A guide to the Bavarian Maypole festival

May-day here is actually called "Worker's Day", but it's pretty clear that the festival is some sort of pagan phallic-worship celebration. A bunch of the village men bring in a 30 metre long tree, and "erect" it by hand. This takes several hours, and many hundreds of litres of beer. I'm told that in other parts of Germany, women dance around the may-"pole" with ribbons, but I can assure you that here in Bavaria, women aren't allowed anywhere near it.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the Maibaum (My-bowm, May-tree) festivals so far. The weather always seems to be perfect, and what could be better than a public holiday where you're expected to go and drink huge amounts of beer in the street with your neighbours while watching other people working? Here's how it works.

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Ok, you know that a may-tree festival is happening in a near-by village, and head over there about midday. Along the way, you get stuck behind these guys. They're sitting on a long tree that's being towed by a tractor or by horses. Don't honk at them or you won't get any beer. Instead follow them - they know where they're going.

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Pretty soon they'll slow down and start looking real disorganised. This means that you should park and get out of your car. They'll spend quite a while trying to work out where the tree is supposed to go (hint - they'll be looking for a chunk of blue-painted steel sunk into the ground somewhere near the "Rathaus" (town-hall)). This is the perfect time for you to go find a beer.

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Here you see the local lads manoeuvering the log into place. The base of the may-tree is bolted into the steel frame, and then the fun can begin.

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To start with, the tree is simply heaved upwards, and wooden trestles and planks are walked along it's length to hold it up once it's been heaved.

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Before long, the majority of the tree is too high for the Bavarians (not particularly tall people) to reach. Now they take two sticks (or "pioneering-poles" as we knew them), with a rope tied between them, and use these poles to lift the tree.

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It's about now that I have to explain how this works. The whole job (which has probably taken an hour so far) now slows down a lot. A bunch of Germans stand around holding the tree up while others move their sticks further down the tree. Then the chief-bavarian says "Hau-rück!" (How-rook!) and they all lift the tree a short distance, stop, and drink beer. This cycle repeats a lot.

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"Hau-rück!" means "Hit...Back!". Well, it sorta works in German. It means "lift it high and put your back into it!". Okay, it means "Heave Ho!".

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In these photos you'll see some guys with shorter sticks with forks at the end. These guys have a lot of fun made of them in the village most for the year, but on May day, they're sorta like Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer. Suddenly everyone realises what they're good for. They use their short-sticks to help get the long sticks into position on the may-tree.

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It's all starting to get quite recursive at this point.

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Fortunately, the day is becoming is a bit of a blur to you too, so you start taking far too many photos. But don't worry - I sobered up before I published this, so most of the photos didn't make it to you. But I'm not alone:

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Did you count the beers in that last photo? Yes, the guys holding the tree up are seriously drunk at this point too. Getting out from underneath the tree sounds like a good idea, so you wander off and inadvertently find yourself in the beer-tent.

By the time you find your way back out, you see this:

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Depressing, isn't it? All these hours you've spent, sweating in the sun, heaving a heavy beer-maß around, watching people work... and the tree is only about half-way up. It's enough to drive a man back to the beer-tent...

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When you wake up the next day, the tree is up, and everyone has gone home. You take a couple more photos, and stagger off in the direction of... where is it I live...?

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(For anyone interested, the blue-and-white colours on the pole are the bavarian colours, the emblem at the bottom is the village insignia ("Wappen"), the signs up the side represent the local master-tradesmen (and more recently include advertising). The decoration on the top usually includes a rooster and a flag and signifies... ummm... something.)

excellent testimonial

I prefer to refer to it as "the phallic erection".

Good stuf, interesting read.

but just one thing to add:


or more precisely, the blue-white are the Wittelsbacher colours (and prior to that they were on the arms of some insignificant Graf)

Good read, thankyou.

A tick even more precisely, the colours of the House of Wittelsbach are actually white-blue ... see the text of the Bayernhymne

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Mildly depraved minds think alike, as I was using the same phrase today.

I really need to read up on this again but I'm sure I read somewhere that the ancient pagan version involved everybody in the village disappearing off into the woods freely frolicking with whom they saw fit.

Basically it's a fertility festival and the Bavarians do it well. Slightly concerned about all the whipping they do whilst erecting their phallic symbol though.

Glad you enjoyed it. I put it together a few years ago for the folks back home, and thought it'd fit in well on TT.

Fantastic read, Matt, thank you!

I always wondered how they get the Maibaum up... cool with the long sticks. Pity they don't allow it in Munich city for safety reasons.

I will be going to my first phallic erection tomorrow with my son... Oh dear, that came out all wrong! Anyway, we are going to a little village festival (Vaterstetten) tomorrow and I am very much looking forward to it.

leeza: Vaterstetten won't be done by hand, they will use a crane, the tree is too tall.
You have to go to the "real villages" like Anzing, Eglharting, Parsdorf (3rd May), or Poering (3rd May) if you want to see the Maibaum being erected with the wooden sticks (Schwaibe) (just to name a few villages near Vaterstetten). Anyhow, the festival is going to be great in Vaterstetten, though for me the crane just seems wrong...

...or Perlach.

Sadly they cancelled the fest in out village yesterday as the weather forecast was bad. Looking out of the window it doesn't look too bad now so maybe I can find somewhere.

I was looking in the local rag and found this about the tradition in Bavaria, it's in German though.

Info in German

For anyone interested they are errecting a new May-Pole at the Hofbraükeller today at 1300 link

Oh, that's a pity. But my son, being all boy, will love the crane action. It is raining off and on at the moment, if it holds out, then we will go.

... there is a second chance on 3rd May in Parsdorf (car ,bike or bus), and Poering (S-Bahn Zorneding). Forecast looks good.

Great summary, Matt T. I think the "rück" comes from the verb "rücken" though, which means "move" or "shift".

It's actually "Hau-Ruck" not Hau-Rück, rücken gets rucken in Bavarian dialect.