had and i think it probable that many of the gifts were made by the two sisters and their kind and clever mother About Leehurst in many and many a pleasant cottage home those little gifts are treasured today Like the relics of some blessed saint which indeed is just what they are the saint is still living and some of the children of the school feasts are living too and Now in their age will show with pride and joy the gifts they received long ago from the hands of the beloved miss Florence as florence grew up to womanhood she found more and more work to do there were mills and factories in the neighborhood of lea hurst and in the hosiery mills especially hundreds of women and girls were employed many of whom lived on the nightingale estate she may have been seventeen or eighteen when she started her bible class for young women of the district holding it in the tiny ancient chapel at lea hurst which i described in the first chapter Gathering the girls around her she would read a chapter from the bible And then give them her thoughts about it and explain the difficult passages And then they would all sing together her sweet clear voice leading the hymns Here is another memory very precious to the old women who were once those happy girls They loved to tell how beautifully miss Florence used to talk long years after when miss nightingale spent with her noble laborers would come to lea hurst for a time of rest and refreshment the daughters of these girls counted it a high privilege to gather on the lawn under her window and sing to her as she sat in the room above and would go home proud and happy as queens if they had seen the saintly face smiling from the window shall i try to show you florence nightingale at seventeen her face was little changed from that of the girl we saw in the cottage cheering old goody brown she still wore her hair brushed smoothly madonna wise on either side of her face often now she wore a rose at the side tucked in among the shining braids or coils you would think her frocks very queer if you saw them to-day but then they were extremely pretty full skirts no crinoline that was to come later and full sleeves with broad flat collar of lace or embroidery when she went to church or to make visits she wore a spencer a kind of full plaited jacket with a belt something like a norfolk jacket only different and a leghorn bonnet you've seen pictures of the leghorn bonnets of the thirties and forties coal scuttles some people call them and they were something the shape of a scuttle some of them were enormous in size and they look queer enough now in the pictures or if your grandmamma had a way of keeping things in the dress-up trunk or cupboard in the attic but people who were young in those days tell me that they were extremely becoming and that a pretty face never looked prettier than when it peeped out from the depths of a huge straw coal scuttle when florence rode on horseback her habit was so long that it nearly touched the ground that is if she followed the fashion of the day but i should not wonder a bit if she and her mother were too sensible and she wore a round broad-brimmed hat with long ostrich plumes i remember a picture of the princess royal afterwards empress friedrich of germany in a costume like this which i thought one of the most beautiful things i ever saw and so i shall imagine florence on an afternoon ride with a squire let us say dressed in this way but when scampering about on her pony i trust she wore a less cumbrous costume you will remember that the nightingale spent the winter at embley park in hampshire here too florence was busy in good and helpful work at christmas time she found her best pleasure in giving presents to young and old among the poor people about her in getting up entertainments for the children training them to sing arranging treats for the old people in the poorhouse on christmas eve the village carol singers would come and sing on the lawn old english carols that had been sung by generation after generation poor anthony babington over at lee hall may have listened on christmas eve to the same sweet old songs as joseph was a-walking he heard an angel sing this night shall be the birth-night of christ our heavenly king his birth-bed shall be neither in housing nor in hall nor in the place of paradise but in the oxen stall he neither shall be rocked in silver nor in gold but in the wooden manger that lieth in the mould he neither shall be washen with white wine nor with red but with the fair spring water that on you shall be shed he neither shall be clothed in purple nor in pall but in the fair white linen that usen babies all as joseph was a-walking thus did the angels sing and mary's son at midnight was born to be our king then be you glad good people at this time of the year and light you up your candles for his star is shineth clear then who so glad as florence to call the singers in and bid them welcome and merry christmas and aid in distributing the mince-pies and silver coins which were always their due when florence was fairly grown up other things came into her life the gay and merry things that come to so many girls mr nightingale was a man of wealth and position and liked his wife and daughters to have their share in the gaieties of the county so there were many parties at embley and elsewhere and florence danced as gaily i doubt not as the other girls she went to london too and she and her sister were presented to queen victoria and had their share of the brilliant society of the time but much as she may have enjoyed all this for a time still her heart was not in it and she soon tired i fancy of dancing and dressing and visiting already her mind was turning to other things already her clear eyes were looking forward to other ways of life other methods of work chapter three

CHAPTER IV.

It was basically, it was very much a retread.

They go back to the same place and, you know, the Maristowns is not, but the Maypole was like Azul's cock.

And they were all dancing around.

Wow.

Check out Beltane, the Beltane offerings.

We'd love to see you around the Maypole.

Well, I'll be following along via social media like so many other people, I'm sure.

So please be sharing all of the things.

And it was so much fun.

But the other thing I remember was on campus, the Maypole.

Do you guys remember? And I even talked to my kids as they were growing up and my grandkids about the Maypole.

They've heard of it, but they never really understood how you did it, what it was for, and how beautiful it could be.

Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Do they not do the Maypole anymore? They used to do it right out in the courtyard.

And it's a pole with all these ribbons and stuff.

And you just sort of move in and out and in and out.

And Danny's like, the fuck? So...

it's just two of them don't know where they are but they it's the day of the Maypole competition

so Danny is pulled away to participate

you gotta all the ladies gotta

He's going to have a trip.

It might not be bad, but he's going to trip anyway.

The Maypole competition, I know this is like...

It's the long walk.

And, you know, it feels like... we are almost residing in what you could call modern babylon right and and it's up to to us to attempt to uh utilize discernment and and expose the very root cause of of our culture war conflicts designed by by you know for the very purpose of what seems to be creating discordian division you know it's like this discordianism uh ideological uh uh philosophy in a sense but so how he's staying at the green man in as i mentioned right green man pagan symbol and and the landlord's daughter attempts to seduce him but he resists and this is when he explains that he's he's engaged and he's trying to uh reserve you know his purity for sex for marriage and and uh he notices these photographs that are celebrating the annual harvest the mayday festival harvest and each feature this young girl as the may queen dressed in white exactly around that year's harvest right and um and so he he notices that yes that picture from the prior year's mayday celebrations uh was curiously and suspiciously missing from from the wall and so the photograph Obviously, the landlord tells him it was broken or something, I think is what happens.

And then he even goes to the point of after seeing the Maypole, phallic Maypole celebrations and the teachings at the school, he walks into the school and I think he even looks at the... uh the regist the registration or some of the schools register of some kind where he's looking for rowan's name and he finds her name and this is after he asks all the students and and even the teacher who deny her existence just like everyone else in the town including the mother of rowan allegedly right and i think her name was may morrison mayday for the mayday celebration it just really felt like everything was intentional in regard to that and so what's so strange is that he's he's then directed to what is alleged to have been rowan's grave Yeah, that was the ridiculous orgies out in the middle of the fields.

But yeah, had to have been disturbing for a man such as this, right? With the principles he held dear and close to his heart, which was precisely why he was chosen.

But anyway, it's just interesting to know that that not only was he directed to what was alleged to have been her grave, he basically digs it up and reveals a March Hare, I think.