May Day, you give away your luck for the year." Therefore no one will
allow milk, or fire, or salt, to be carried away from the house on that day;
and if people came in and asked for a lighted sod, they would be driven
away with curses, for their purpose was evil.
The witches, however, make great efforts to steal the milk on May
morning, and if they succeed, the luck passes from the family, and the milk
and butter for the whole year will belong to the fairies. The best
preventative is to scatter primroses on the threshold; and the old women tie
bunches of primroses to the cows' tails, for the evil spirits cannot touch
anything guarded by these flowers, if they are plucked before sunrise, not
else. A piece of iron, also, made red hot, is placed upon the hearth; any old
iron will do, the older the better, and branches of whitethorn and mountain
ash are wreathed round the doorway for luck. The mountain ash has very
great and mysterious qualities. If a branch of it be woven into the roof, that
house is safe from fire for a year at least, and if a branch of it is mixed with
the timber of a boat, no storm will upset it, and no man in it will be
drowned for a twelvemonth certain. To save milk from witchcraft, the
people on May morning cut and peel some branches of the mountain ash,
and bind the twigs round the milk pails and the churn. No witch or fairy
will then be able to steal the milk or butter. But all this must be done before
sunrise. However, should butter be missed, follow the cow to the field, and
gather the clay her hoof has touched; then, on returning home, place it
under the churn with a live coal and a handful of salt, and your butter is
safe from man or woman, fairy or fiend, for that year. There are other
methods also to preserve a good supply of butter in the churn; a horse-shoe
tied on it; a rusty nail from a coffin driven into the side: a cross made of the
leaves of veronica placed at the bottom of the milk pail; but the mountain
ash is the best of all safeguards against witchcraft and devil's magic.
Without some of these precautions the fairies will certainly overlook the
churn, and the milk and butter, in consequence, will fail all through the
year, and the farmer suffer great loss. Herbs gathered on May Eve have a
mystical and strong virtue for curing disease; and powerful potions are
made then by the skilful herb women and fairy doctors, which no sickness
can resist, chiefly of the yarrow, called in Irish "the herb of seven needs" or
cures, from its many and great virtues. Divination is also practised to a great
extent by means of the yarrow. The girls dance round it singing—
"Yarrow, yarrow, yarrow,
I bid thee good morrow,
And tell me before to-morrow
Who my true love shall be."The herb is then placed under the head at night., and in dreams the true
lover will appear. Another mode of divination for the future fate in life is by