Some Superstitions of May Day

Representing one of the key stages in the life of the rural peasant farmer, the arrival of May announced the appearance of summer and the renewal of the land. Nature’s re-awakening reminded the Breton farmer of the fragility of the boundary that separated success from failure; the safety and joy of an abundant harvest or the misery of a winter spent in dire straits. Little wonder then that such notions of rebirth and new growth gave rise to superstitions and rituals designed to celebrate and encourage fertility and to protect the community against all opposing forces.

In Brittany, May Day was the day when cows were believed most susceptible to the power of the witch; evil spells thrown against them could dry-up their milk or prevent their butter from taking. In order to protect against such misfortune, an elaborate ritual was once performed; on the eve of May Day, the cattle were taken from the byre which was then scrubbed thoroughly.

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The branches of a number of plants collected that morning, namely bay, bramble, elderberry and laurel, were then burned with scraps of old leather in pots placed in all the corners of the building. Although some accounts say that the fire was only lit in front of the stable door. Branches of elderberry were then hung from the walls inside the barn and a bramble, with a root at both ends, fastened in the form of an arc above the barn door. This ritual complete, the cows were then returned to the barn; each being led backwards through the doorway.

The belief that one’s cows’ best milk was, on May Day, particularly vulnerable to witches and thieves able to draw the cream of others to their own herd was once quite widespread here. It was said that one’s rival only needed to attach a string to the filter of their milk churn and drag it in the direction from which they wanted the cream to come before sunrise on May Day, in order to divert the precious yield.

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In central Brittany, it was said that milkmaids ran naked before the dawn of May Day, filling their churns with dew collected in their neighbour’s fields in order to steal the cream of their cows. Similar nude expeditions were also reputed to have been carried out by milkmaids in eastern Brittany where it was believed they stole milk by walking naked around the stables of their neighbours at night. Perhaps aligned to beliefs surrounding the vulnerability of milk on this day, it was also said that giving away any milk on May Day was to invite certain misfortune upon the household.

An indication of the ancient traditions that held May Day to be a time of mystical potential seemed to have survived into relatively recent times in a number of what can only be described as fertility rituals. For example, on the eve of May Day, young ladies once visited a hawthorn tree near the town of Saint-Briac; they circled the tree three times, in absolute silence, in expectation of securing a marriage within the year.

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Similarly, in order to be married within the year, near the village of Maen-Roch, the large quartz-rich boulder known as Le Rocher Cutesson was climbed on the morning of May Day by unmarried people, of both sexes, each carrying a small bowl full of water. Holding their bowl, the young folk allowed themselves to slide down the rock face; those who managed to reach the ground with their bowl intact were said sure to wed within a year.

In the south coast town of Locmariaquer, on the eve of May Day, unmarried girls would lift their skirts to slide, bare bottomed, down the broken blocks of the Great Menhir. A scratch deep enough to bleed was said to augur a marriage within the year. Part of this massive 21 metre menhir, possibly the largest monolith erected by humans at the time, was recorded as still standing in the early-18^th century thus this custom, which could not have been observed when the stone stood vertical, 12 meters high, must have been relatively recent and was still performed in the late-19^th century. Most likely, the unmarried women of the area followed, on the broken pieces, an ancient custom that was formerly held on another stone in the locality.

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In times gone by, on the morning of May Day, young people of both sexes would take pains to consult the oracle of the fountain of Saint-Brigitte in Esquibien, for it was believed that whoever leaned over the basin of the fountain three times saw the face of their future spouse reflected in the still water.

Those planning on getting married were once popularly advised to avoid arranging a wedding during the month of May; it was said that to marry in that month was to wed poverty and to invite quarrels into the household. The recommendation to avoid May weddings was once quite widespread but an examination of the old marriage records here shows that little attention seems to have been paid to this superstition as the number of May marriages is consistent with the twelve-month average.

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The fountain of Saint-Efflam in Plestin-les-Grèves was the site of a once popular ritual that was said to provide a definitive answer to any doubts a couple might have about the faithfulness of their partner. On the first Monday in May, it was necessary to visit the fountain without being seen and without having eaten anything that day. Three small pieces of bread, representing the couple and any suspected third-party, were cast upon the water of the fountain; if the latter piece moved away from the other two, it was because any suspicions were well-founded.

If a person was anxious to know how much longer they had left to live, they had only to look into the water of the ‘Fountain of Death’ (Feunteun an Ankou in Breton) at Plouigneau at midnight on May Day. If an image of a skull was reflected in the magic mirror of black water instead of a face, they could be certain that death was near. The same ritual was also popularly performed at another ‘Fountain of Death’ some five miles away in Plouégat-Guérand.

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May Day was also the day that it was held necessary to visit these oracular fountains with an infant under one year of age. The fountain was questioned by immersing the child’s feet in its waters; if the child removed their feet it was seen as a sign that they would suffer an early death. In other fountains, a child’s shirt was placed in the water; if it sank, it was said the child would die within the year.

A variant of this ritual was noted at the fountain of Saint-Just near Loudeac and that of Saint Gwenole, almost a 100km to the west, in Châteaulin. At these locations, expectant or even hopeful mothers would place the shirts of a baby girl and baby boy on the sacred waters; the one that floated on the surface indicated the sex of the unborn child.

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In addition to the May Day superstitions surrounding fertility and renewal, the specialness of the month was also manifested in the magical practices that were thought to be especially effective thanks to the latent power of the month of May. For instance, only a witch born in May was said to possess the power to stop an expectant mother passing on an unmet craving to her baby in the form of a birthmark or noevi materni. To do so, the witch applied a paste made from heath bedstraw onto the relevant part of the mother’s body while reciting a charm of expulsion.

A popular medicine of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, whose use is even attested at the French royal court, was Eau de Millefleurs or Water of a Thousand Flowers. The most popular varieties of this tonic were made from cow’s urine or by the distillation of cow’s dung. According to the French chemist Nicolas Lémery’s Universal Pharmacopoeia (1697) the tonic was produced by distilling fresh cow dung: “In May, when the grass starts to gain strength, fresh cow dung will be collected and having half-filled a stoneware pot, we will place it in a bain marie and by a strong fire we will distill a clear water called Eau de Millefleurs.”

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The French physician François Malouin, in his Medicinal Chemistry (1750), offered a detailed description of the other type of Millefleurs:“… cow urine; that of a heifer or of a young healthy brown cow fed in a good pasture. In the month of May, in the morning, we collect in a vessel this urine of the cow which is carried, hot, to the patient, who must be on an empty stomach.” Lémery believed this tonic a purgative most suitable for treating asthma, dropsy, rheumatism and sciatica, if the patient drank two or three glasses of it every morning for nine days.

In Brittany, it was once held that warts could be made to disappear if they were rubbed with the tail of a black cat but only if this was done under the new moon in May. Additionally, a cat born in May was said to be no good at catching mice; it would only bring snakes into the house. In eastern Brittany, some believed that for a cat to be any good as a mouse-catcher, it must have been stolen.

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Likely established to dislocate the pagan May Day processions from the first day of May, the three days of prayer preceding the moveable Feast of the Ascension, known as Rogation days, were established in Gaul in the 5^th century. These ceremonies focused on imploring for God’s protection against calamities and for His blessing on the sown crops and the year’s harvest. It was customary for the local priest to lead his congregation through the fields of the parish, blessing fields and crops in hopes of a bountiful yield. In Brittany, the Rogations processions usually started early morning and each day followed the direction of the cardinal points, starting from the church and ending at some wayside calvary or sacred fountain.

Over time, several superstitions became closely linked with the Rogation days here; most likely these had been first associated with the magic of May Day before slowly transferring to the moveable Rogation celebrations. For instance, it was strongly advised to avoid baking bread and doing the laundry during the Rogations, lest someone in the household die before the harvest was gathered.

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It was said that the butter made during Rogations never corrupted and a jar of it was kept all year, for it was considered a most effective balm for healing all wounds. Similarly, the butter made during the month of May was held to possess marvellous qualities for animals and was applied throughout the year as a liniment in the treatment of injured legs and hooves. However, one of the most curious May Day superstitions held that medlar trees chose this day to lean closer towards the ground in an effort to encourage people to trim them so that they would grow stronger.

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