[Sidenote: May-poles and May-trees in France.] first of May the boys of each street used to erect in it a May-pole, which they adorned with garlands and a great crown; and every evening during the whole of the month the young people of both sexes danced singing about the pole.[273] Down to the present day May-trees decked with flowers and ribbons are set up on May Day in every village and hamlet of gay Provence. Under them the young folk make merry and the old folk rest.[274] The Red Karens of [Sidenote: May-poles among the Karens of Burma.] Upper Burma hold a festival in April, at which the chief ceremony is the erection of a post on ground set apart for the purpose in or near each village. A new post is set up every year; the old ones are left standing, but are not renewed if they fall or decay. Omens are first drawn from chicken bones as to which tree will be the best to fell for the post, which day will be the luckiest, and so on. A pole some twenty or thirty feet long is then hewn from the tree and ornamented with a rudely carved capital. On the lucky day all the villagers assemble and drag the pole to the chosen spot. When it has been set up, the people dance “a rude sort of May-pole dance” to the music of drums and gongs. Much pork is eaten and much liquor drunk on this festive occasion.[275] [Sidenote: Permanent May-poles.] In all these cases, apparently, the custom is or was to bring in a new May-tree each year. However, in England the village May-pole seems as a rule, at least in later times, to have been permanent, not renewed annually.[276] Villages of Upper Bavaria renew their May-pole once every three, four, or five years. It is a fir-tree fetched from the forest, and amid all the wreaths, flags, and inscriptions with which it is bedecked, an essential part is the bunch of dark green foliage left at the top “as a memento that in it we have to do, not with a dead pole, but with a living tree from the greenwood.”[277] We can hardly doubt that originally the practice everywhere was to set up a new May-tree every year. As the object of the custom was to bring in the fructifying spirit of vegetation, newly awakened in spring, the end would have been defeated if, instead of a living tree, green and sappy, an old withered one had been erected year after year or allowed to stand permanently. When, however, the meaning of the custom had been forgotten, and the May-tree was regarded simply as a centre for holiday merry-making, people saw no reason for felling a fresh tree every year, and preferred to let the same tree stand permanently, only decking it with fresh flowers on May Day. But even when the May-pole had thus become a fixture, the need of giving it the appearance of being a green tree, not a dead pole, was sometimes felt. Thus at Weverham in Cheshire “are two May-poles, which are decorated on this day (May Day) with all due attention to the ancient solemnity; the