"There is no mistake," says a writer in Fraser (1871), "as to our old Tree and Serpent faiths. Each hamlet (he is speaking of his visit to Ammer in Bavaria) has its Maienbaum--a long pole, one hundred feet or more in height, with alternate blue and white stripes coiling round it. The May-pole is intersected by seven or sometimes nine bars, beginning at about ten feet from the ground and running to the top, which is adorned with streamers. On these bars are various emblematic figures. The one at Murau had on the lower limb a small tree and a nail with circular nob; on the next a small house, a horseshoe and wheel on one side; a hammer crossed by a pair of pincers on the other, a broom, perhaps Ceres as a sheaf of corn; below this was seen the Lingam, with Maya's symbols, the cup and cock or the bird of desire sacred to her. Elsewhere we see a heart, fire, pyramid, and inverted pyramid, anchor and water as in Egypt, and a circle pierced by a line, &c. Can any Phallic tale be more complete? We must be here content with our general knowledge that the Maienbaum was a Pagan object, and that its decorations were originally symbols of the gods and goddesses. Christian significance is given to all these; for as the priest could not efface the old faiths he told his credulous herd that this hammer is that which nailed Christ to the cross, that the tree is the conventional olive of church pictures, and that the cross, the cock, the cup and sacred heart are all connected with the "Passion of Christ." The broom represents witches, and the horseshoe the corona or Mary's head dress; it is also Maiya's sign, and is there as a charm to hold witches at bay like the Ephod of old. He who may, I fancy, be taken as one great tree of life. "On May-day it is festooned with branches, for the Bavarian peasants keep up, in many ways, the ancient reverence for sacred trees. "When a house is finished it is consecrated by having a birch sapling stuck into the roof, and in a thousand tales the poor and ignorant are still taught to fear trees. One story says that before a large fir tree King Ludwig's horse fell three times forward on his knees, and here he built a celebrated church, taking care that the fir tree should be in its very centre."