In 1583 the English writer Philip Stubbes published The Anatomie of Abuses, a criticism of the manners, customs, amusements and fashions of the time. He was clearly a right old grumpy-guts, disapproving of just about anything that might have been classed as ‘fun’. This is what he had to say about maypoles:
“A stinking idol…..covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bound round with strings with variable colours, having two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with great devotion. And thus equipped it was reared with handkerchiefs and flagges streaming on the top, they strawe the ground round about it, they bind green boughs about it, they set up summer halles, bowers, and arbours hard by it, and then they fall to banquetting and feasting, to leaping and dancing about it, as heathen people did at the dedication of their idols.”
‘Maypole’ – oil/wax pencil + ink, 14 x 20 cm
My interpretation of the ‘stinking idol’ will be on display at Shepton Artists’ Exhibition at No. 8 Town Street, Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 5BG, Sat 10th – Fri 16th May, 10am – 4pm.
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