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“I wish I could remember that first day, / First hour, first moment of your meeting me, / If bright or dim the season, it might be / Summer or winter for aught I can say; / So unrecorded did it slip away, / So blind was I to see and to foresee, / So dull to mark the budding of my tree / That would not blossom for many a May. / If only I could recollect it, such / A day of days! I let it come and go / As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow; / It seemed to mean so little, meant so much; / If only now I could recall that touch, / First touch of hand in hand–did one but know.” Christina Rossetti
“Otto Ernest Rayburn in his Ozark Country, refers to a curious custom in which lovelorn maidens on May Eve suspend their handkerchiefs on bushes in the hope that on the morning after, they may see in the dried dew the initials of the one they will marry. Equally fascinating is the custom in which a girl visits a spring at daybreak and there pours water into a glass in which there is an egg, in the expectation of seeing there a vision of her future husband and children.” An excerpt from Superstition and The Superstitious by Eric Maple published in the early 1970s by A. S. Barnes, New Jersey.
“We do not know when the ancient tradition began of maidens bathing their faces in the May morn dew, preferably gathered from beneath an oak tree, the Druidic tree of wisdom, to enhance their beauty. Certainly the Druids regarded dew as a powerful fertility symbol, and the Celtic festival of Beltane or Beltain to mark the coming of summer began on May Eve.
“May dew was also said to be endowed with the power to enhance fertility and to offer protection against malice. It promised luck throughout the year to all who rolled or washed in it, especially as the sun rose.” Cassandra Eason from her book A Complete Guide To Magic And Ritual: How To Use Natural Energies To Heal Your Life published in 1999 by Judy Piatkus Publishers, London.
These are old traditions and customs whose origins have been lost in the passage of time. The real enchantment and magic is the fact that the season has once again turned. The month dawned bright and sunny. It was a most beautiful first May morning today. Hopefully a harbinger of what’s to come..
I like this observation from William Mulock on his 95th birthday, and quoted in the Points To Ponder column of the May 2003 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine. “The first of May is still an enchanted day to me. The best of life is always further on. Its real lure is hidden behind the hills of time.”
“A delicate fabric of bird song / Floats in the air, / The smell of wet wild earth is everywhere … Oh, I must pass nothing by / Without loving it much, / The raindrop try with my lips, / The grass with my touch; / For how can I be sure / I shall see again / The world on the first of May / Shining after the rain?” A few excerpts from a poem by Sara Teasdale published by Macmillan.
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Don Jackson
