WALPURGIS NIGHT
139
"Thread, I pull thee;
Walpurga, I pray thee,
That thou show to me
What my husband's like to be."
They judge of his disposition by the thread's being strong or easily broken, soft or tightly woven.
Dew on the morning of May first makes girls who wash in it beautiful.
"The fair maid who on the first of May
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Encyclopedia of Superstitions.
A heavy dew on this morning presages a good "butter-year." You will find fateful initials printed in dew on a handkerchief that has been left out all the night of April thirtieth.
On May Day girls invoke the cuckoo :
"Cuckoo ! cuckoo ! on the bough.
Tell me truly, tell me how
Many years there will be
Till a husband comes to me."
