School: Louth (C.) (roll number 3252)
- Location:
- Louth, Co. Louth
- Teacher: M. Ní Chasaide
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0665, Page 289
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- XML “May Day Lore”
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- On May Morning before sunrise go out to the garden and the first snail you see, take it up and put it on a plate sprinkled lightly with flour. Place a cabbage leaf over it and so leave it until after sunrise when you find the initial letters of your future husbands name traced on the flour.
Should the snail be quiet within his shell when you take him up your lover will be rich, but should the snail be almost out of his shell then your future husband will be poor, and probably will have no house or home to take you to when you wed him.
People would not give fire away on May Day and if any food boiled, roast, or baked is left over from May Eve to May Day it must not be eaten.
On May morning the peasant girls delight in gathering "May Dew" before sunrise to beautify their faces and they believe that the sun will then have no power over their complexions to spoil them by the summer heat, and no fire should be lighted in any home until the smoke is seen rising from the chimney of the priests house. Many of the old customs still remain. Among others it is(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Eveline Byrne
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Chanonrock, Co. Louth
