School: Baile Treasna, Caisleán Mumhan (Ballytarsney) (roll number 15970)

Location:
Ballytarsna (Hackett), Co. Tipperary
Teacher:
Seán Ó Freathaile
Browse
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0554, Page 079

Archival Reference

The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0554, Page 079

Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.

See copyright details.

Download

Open data

Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

  1. XML School: Baile Treasna, Caisleán Mumhan (Ballytarsney)
  2. XML Page 079
  3. XML “May Day Customs”

Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.

On this page

  1. May Day Customs
    1. On May Eve the fairies used come and steal the children and bewitch the cattle if they could get them and therefore no door should be left open after sunset.
    Young people should not go out on the hills, nor listen to singing or girls dancing in tne night for they are fairies in disguise and will work harm and above all there should be no fire lighting, for fire is the life of man.
    If any food is left from May Eve to May Day it should not be eaten but buried in the garden or thrown over the bounds of the townland for the
    dogs.
    On May morning the peasant girls delight in gathering May dew from sunrise to beautiful their faces, they believed that the sun would spoil their complexion.
    (continues on next page)
    Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.
    Topics
    1. events
      1. events (by time of year) (~11,476)
        1. May (~639)
    Language
    English