- Tristram continues on towards Lichfield, and when he reaches the town, he finds a huge carnival going on.
- Tristram joins a crowd that has gathered to watch a parade. The parade is highly sexualized and silly, and everyone involved seems to be having a lot of fun.
- Some members of the parade are carrying a large pole (a May Pole) that symbolizes a phallus, and as the parade moves into the nearby fields, the men bury the pole ceremoniously in a large hole dug into the ground.
- Tristram joins in with the dancing and feasting around the site of the buried pole, and eventually wanders off into the furrowed fields with one of the local women.
- At midnight, a group of local men compete for the honour of having sex with the queen of the parade, and a number of other ritual pairings are organized.
- Eventually, everyone falls asleep peacefully in the fields after a long night of feasting and reveling.
- At dawn, Tristram wakes, "kiss[es] his new friends goodbye," and continues on his journey north (4.5.7). Well, that was weird.