The dictionary defines a labyrinth as ‘a maze-like network of tunnels, chambers or paths, either natural or man-made’, and a maze as ‘a complex network of paths or passages, especially one with high hedges in a garden, designed as a puzzle’. (Collins Concise English Dictionary)  Although some people use the two words as if they were synonymous, nowadays it is increasingly the case that a labyrinth means a single path, while a maze is a puzzle in which you can get lost.

It’s the puzzle element of the maze that is the crucial difference.  Although you may walk a long way while following the path of a labyrinth, it is a single path and you cannot get lost.  But in a maze you can take various paths, find yourself in dead-ends, walk a long way and get lost more than once before you reach the destination point, usually in the middle.

The labyrinth is often seen as a metaphor for life, or as a kind of pilgrmage. Labyrinths were made in a lot of medieval cathedrals, where the walk could be followed slowly and reverently as a form of meditation or prayer.  The most famous example of this is the labyrinth in the nave of Chartres cathedral, which you can walk if you are there in a Friday morning.  In England, there is a labyrinth in Ely cathedral, for example, and turf labyrinth (called a turf maze, though it is a single path) on St Catherine’s Hill outside Winchester. There are many other examples, both old and recently constructed.

Labyrinths have become popular in recent years, and are sometimes included in gardens for mediation. Some hospices have them, and there was a mown labyrinth in the garden of Lambeth Palace a few years ago.

There has also been a vogue for new mazes, often made with hedges, but sometimes temporary ‘maize mazes’ are made by farmers before their maize crop is harvested.