Maypole
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A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, around which a maypole dance often takes place.
Dancing around the midsummer pole, in Åmmeberg, Sweden
May Day: villagers southeast of Munich lift a very tall, wooden maypole into place. They competed for height with nearby villages.
Maypole in Bavaria, 1848
Remains of the kukkanja in situ, in which the maypole was inserted
Irminsul
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An Irminsul was a sacred, pillar-like object attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxons. Medieval sources describe how an Irminsul was destroyed by Charlemagne during the Saxon Wars. A church was erected on its place in 783 and blessed by Pope Leo III.
Sacred trees and sacred groves were widely venerated by the Germanic peoples, and the oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air.
A modern interpretation of the Irminsul, erected 1996 in Harbarnsen-Irmenseul municipality (near Hildesheim in Lower Saxony). The sun cross on the top is based on the coat of arms of the village of Irmenseul.
A late 16th century interpretation of an Irminsul bearing the cult image of a god of war and commerce, from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia
The image identified as representing Irminsul by Wilhelm Teudt on the Externsteine Descent from the Cross relief, rejected by Bernard Mees and interpreted as an elaborate chair