Knocking Down the Maypole

Ah, right, that was something I still wanted to write before the cycling begins. Well then, finally here's the third post of the Lusatia series. Today there's even traditional clothing and dancing!

I told you about it last time: On the evening before Walpurgis Night, folks in every Upper Lusatian village were setting up a maypole. But while in some regions like Southern Bohemia or Upper Bavaria it's staying there all year and just gets replaced in spring, over here it gets knocked down pretty soon. Bam! And this opportunity is used to arrange a neat little folk festival with music, dance and... free beer!
Very nice. In Schwarzkollm (or Čorny Chołmc in Sorbian), where I witnessed the witch burning last time, the day had come on 10th of May already. Conveniently I had nothing to do then. So the course of action was simple: Saddling the bicycle again, persuading my pal Philipp to accompany me, and off we went. Well, I knew the way by now.

Some blue house on the way

While during Walpurgis Night one could recognize all the small villages through their bonfires from afar, now at daytime they all were marked by their maypoles. Some of them really are pretty damn tall and in this mainly flat scenery they're in plain view.
After a few hours we arrived in Schwarzkollm again. What catched our eye now especially at daytime was the many small raven statues, sitting on rocks on the roadside or on top of a wall here and there. The reason: Ravens are an important part of the Sorbian legend of Krabat, which takes place mainly in this village. It's about a boy who, following the call of a raven in his dreams, starts as an apprentice in the notorious "dark mill", where he also gets tought in the art of black magic. The story was adapted as a fairly successful fantasy novel, which in turn got a movie. In that context they're building upon tourism here and they even recreated said mill for the movie.

Well then, onto the acual topic now. Let's go to the maypole!
The whole event is organized mainly by members of the village's youth club. At the beginning they're always marching pairwise to the fairground, led by musicians and followed by the remaining village population. The boys are wearing a white shirt with black trousers while the girls are dressed in colorful Sorbian costumes.

Their destination was a detached hill on edge of village, which probebly served as name giver for Schwarzkollm. According to Philipp, Chołmc is the Sorbian word for hill. Meanwhile the one who's majoring as wood gnome (me) noticed all the black pines up here, so now the other part of the name (Ger. "schwarz" = "black") should kind of make sense as well. At least if the vegetation around already looked like that a few hundred years ago. In regions possesing a large amount of coniferes, the term "black" (or Sorb. "Čorny") in village names often comes from the comparatively dark Spruces or Pines.

This maypole, unlike the one in Keula last time, is decorated with the German flag as well as a birch tree on top. And the pole's huge. Of course I asked somone for the size again, this time I got one who actually knew the score: "35 meters without the birch." Neat.

The pole's base had been excavated already and now it was being sustained only by the rods that were used for the setting up last time. But before it's pushed down completely, the village youth is always performing a few Sorbian dances first. Tradition and stuff.

Don't know how many of them participated rather because it had to be done, but some really looked like they had fun.
After the first few dances were finished, the remaining struts were finally loosened to bring down the maypole. They always try to affect the direction where it's falling, but it sure isn't easy. Once it's pushed down, all the young lads will be running up to the small tree on top in order to snatch one of the clothes derorating it. Jackpot is the flag: The one who manages to catch it becomes May King and is allowed to choose a May Queen from the girls for the following dances.

The new dancing couples, the one holding the German flag is May King.

 I made a short videoclip of the whole procedure, here it is:



Okay, that would be done. Into the pary tent we went, it was starting to rain after all. Finally a barrel of free beer was announced, Philipp bought me a glass.
Soon it was about time for us to leave, this time we took the train. Time of wait was passing rather uneventful, but luckily I found and old but still working marker around the station. And what to do with one of those when you're bored? Exactly.

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Series: Spring in Lusatia
Part 1: The Sorbs and Their Easter Cavalcade
Part 2: Erecting Maypoles and Burning Witches
Part 3: Knocking Down the Maypole