Hot sunshine and blue skies greeted the first day of May, also known as May Day. Although this day has never been celebrated with much enthusiasm in the United States, it has survived as part of the English tradition.
Hot sunshine and blue skies greeted the first day of May, also known as May Day. Although this day has never been celebrated with much enthusiasm in the United States, it has survived as part of the English tradition. This holiday has roots that go back to the time of the Druids, which is the reason it was frowned upon by the Puritans. However, it is celebrated in Great Britain and other places where the age-old customs are still observed.
May Day is the time to celebrate the onset of May, the month that sees the earth ready to burgeon with new growth. Since the ancient days in England, there prevailed a custom of "bringing in the May" on May Day. People would go to the woods in the early dawn to pick flowers and tender branches to decorate their houses. Children would hang May baskets of flowers on the doorknobs of folks.
This day has always been associated with flowers. The showers of April have brought out the blooming flowers in abundance and the once bleak earth has come alive with color and fragrance. Reading about these charming customs was fascinating to me as a young girl. One May Day my sister and I picked small bouquets of wild flowers (violets, spring beauties, wild anemones and dandelions) to put on the neighbor's porches. Of course there was no doorbell to ring, so we simply knocked on the door and then hid.
The Maypole dance was another colorful custom. A towering Maypole was set up on the village green, usually made of the trunk of a tall birch tree, and decorated with bright flowers. Streamers or ribbons were fastened to the top, and villagers (usually young people) danced and sang around it. A May Queen was chosen from the pretty girls of the village to reign over the May Day festivities. She was crowned on a flower-bedecked throne and drawn in a decorated cart by young men or her maids of honor.
Another custom was washing the face with May dew. It was a belief among the women of Great Britain that May Day dew had the power to restore beauty. That is why in the Ozark Mountains, a cradle of American folklore, girls used to nurture a belief that washing one's face in the early dawn dew on May Day would help them to be married to the man of her choice.
May is a green and growing time with tender leaves developing on the trees and shrubs and bushes in full bloom. May apples have their umbrellas popped open in anticipation of more spring showers, and yellow morels are hiding under their shade. This has been a bumper mushroom year with baskets of morels still being found.
nn
I love the letters I receive from my readers, although I am not able to acknowledge each one. The one written by Katherine Akers of Charles Town was deeply appreciated, as was the lovely card. She receives the columns in a roundabout way, mailed to her from a dear friend in Aiken, S.C., who receives them from a sister-in-law in Charleston.
Miriam Kirby of Kanawha Falls sent another chowchow recipe that is not cooked, but fermented in a jar like sauerkraut. Lola Hamrick Adams of Vienna, Md., sent a very old recipe from her mother's cookbook, which is probably one hundred years old. Her mother started housekeeping with it in 1913. Lola was born and raised in Clay County and graduated from Clay High School in 1944.
We received another lye soap recipe from Betty Banks of Charleston, who comments that she used to make this soap for her teenaged kids. It was great for special skin problems. She added, "My daughter married young and went to Germany. Before long, she wrote and asked me to mail some of my homemade soap to her. Her face was breaking out without it. Her husband liked it for greasy hands.
"It makes a great shampoo for oily hair, as long as you rinse with a mild vinegar solution to counteract the alkali and remove soap odor. (I do know it makes a great dandruff shampoo.) "
It is basically the same recipe, except she added a couple of hints. Keep a bowl of vinegar handy in case some of the lye splashes on you. Wash immediately with vinegar. For quick sudsing soap, add four ounces of Borax to each six pounds of fat before mixing the cooled lye solution into the fat. She also says that color can be added by melting crayons in the hot fat, and fragrance oil (not perfume) can be used.
Thank you so much, ladies, for your input.
Gloria Boggess has questions about the cow's ability to supply so much milk. She wonders if a cow's supply of milk will not adjust to a calf's needs, just as human milk does. In most cases, this happens. However, this Jersey cow has so much milk that a little calf cannot begin to nurse it all. Criss solved the problem by purchasing another baby calf that was being raised on a bottle. Once the calves get adjusted, they can be turned out with the cow, which should take care of most of the milk. Then we will be free to go camping.
The Lord has given us these lovely May days, and it is almost a sin not to enjoy them. We need to absorb their beauty, bask in their serenity, and thank the Maker of these days for His goodness to us.
The Lent Lilly
- By A. E. Housman
'Tis spring, come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
Hot sunshine and blue skies greeted the first day of May, also known as May Day. Although this day has never been celebrated with much enthusiasm in the United States, it has survived as part of the English tradition. This holiday has roots that go back to the time of the Druids, which is the reason it was frowned upon by the Puritans. However, it is celebrated in Great Britain and other places where the age-old customs are still observed.
May Day is the time to celebrate the onset of May, the month that sees the earth ready to burgeon with new growth. Since the ancient days in England, there prevailed a custom of "bringing in the May" on May Day. People would go to the woods in the early dawn to pick flowers and tender branches to decorate their houses. Children would hang May baskets of flowers on the doorknobs of folks.
This day has always been associated with flowers. The showers of April have brought out the blooming flowers in abundance and the once bleak earth has come alive with color and fragrance. Reading about these charming customs was fascinating to me as a young girl. One May Day my sister and I picked small bouquets of wild flowers (violets, spring beauties, wild anemones and dandelions) to put on the neighbor's porches. Of course there was no doorbell to ring, so we simply knocked on the door and then hid.
The Maypole dance was another colorful custom. A towering Maypole was set up on the village green, usually made of the trunk of a tall birch tree, and decorated with bright flowers. Streamers or ribbons were fastened to the top, and villagers (usually young people) danced and sang around it. A May Queen was chosen from the pretty girls of the village to reign over the May Day festivities. She was crowned on a flower-bedecked throne and drawn in a decorated cart by young men or her maids of honor.
Another custom was washing the face with May dew. It was a belief among the women of Great Britain that May Day dew had the power to restore beauty. That is why in the Ozark Mountains, a cradle of American folklore, girls used to nurture a belief that washing one's face in the early dawn dew on May Day would help them to be married to the man of her choice.
May is a green and growing time with tender leaves developing on the trees and shrubs and bushes in full bloom. May apples have their umbrellas popped open in anticipation of more spring showers, and yellow morels are hiding under their shade. This has been a bumper mushroom year with baskets of morels still being found.
nn
I love the letters I receive from my readers, although I am not able to acknowledge each one. The one written by Katherine Akers of Charles Town was deeply appreciated, as was the lovely card. She receives the columns in a roundabout way, mailed to her from a dear friend in Aiken, S.C., who receives them from a sister-in-law in Charleston.
Miriam Kirby of Kanawha Falls sent another chowchow recipe that is not cooked, but fermented in a jar like sauerkraut. Lola Hamrick Adams of Vienna, Md., sent a very old recipe from her mother's cookbook, which is probably one hundred years old. Her mother started housekeeping with it in 1913. Lola was born and raised in Clay County and graduated from Clay High School in 1944.
We received another lye soap recipe from Betty Banks of Charleston, who comments that she used to make this soap for her teenaged kids. It was great for special skin problems. She added, "My daughter married young and went to Germany. Before long, she wrote and asked me to mail some of my homemade soap to her. Her face was breaking out without it. Her husband liked it for greasy hands.
"It makes a great shampoo for oily hair, as long as you rinse with a mild vinegar solution to counteract the alkali and remove soap odor. (I do know it makes a great dandruff shampoo.) "
It is basically the same recipe, except she added a couple of hints. Keep a bowl of vinegar handy in case some of the lye splashes on you. Wash immediately with vinegar. For quick sudsing soap, add four ounces of Borax to each six pounds of fat before mixing the cooled lye solution into the fat. She also says that color can be added by melting crayons in the hot fat, and fragrance oil (not perfume) can be used.
Thank you so much, ladies, for your input.
Gloria Boggess has questions about the cow's ability to supply so much milk. She wonders if a cow's supply of milk will not adjust to a calf's needs, just as human milk does. In most cases, this happens. However, this Jersey cow has so much milk that a little calf cannot begin to nurse it all. Criss solved the problem by purchasing another baby calf that was being raised on a bottle. Once the calves get adjusted, they can be turned out with the cow, which should take care of most of the milk. Then we will be free to go camping.
The Lord has given us these lovely May days, and it is almost a sin not to enjoy them. We need to absorb their beauty, bask in their serenity, and thank the Maker of these days for His goodness to us.
The Lent Lilly
- By A. E. Housman
'Tis spring, come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.
And there's the windflower chilly
With all the winds at play,
And there's the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.
And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still.
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil.
Bring baskets now and sally
Upon the spring's array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.
(Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. - Emerson)
Contact Alyce Faye Bragg at alycef...@citlink.net or write to 2556 Summers Fork Road, Ovapa, WV 25164.
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