Raising the Tree

Labour Day is a national holiday in Austria. However, unlike in Vienna and other European cities, where May Day is very much a celebration of the Labour movement, Salzburg largely still holds to the tradition of Maibaumaufstellen. Translated frequently as May pole festival, this means, literally, ‘May tree set up’.

We were still settling in last year on May Day, so we missed the festivals. For weeks afterward, as we toured the neighbouring area, we’d occasionally pass the tall bare poles, with greenery still wrapped round its height, red and white ribbons still fluttering. But how it worked or what the festivals entailed was vague to me. I still had images, I suppose, of dancing flower-decked maidens weaving satin streamers round the pole.

So Sunday morning, when I located a May pole celebration online, Himself and I left promptly. I didn’t want to miss the main event, which I understood started at 1 p.m. Sure, I knew, there would be beer and wurstl, and people milling around in bright coloured trachten, all afternoon; that’s to be expected. But I wanted to see what the May pole celebration itself entailed.

We cycled along the river and, south of Kapuzinerberg, turned east, toward the sloping foothills to the pretty village of Aigen, where a picturesque church – remodelled in the Baroque style in 1698 – rises over a broad green field. A few cars were parked along the edge of the green, and stalls selling beer, grilled meats and sausages, cakes and pastries, and coffee and tea had been set up. A brass band was settling in too. And away, at a corner of the field, hitched to small blue tractor, an enormous tree lay on its side, supported midway along by a gun carriage. A couple of dozen men, members of der Historischen Prangerstutzenschützen, the club sponsoring the Maibaumaufstellen, milled around it. They wore their club uniform of traditional velvet vests, leather jacket and felt hats. And, just as we rolled our bikes to a halt, a volley of shots from huge blunderbusses erupted. The celebrations were just barely beginning.

It was a cloudy day; rain was predicted, and it hung heavily in the grey clouds. It was a day when Ireland seemed no farther than the next field, beyond the thick line of mature trees so intensely green they coloured the very air. But looking up the field, past the row of stalls, the church with its onion-domed steeple could not be mistaken. Nor could the people, the women in dirndls and men in lederhosen, worn with the casually, with the insouciance with which jeans are worn in Southern California – or anywhere in America or in Ireland, for that matter. (In Ireland, I suppose, you would substitute track suits for jeans.)

We debated getting something to eat then, as 1 p.m. approached, or waiting until after the action was over. We were hungry, so we got some grilled chops with vinegary potato salad and slaw and chose seats at one of the many, mostly empty, tables. Near us, a group of young men in the careless assortment of lederhosen and heavy shoes and socks paired with tee-shirts and casual jackets, laughed and joked over beer and cigarettes. No one paid any attention to the group gathered around the tractor and tree.

But soon the tractor started rolling slowly toward the open centre of the field. Behind it, the members of der Historischen Prangerstutzenschützen formed an honour guard along side the tree. I jumped up with my camera, anxious to see all there was to see. Still, no one else stirred.

The tree, about two feet in diameter at its base, stretched over 100 feet long. Stripped of its bark, it shone a pale cream colour to its top, with was still covered with branches and green, like a diminutive Christmas tree at the tip of a long, tapering spike. Around the bare trunk were wound spirals of green decorated with streaming red and white ribbons. Circling the trunk, like twin rings of Saturn, were two wreaths of green suspended by wires. Midway between the highest of the wreaths and the tiny green top, broad stripes of red and white wrapped around the pole.

The tractor pulled the base of the tree toward a deep narrow trench at the top of the field, and slowly, very slowly, the men began inching the supports under the thick trunk backwards, so the base could be tilted into the trench. By now, I had begun to see that my anxiety not to miss anything had been unnecessary. Little did I know at the time it would take the 40 or so men over three hours to raise the tree fully upright.

Once the tractor was removed, they worked without any motorised lifts or support. Through a carefully choreographed process of supporting the trunk with large beams, they gradually shifted the gun carriage backward. As the treetop rose, inch by careful inch, they supported it with beams linked by heavy-gage chains that formed a kind of cradle in which it rested. They were directed in this by a kind of drum major, a man with a baton formed of a stick from which fluttered red and white streamers. Around the men holding the beams swarmed other men, some with long poles topped with a twin-spiked fork they jammed into the tree to reposition the chains, to add additional support and to mark the place that chains should go. Every so often the drum major would bark a command, the men would shove their weight into the beams, they would strain for a few seconds, the tree would rise, almost imperceptibly, and then they would rest.

Tied to their task, they stood in knots at various points along the ever rising tree, smoking and laughing at times. Occasionally others would bring them beers, ham-sized fists clutching the handles four or five heavy mugs in each hand. Desserts were brought out, too, which were eaten in some cases one handed, as the supports were held in place.

Around them swirled the crowd, eating, talking, drinking beer or soda or coffee, the children in their trachten standing at the edge waiting. About two hours into the process, the rain began, and the shoulders of the men’s leather jackets darkened with wet. Umbrellas bloomed in all colours over the watching crowd. Still the raising continued.

At last, though, sometime past 4 p.m., the tree stood erect and the twin wreaths of green swung around the posts levelly. Smaller logs were brought and a big, red-faced man grunted as he hammered them into the trench, firmly securing the tree. A chain saw was brought out to cut the logs even with the ground; I held my breath at each stroke, envisioning a slash across the trunk so laboriously put upright.

Now the fun for which the children had waited begun. A thick orange mat, like a donut, was put into position around the base of the trunk and children danced on it as the clamoured around the tree. A girl of about 10 put her arms around the base as others lifted her feet, trying to hoist her up.

Then a young man of about 20 stepped forward. Standing bareheaded in the light rain, he was stripped of his shirt, shoes and stockings. He had wet the front of his lederhosen, apparently to give them added traction against the smooth surface of the tree. But the rain had done its damage; the tree was too slippery and he could get no purchase.

One after another they tried. No one got more than a few feet up. One man, who approached it from the far side of where I stood, clung to it, arms and legs wrapped tight like bracelets, about 10 feet off the ground. Then he let go and dropped to the mat.

Austria it seems, is home to robust ambitions. The object here is not to dance around a pole with coloured streamers. No, here the goal is to erect a sturdy, tall tree and then climb it. And, perhaps, someone managed to reach as high as the dangling rings later in the evening. As for us, we collected our bikes and, sodden through and through, cycled back along the river and home.

May Day, cont.

It’s unsettling how much living in another country disrupts one’s sense of competency. More than not speaking the language challenges one’s sense of being a responsible and intelligent adult. There’s not knowing the holidays, for instance. May Day, when all the shops close, sneaked up on us and caught us unaware. Other local customs and courtesies can catch you off guard, too, as we found out on May Day.

 In the years I lived in Southern California – over 30 years – probably not a week – not a day – went by without me complaining of noise. In the mid-1980s we lived in a crowded ‘transitional’ neighbourhood of apartments in Los Angeles’ Wilshire District. We were surrounded car alarms that malfunctioned and wailed unattended for hours. Bass thuds from powerful mobile woofers shook the air. An alarm peep-peep-peep-peeped every morning as our neighbour reversed out of his driveway. And rather than going to the door, teenagers sat in their cars and honked to announce their arrival.

Moving to the bedroom community of Thousand Oaks brought relief from the worst of the car alarms and honking. But suburban life means weekends filled with the roar of gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Its less travelled streets serve as testing grounds for motorcycles, high-volume ‘pocket rockets’, and shrill radio-controlled mini-cars. Motor boats engines, back from a weekend on the lake, must be cleared by running at full power in your neighbour’s driveway. Patios are equipped with stereos capable of broadcasting into backyards several lots away.

And, of course, there are well-amplified garage bands channelling adolescent angst through metallic discordance.

‘At least they’re not using drugs,’ said the homeowner, unsympathetic to my plea for peace.

‘At least that would keep them quiet,’ was my unspoken retort.

Well my husband recalls my temper rising under the stress of neighbourhood noise. I seethed, I simmered, I ranted. And, at last, I escaped to the countryside of Ireland.

Of course the Irish countryside has its own noises. At harvest time, combines rumble in fields from before dawn to well past dark, working against the threat of rain to bring in the corn. Year round, tractors pass along the roads, pulling tanks of slurry or trailers stacked with baled straw or bins full of grain. The school bus driver honks as he speeds round the blind bend morning and evening. And, of course, there are boy racers, fuelled by testosterone and petrol, wherever you go. Still, the sounds of the country, apart from the drone of farm machinery, tend to be the cacophony of crows, the rising song of the blackbirds, the lowing of cattle and bawling of sheep drifting across the fields.

Here on Katzenstrasse, lawns are mown and tree limbs are cut by chain saws, but bird song is more prevalent than the noise of fuel-powered engines. I  hadn’t thought much of it at all other than enjoying the peacefulness of a neighbourhood away from most urban noise.

There is a large garden in the back of the house that contains our flat. It turns out that maintaining the garden – mowing the lawn – is our responsibility. On Saturday, May Day, Himself at last attacked the lawn, which had with the spring warmth and rains grown several inches tall. He powered up the two-stroke engine of the new strimmer and, wearing eye and ear protection, spent several hours whacking the grass, dandelions and lovely purple flowers that also grew in profusion.

From the window on the first floor, I watched him work. There were neighbours in the house behind us watching too as they washed their car and shook dust from a rug. We haven’t met, and they made no effort to greet us, but I assumed their watchfulness stemmed from relief at seeing the jungle behind our house tamed.

Surrounded by overgrown shrubs and trees, the lawn is large. It is irregularly shaped and cut at intervals by jagged corners. There are trees growing in it as well and overhanging vines to be worked around. His progress was slow. All afternoon the engine throbbed as he whacked away the tall grass, foot by foot.

We had planned to get together with our neighbours later in the afternoon, and when the time came to join them, he hadn’t quite finished. Recognising that, in this culture, it would rude to make so much noise on Sunday, he had wanted to complete it on this Saturday afternoon. However we were waiting for him, so he put away the strimmer, planning to complete the job after work during the week, and joined us.

We sat in the front garden of the house across the street, two Austrian couples and ourselves, getting to know one another over coffee and cake. I asked about May Day. Because Salzburg, in particular, has a centuries-old Catholic tradition, I wondered whether May Day was celebrated as a Marian holiday, as it is by some Catholics in Ireland, or as its more recent incarnation as Labour Day. They were surprised to hear me ask about its Catholic associations. It is Labour Day here, as it is in many European countries. Himself remarked on the church’s history of appropriating and Christianising pagan celebrations. As it turns out, some of the ancient traditions of the pagan May celebration continue. The eight-year-old daughter of one of the couples was attending a local May Pole celebration with friends. She returned full of excitement over the children trying to climb the pole to retrieve the pretzels and sausages cached at the top as prizes.

By then, the sky, which had been sunny, had clouded over and another storm begun. We had moved inside where we visited a little while longer. Then we said goodbye and dashed across the street to avoid the rain.

Inside, Himself told me what I had missed when I had briefly gone home to get a bottle of wine. The two German-speaking couples had remarked on how another neighbour, a man from up the street, had stopped by earlier in the day. He was complaining about the noise of the strimmer. How long would it go on? Didn’t we realise, he had said to them, that it is illegal to make that kind of noise on a public holiday?

I thought of the neighbours behind us, watching, unsmiling, as Himself had worked. Oh the irony! After years of my railing over noise on weekends and holidays in California, we have at last come to live in a community where respecting others’ need for peace is not only considered a courtesy, it is codified. And now, at the first opportunity, we had violated both custom and law.

We did remark, though, on the civility of our neighbours. They had communicated this indirectly, anecdotally, as if commenting on the temperament of the complaining neighbour. Without calling attention to our lapse or embarrassing us, they had slipped it into the conversation almost as though by chance. We now know. 

And we find ourselves living in a civilised country.