MAY-DAY CEREMONIES AND SUPERSTITIONS.
Rejoice, Oh English hearts, rejoice!
Rejoice, Oh lovers dear;
Rejoice, Oh city, town, and country,
Rejoice, eke every shire.
For now the fragrant flowers
Do spring and sprout in seemly sort;
The little birds do sit and sing,
The lambs do make fine sport.
Up then, I say both young and old,
Both man and maid amaying,
With drums and guns that bounce aloud,
And merry tabor playing.
_Old May-day Song._
The May-day festivities and superstitious ceremonies belong to the same
antique or pagan class as those previously described. The Irish
antiquary, O'Brien, says that the practice of lighting fires in honour
of the god Bel, on May-day, gave the Irish name "Mina-Bealtine" to the
flowery month. Brand says: "In honour of May-day, the Goths and Southern
Swedes had a mock battle between summer and winter, which ceremony is
retained in the Isle of Man, where the Danes and Norwegians had been for
a long time masters." This, evidently, is a remnant of an Aryan myth.
Olaus Magnus says, the "Northern natives have a custom to welcome the
returning splendour of the sun with dancing, and mutually to feast each
other, rejoicing that a better season for feasting and hunting was
approached." Tollet quaintly says: "Better judges may decide that the
institution of this festival originated from the Roman Floralia, or from
the Celtic La Beltine, while I conceive it derived to us from our Gothic
ancestors." The theory of the common Aryan source of these festive rites
reconciles Tollet's conception with the decision of the "better judges,"
for whose opinion he evidently entertains profound respect. The Rev. Mr.
Maurice, in his learned work on "The Antiquities of India," contends
that the May-day festivities were originally inaugurated at the vernal
equinox, and that they pertained to a "phallic festival to celebrate the
generative powers of nature." From this stand-point he argues that they
are the remains of very ancient ceremonies well known to Egypt, India,
and other places. His reasoning on this subject is very learned and
ingenious. He says:--
"When the reader calls to mind what has already been observed, that,
owing to a precession of the equinox, after the rate of seventy-two
years to a degree, a total alteration has taken place through all the
signs of the ecliptic, insomuch that those stars which formerly were in
Aries have now got into Taurus, and those of Taurus into Gemini; and
when he considers also the difference before mentioned, occasioned by
the reform of the calendar, he will not wonder at the disagreement that
exists in respect to the exact period of the year on which the great
festivals were anciently kept, and that on which, in imitation of
primæval customs, they are celebrated by the moderns. Now, the vernal
equinox, after the rate of that precession, certainly could not have
coincided with the first of May less than four thousand years before
Christ, which nearly marks the æra of creation, which, according to the
best and wisest of chronologers, began at the vernal equinox, when all
nature was gay and smiling, and the earth arrayed in its loveliest
verdure, and not, as others have imagined, at the dreary autumnal
equinox, when that nature must necessarily have its beauty declining,
and that earth its verdure decaying. I have little doubt, therefore,
that May-day, or at least the day on which the sun entered Taurus, has
been immemorably kept as a sacred festival from the creation of the
earth and man, and was originally intended as a memorial of that
auspicious period and that momentous event.... On the general devotion
of the ancients to the worship of the _bull_ I have had frequent
occasion to remark, and _more particularly in the Indian history_, by
their devotion to it at that period--
'Aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus.'
'When the bull with his horns openeth the vernal year.' I observed that
all nations seem anciently to have vied with each other in celebrating
that blissful epoch; and that the moment the sun entered the sign
Taurus, were displayed the signals of triumph and the incentives to
passion; that memorials of the universal festivity indulged in at that
season are to be found in the records and customs of people otherwise
the most opposite in manners and most remote in situation. I could not
avoid considering the circumstance as a strong additional proof that
mankind originally descended from one great family, and proceeded to the
several regions in which they finally settled, from one common and
central spot; that the Apis, or sacred bull of Egypt, was only the
symbol of the sun in the vigour of vernal youth; that the bull of Japan,
breaking with his horn the mundane egg, was evidently connected with the
same bovine species of superstition, founded on the mixture of astronomy
and mythology."
According to Mr. Maurice's calculation, the vernal equinox could not
have coincided with the first degree of Aries later, at the latest, than
eighteen hundred years before Christ. The festival of the vernal equinox
would then be celebrated on the first of April. The modern "April fool"
freaks are regarded by many writers as relics of these festivities. In
India this is termed the Huli festival. It has previously been shown
that, in modern Welsh, _heulo_ means to shine as the sun. _Heulog_
likewise means sunny or sunshiny.
The original purport of most of the May-day ceremonials was
unquestionably a demonstration of joy at the return of spring. Rowe,
speaking of the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, and its famous peal
of ten bells, says, "On May-day the choristers assemble on the top to
usher in the spring." Oxonians of the "olden time," appear to have
welcomed the season not simply by blowing lustily through cows' horns,
but by drinking deeply from cups fashioned therefrom. Herne says this
blowing and drinking was done "upon the jollities of the first of May,
to remind people of the pleasantness of that part of the year, which
ought to create mirth and gaiety."
In the north of England, especially, Bourne informs us, that the more
youthful portion of the villagers, of both sexes, were in the habit, at
midnight, on the eve of May-day, of rendezvousing in some neighbouring
wood, with the view of gathering green branches of trees and wild
flowers, from which they made garlands, etc., and carried them in
procession during the day. Some of these garlands were afterwards
deposited in the neighbouring churches; others decorated the doors and
windows of the villagers' residences. It appears that the gathering of
these woodspoils was accompanied by much clangour of rude music,
including the blowing of cows' horns, previously referred to. Stubbs,
the Puritan, in his "Anatomy of Abuses," published in 1585, rebukes this
custom on account of the immoralities which such midnight forest
gatherings would doubtless give rise to. And yet the practice was very
common, and was countenanced by the highest in rank in the kingdom. King
Henry VIII. and his Queen, Katherine of Arragon, and the courtiers, are
reported to have much enjoyed this species of pastime.
Stubbs thus describes the custom he denounces:--
"Against May, every parish, town, and village assembled themselves
together, both men, women, and children, old and young, even all
indifferently, and either going all together or dividing themselves into
companies, they go, some to the woods and groves, some to the hills and
mountains, some to one place, some to another, where they spend all the
night in pastimes, and in the morning they return, bringing with them
birch boughs and branches of trees, to deck their assembly withal."
Chaucer, in his "Court of Love," makes reference to the May-day
ceremonies of his time, and says that early in the morning "fourth goth
al the Court, both most and lest, to fetche the flouris fresh, and
braunch and blome."
The supposed appropriateness of May-day for love-making is referred to
by Shakspere in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Lysander, in the first act,
wishing to further his suit to Hermia, says:--
If thou lovest me, then,
Steal from thy father's house to-morrow night;
And in the wood, a league without the town,
Where I did meet thee once with Helena,
_To do observance of a morn of May_,
There will I stay for thee.
Again, in the fourth act, when Theseus and his hunting party discover
the two pairs of sweethearts asleep in the wood, the Duke, in reply to a
query by Egeus, says:--
No doubt, _they rose up early, to observe
The rite of May_; and, hearing our intent,
Come here in grace of our solemnity.
Herrick, in a quaint lyric on this subject, says:--
There's not a budding boy or girl, this day,
But is got up and gone to bring in May;
A deal of youth ere this is come
Back, with white-thorn laden home.
Milton thus magnificently apostrophises the advent of the "flowery
month":--
Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May! thou dost inspire
Mirth and youth and fond desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee and wish thee long.
Old Stowe thus quaintly describes the May-day doings in the beginning of
the seventeenth century:--
"On May-day, in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke
into the sweete meadowes and greene woods, there to rejoyce their
spirites with the beauty and savour of sweete flowers, and with the
harmony of birds praysing God in their kind. I find also that in the
moneth of May the citizens of London, of all estates, lightly in every
parish, or sometimes two or three parishes joyning together, had their
severall Mayings, and did fetch in May-poles, with diverse warlike
shewes, with good archers, morice dauncers, and other devices, for
pastime all day long, and towards the evening they had stage playes and
bonfieers in the streets."
Polwhele, in his "History of Cornwall," describes a spring festival,
said to be of very ancient origin, annually celebrated at Helston on the
8th of May, named the "Furry," or gathering. The day opens with singing
and the beating of drums and kettles. The whole population rush out of
the town into the country, and return garlanded with leaves and flowers,
in which guise they caper about the streets, and enter unmolested each
others' houses to congratulate their neighbours on the return of spring.
The young people of Spotland, in the parish of Rochdale, are yet in the
habit of assembling on the hill sides on the first Sunday in May, and
exchanging congratulations on the return of spring. They drink to each
others' health in liquor supplied by the pure mountain streamlets--no
inapt substitute for the "heavenly soma" of the Vedic hymns. No doubt,
some genuine love-making, as well as much licentiousness, has resulted
from the observance of such ceremonies. It was formerly a custom, for
milkmaids especially, in various parts of the country, to dance around a
"garland" decorated with articles of value, very much after the fashion
of the rush-bearers of Lancashire at the present day. The latter adorn
their rush-cart and its contents with goblets, watches, and other
polished metal articles, lent by friends for the occasion. Brand,
speaking of the milkmaids in the neighbourhood of London, says:--
"They used to dress themselves in holiday guise on this morning, and
come in bands with fiddles, whereto they danced, attended by a
strange-looking pyramidal pile, covered with pewter plates, ribands, and
streamers, either borne by a man upon his head or by two men upon a
hand-barrow; this was called their garland."
Doubtless, the "well-dressing," or the decoration of springs and
fountains with flowers, yet very common in some counties, and especially
in Derbyshire, either owes its origin to the Roman Floralia, or to a
still older custom, the common Aryan root of both. Dr. Stukeley, the
celebrated antiquary, writing in 1724, speaks of a May-pole near Horn
Castle, Lincolnshire, on a spot "where probably stood an Hermes in Roman
times." He adds: "The boys annually keep up the festival of the
_Floralia_ on May-day, making a procession to this hill with May gads
(as they call them) in their hands. This is a white willow wand, the
bark peeled off, ty'd round with cowslips, a thyrsus of the Bacchanals.
At night they have a bonefire, and other merriment, which is really a
sacrifice or religious festival."
The old Puritan writers seem to have entertained a most profound horror
of the ancient May-day festivities. Friar Tuck was pronounced a remnant
of popery; maid Marian was the scarlet lady herself; and the hobby-horse
was consigned to the limbo of defunct pagan superstitions. A May-pole
was an abomination equalled only in atrocity by a "Whitsun-ale" or a
"Morris-dance." Old Stubbs calls the May-pole a "stinking idol," and
says it was brought home with "great _veneration_," hence his
malediction. The attendant ceremony he describes as follows: "They have
twenty or forty yoke of oxen, every ox having a sweet nosegay of flowers
tied to the tips of his horns; and these oxen draw home the May-pole,
covered all over with flowers and herbs, bound round with strings from
the top to the bottom, and sometimes painted with variable colours,
having two or three hundred men, women, and children following it with
great _devotion_." Stubbs evidently knew that the May-pole was of pagan
origin, if he was ignorant of its phallic character.
The court, however, favoured some of these pastimes. King James I.
received a deputation on the subject during his stay at Hoghton Tower;
and at Myerscough, near Preston, in Lancashire, he made a "speeche about
libertie to piping and honest recreation." This was followed by his
famous proclamation, levelled chiefly against the "Puritans and precise
people of Lancashire." This action culminated in the still more
celebrated "Book of Sports." Charles I., in 1633, republished "his
blessed father's declaration," which decreed that "after the end of
Divine service, his good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged
from any lawful recreation; such as dancing, either men or women;
archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless
recreations; nor from having of May Games, Whitsun Ales, and Morris
Dances, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith
used; so as the same may be had in due and convenient time, without
impediment or neglect of Divine Service. And that women shall have leave
to carry rushes to the church, for the decoration of it according to
their old custom. But withall his Majesty doth hereby account still as
prohibited all unlawful games to be used, on Sundays only, as bear and
bull baitings, interludes, and, at all times, in the meaner sort of
people, as by law prohibited, bowling."
Our ancestors appear to have regarded the playing at bowls as an
especially dignified recreation, and to have guarded by statute the game
from any profanation by the vulgar. Old Strype records that owing to
threatened disturbances in the North of England, a strict search was
made, in every part of the kingdom, on the night of Sunday, the 10th
July, 1569, for vagrants, beggars, gamesters, rogues, or gipsies. It
resulted in the apprehension of thirteen thousand "masterless men." The
chief offence with which they were charged was that they had no visible
mode of living, "except that which was derived from _unlawful_ games,
especially of bowling, and maintenance of archery."
The sight of a May-pole, so offensive to the Puritan of old, excited a
very different train of thought in the imagination of Washington Irving,
on his first visit to this country. He says:--
"I shall never forget the delight I felt on first seeing a May-pole. It
was on the banks of the Dee, close by the picturesque old bridge that
stretches across the river from the quaint little city of Chester. I had
already been carried back into former days by the antiquities of that
venerable place, the examination of which is equal to turning over the
pages of a black letter volume, or gazing on the pictures in Froissart.
The May-pole on the margin of that poetic stream completed the illusion.
My fancy adorned it with wreaths of flowers, and peopled the green bank
with all the dancing revelry of May-day. The mere sight of this May-pole
gave a glow to my feelings, and spread a charm over the country for the
rest of the day; and, as I traversed a part of the fair plain of
Cheshire, and the beautiful borders of Wales, and looked from among
swelling hills down a long green valley, through which 'the Deva wound
its wizard stream,' my imagination turned all into a perfect Arcadia."
The Laureate, in his beautiful poem, "The May Queen," has most happily
pourtrayed the buoyant, joyous heart-feeling of the modern juvenile
representative of the mythical Maid Marian of old. Eliza Cook, in one of
the most successful of her many truly national songs, has hit off the
spirit of the ancient May-day festivities with remarkable truthfulness
and power:--
My brave land! my brave land! oh, may'st thou be my grave-land!
For firm and fond will be the bond that ties my breast to thee.
When Summer's beams are glowing, when Autumn's gusts are blowing,
When Winter's clouds are snowing, thou art still right dear to me.
But yet methinks I love thee best
When bees are nursed on white-thorn breast,
When spring-tide pours in--sweet and blest--
And Mirth and Hope come dancing;
When music from the feathered throng
Breaks forth in merry marriage-song,
And mountain streamlets dash along,
Like molten diamonds glancing!
Oh! pleasant 'tis to scan the page,
Rich with the theme of by-gone age;
When motley fool and learned sage
Brought garlands for the gay pole;
When laugh and shout came ringing out
From courtly knight and peasant lout,
In "Hurrah for merry England, and
The raising of the May-pole;"
When the good old times had carol rhymes,
With morris games and village chimes;
When clown and priest shared cup and feast,
And the greatest jostled with the least,
At the "raising of the May-pole."
The people of Lancashire, until very recently, kept the May-day festival
with considerable _éclat_. Indeed, it is by no means forgotten at the
present day. The main streets of Preston, Manchester, and other towns,
during "the good old coaching time," presented a remarkably gay
appearance, in consequence of the horses being decorated, and some of
them profusely, with ribbons and other festive ornaments.
The decoration of horses with flowers and ribbons, the raising of
May-poles, and the attendant dances and games, are yet far from obsolete
in many parts of England. A few years ago I attended a May-day gathering
at a village in North Cheshire; but the dancers, as well as the May
Queen, were all children, and the spectators chiefly ladies and
gentlemen from Manchester and its neighbourhood. It was a very pretty
sight, and was patronised by the neighbouring "squire" (R. E.
Warburton)[22] and his family, but it lacked the healthy rusticity
which I had anticipated from the hearty enjoyment of lusty farm
labourers and their sweethearts in the old-fashioned May-day dance.
The Rev. Jno. E. Sedgwick, of St. Alban's Church, Cheetwood, Manchester,
has recently revived the May-day games; but, although termed May-day
festivities, the decoration of the May-pole, the crowning of the May
Queen, etc., which I visited, took place, in 1867, in Whit-week, which
is the great Manchester holiday. The children looked pretty with their
pink sashes and wreaths of green leaves, and evidently enjoyed
themselves much. With this exception, however, the affair was in little
distinguishable from ordinary holiday sports, and it certainly lacked
the necessary rusticity to suggest any strong sympathy with the rural
festival of the "olden time."
The practice of gathering hawthorn blossoms, where practicable on the
1st of May, still continues, and in many localities superstition lingers
respecting the supernatural properties of this tree. The hanging up in
the homestead of a white thorn branch procured on May-day was supposed
to act as an antidote to the machinations of witchcraft. Both the white
and black thorn are considered as representatives of the _Mimosa
catechu_, the sacred thorn of India, which, being sprung from lightning,
was supposed to be endowed with supernatural properties. Amongst the
Germans "wishing" or "divining" rods were made from both the black and
the white thorn. Walter Kelly says, "The wood of the thorn (ramnos) was
used by the Greeks for the drilling stick of their pyreia (or
fire-producing chark), and it was held by them to be prophylactic
against magic, as the white thorn was by the Romans, among whom it was
used for marriage torches."
I have referred, in a preceding chapter, to the superstition respecting
the blossoming of the Christmas thorn at midnight, on _Old_ Christmas
eve. The legend has, no doubt, intimate relationship to the presumed
supernatural attributes of the celebrated Glastonbury thorn, and its
progeny. The original plant, according to Collinson's "History of
Somersetshire," was the dry hawthorn staff which St. Joseph of Arimathea
stuck into the ground when weary with journeying.
In one of the Coventry Mysteries, "The Miraculous Espousal of Mary and
Joseph," the blossoming of the rod of the latter is the sign that he is
the destined husband of the former. When the feeble old man unwillingly
appears before the "bishop Issachar," he is surprised to see his staff
break out into flower. Issachar is equally astonished, and exclaims:--
A mercy! mercy! mercy! lord, we crye!
The blyssyd of God we see art thou!
. . . . .
Here may be see a merveyl one,
A ded stok beryth fflours ffre.
Joseph, in hert, with outen mone,
Thou may'st be blyth, with game and gle,
A mayd to wedde, thou must gone,
Be this meracle I do wel se;
Mary is here name.
This superstition bears evident marks of near relationship to some of
both the Greek and the Indoo, as well as other Eastern mythical faiths.
The blossoming staff of Joseph appears to be but a reproduction of the
budding thyrsus of the Bacchanals and of Hermes, which is regarded as a
phallic symbol, typical of the reproductive forces of nature. In the
Teutonic mythology the fylfot, or revivifying hammer of Thor, as
previously shown, likewise reproduces a phallic symbol.
So highly were branches and blossoms from the Glastonbury thorn esteemed
that Bristol merchants exported large quantities. The Puritans, in
Elizabeth's reign, cut down one of its stems, and the other was
demolished during the "Great Rebellion." Collinson says, "It is strange
to see how much this tree was sought after by the credulous; and, though
a common thorn, Queen Anne, King James, and many of the nobility of the
realm, even when the times of monkish superstition had ceased, gave
large sums of money for small cuttings from the original."
Some authorities regard this Christmas flowering thorn as a variety of
the _cratægus monogyna_, or common hawthorn, probably brought by the
early crusaders from Palestine. If this be true, it throws some light on
the origin of the reverence in which it was held by the pilgrims to the
shrine of St. Joseph at Glastonbury.
The sacred character of the white thorn especially, appears to have
become interwoven with a great variety of superstitious belief. A writer
in the _Quarterly Review_ for July, 1863, treating of "Sacred Trees and
Flowers," says, "The white thorn is one of the trees most in favour with
the small people" [the fairies]; "and both in Brittany and in some parts
of Ireland it is held unsafe to gather even a leaf from certain old and
solitary thorns which grow in sheltered hollows of the moorland, and are
the fairies' trysting places. But no '_evil ghost_' dares to approach
the white thorn." The writer attributes this peculiar sanctity of the
white thorn to the belief that the crown placed in derision on the head
of Christ, previous to his crucifixion, was made from branches of this
tree; and, doubtless, at the present day, such may be mainly the case,
although, as the writer himself observes, modern botanical researches
have taught us that the fact "cannot have been so." Kelly says we know
more than even this; "we know that the white thorn was a sacred tree
before Christianity existed, so that we must needs invert the statement
of the writer in the _Quarterly_, and conclude that the ancient sanctity
of the aubépine, or white thorn, was what gave rise to the mediæval
belief." He further contends that the excerpt relied upon by the writer,
from Sir John Mandeville, who flourished in the earlier portion of the
fourteenth century, shows on its face that the old wanderer was "an
unconscious witness to the enduring vitality of the Aryan tradition that
invested the hawthorn with the virtues of a tree sprung from the
lightning."
The passage referred to is curious. Sir John says, "Then was our Lord
ylad into a gardyn ... and there the Jews scorned hym, and maden hym a
croune of the braunches of the albespyne, that is white thorn, that grew
in the same gardyn, and seten yt on hys heved.... And, therefore, hath
the white thorn many virtues. For he that beareth a braunch on hym
thereof, no thondere, no ne manner of tempest may dere [hurt] him; ne in
the hows that yt is ynne may non evil ghost entre."
The knowledge of the traditionary faith in the sanctity of this tree
invests with considerable interest the eagerness of children, resident
in populous towns, to obtain a sprig of hawthorn blossom from any
stranger returning from the country with a few branches of this May
trophy. I have had scores of applications of this class for the small
branches which I have carried in my hand from Old Trafford to
Manchester. But, of course, children exhibit a similarly eagerly desire
to obtain possession of flowers, and especially wild flowers, of every
class. Longfellow has beautifully said:--
In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient games of Flowers;
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things;
And with child-like, credulous affection,
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
Amongst the other virtues ascribed to dew gathered on May-day morning,
its supposed power over the complexion yet finds believers. Old Pepys,
in his most interesting, if sometimes stupid, diary, says:--"My wife
away down with Jane and W. Hewer to Woolwich, in order to a little ayre,
and to lay there to-night, and so to gather May dew to-morrow morning,
which Mrs. Turner hath taught her is the only thing in the world to wash
her face with; and I am contented with it." Kelly says: "The Aryan idea,
that the rain clouds were cows, has been well preserved among the
Northern nations.... It is a very common opinion that rain and dew, the
milk of the heavenly cows, are capable of increasing the milk of the
earthly cows; hence a dewy May morning is welcomed as giving promise of
a good dairy year." Mannhardt speaks of a practice in North Germany of
tying a May bush to the tail of the leading cow on May-day morning, in
order that she may brush up the potent dew, and so increase the contents
of her udder. But the strangest faith in the potency of May-dew is
related by Sir John Mandeville. The quaint old traveller seriously
assures us that in Ethiopia there are male and female diamonds that
enter into matrimonial relationship and have offspring! Nay, he declares
that he himself has "_often tymes assayed it_," and found that the
precious stones do grow year by year, on one condition, namely, that
they be well wetted with May-dew! He says:--
"And ther be sume of the gretnesse of a bene, and sume als grete as an
haselle note. And thei ben square and poynted of here owne kinde, bothe
aboven and benethen, withouten worchinge of mannes hond. And thei growen
to gedre, male and femele. And thei ben norysscht with the dew of
Hevene. And thei engendren comounly, and bryngen forthe smale children,
that multiplyen and growen alle the yeer. I have often tymes assayed,
that gif a man kepe hem with a litylle of the roche, and wete hem with
May dew ofte sithes, thei schulle growe everyche yeer; and the small
wole waxen grete."
Sir Kenelm Digby, two centuries ago, in a letter to the younger
Winthorp, governor of New England, expresses his great faith in the
efficacy of dew in the cure of deliriums, frenzies, and manias; but he
does not intimate any preference for dew gathered on May-day. All dew
does not appear, however, to have possessed these curative qualities.
Some, indeed, was of a malignant or deadly character. Ariel, in "the
Tempest," speaks of "the deep nook" in the harbour
where once,
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vext Bermothes.
Caliban, when venting his rage on Prospero and Miranda, can find no
stronger curse than the following:--
As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both!
May not this dew superstition have relationship, in some of its phases,
to the classic myth of Kephalos (the head of the sun), Procris (the
dew), and Eôs (the east or morning)? Mr. Cox says "it sprung from three
simple phrases, one of which said, 'The sun loves the dew;' while the
second said that 'the morning loves the sun;' and the third added that
'the sun killed the dew.'" Hence both the good and evil influences
attendant thereon.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] Mr. Warburton is the author of several capital hunting and other
songs, in the dialect of North Cheshire.