A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon

by S. Baring-Gould

There is yet another, the Meavy Oak, sometimes called the Gospel Oak, for it is supposed that preaching was made from the steps of the village cross that stands before it. The oak, however, is of vast age. It is referred to in deeds almost to the Conquest, and that it was a sacred tree to which a certain amount of reverence was given is probable enough. The cross was set up under its shadow to consecrate it, and probably to put an end to superstitious rites done there. Anyhow this tree till within this century was, on the village festival, surrounded with poles, a platform was erected above the tree, the top of which was kept clipped flat like a table, and a set of stairs erected, by means of which the platform could be reached.

On the top a table and chairs were set, and feasting took place. Whether dancing I cannot say, but in all probability in former generations there was dancing there as well as feeding and drinking. These trees where dancing took place are precisely the May-pole in a more primitive form. The May-pole is a makeshift for an actual tree; a pole was brought and set up and adorned with flowers and green boughs, and then danced round. There was in Cornwall, and indeed elsewhere, a grand exodus from the towns and villages to the greenwood on May Day, when the lads and lasses at a very early hour went in quest of May bushes, green boughs and flowers wherewith to decorate the improvised May tree. This was then decorated profusely, and the merry-makers danced about it; ate, drank, and rose up to play, precisely as of old did the Israelites about the Golden Calf in the wilderness of Sinai.

And most assuredly in early times, before Christianity had been established, those dances and revels about a sacred tree, whether naturally grown or whether manufactured as a May-pole, were an act of religious worship addressed to the spirit of vegetation manifesting itself in full vigour in spring.

When S. Boniface strove to bring the Saxons to the knowledge of the truth, he cast down the great oak of Fritzlar which had received divine honours. In this lived the spirit of fertility, and till it fell beneath his axe, Boniface was well aware that he could not triumph over the popular superstition.

S. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre, who visited Britain to expose the Pelagian heresy, was himself guilty before his ordination of paying superstitious reverence to a pear tree. He had been a hunter, and it was customary for those who returned from the chase to suspend in the tree the heads and antlers of the game killed, as an act of homage to the spirit that inhabited it. The Bishop Amator remonstrated, but in vain. Then one day, when Germanus was out hunting, Amator cut the tree down.

That some lingering notion of veneration due to trees hung on, and was regarded as savouring of something not orthodox, is perhaps shown by the following incident, which is perfectly true. It was told me by the person concerned. A new parson had been appointed to a remote parish in one of the north-western dales of Yorkshire under the Fells. Not being a native of Yorkshire, but a southerner, he was eyed with suspicion, and his movements were watched. Now in the parsonage garden was a large tree, and about the roots was a bed of violets. The suspicious villagers observed the pastor as he walked round the tree and every now and then bowed to pick a violet. This proceeding took place daily. Why he bowed they could not understand, unless it were in homage to the tree, and they actually drew up a memorial to the Archbishop of York complaining of their parson as guilty of idolatrous tree-worship.

The bush hung out of a wine-shop signified that within were drinking and dancing. The bush is but the sacred tree reduced to its smallest dimensions, and the drinking and dancing that in former times took place around the tree are now relegated to within the house, but the bush is retained to symbolise roystering and mirth. I remember the case of a gentleman who "went off his head;" his family were reluctant to allow it to transpire. But one day a climax was put to his eccentricities by his thrusting the stable broom out at an upper window, and proclaiming, "This bush is to give notice, that within I have got two marriageable daughters on sale. Sherry stood all round. Going to the highest bidder. Going—going——" His wife caught him by the shoulders, twisted him about, and said: "Gone completely—and off to the asylum you shall pack at once."

Moreton Hampstead was the birthplace of that remarkable genius George Parker Bidder. He was born in very humble circumstances, his father having been a stonemason; and at the age of seven, when his talent first became apparent, he did not know the meaning of the word "multiplication," nor could he read the common numerical symbols.