Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/524



May Day in Greece.— May-day in Greece is a festival of flowers, During a recent stay in Greece I had an opportunity of observing some of the customs which are practised on that day, and I ascertained others by inquiry. On the 12th of last May I slept at the great monastery of Megaspelaeum in Achaea. Next morning was, according to the Greek reckoning, the first of May; and, as we descended the steep path which winds down from the monastery into the valley, a pretty little girl was standing by the wayside, who presented us with nosegays of wild-flowers. My dragoman told me that this was a May-day custom, and that the people on this day go out into the fields to gather flowers. In the course of the day we saw numerous traces of the custom. At the Khan of Mamousia the outside of the house where we lunched was adorned with a bunch of flowers, and in the town of Aegium, on the Gulf of Corinth, we saw flowers fastened to the doors or windows of many houses and shops. Moreover, on the road to Aegium some boys passed us, wearing gay crowns of roses, poppies, and wheat. In Aegium itself we observed a band of boys going through the streets, their heads crowned with wreaths of flowers. I was told that they had been going from house to house singing May songs. Some days later, at Palaeo-Koundura, in the wooded pass which leads over Mount Cithaeran from Bœotia into Attica, we noticed a wreath of flowers and a bunch of ripe wheat-stalks, with their roots, hanging over the door of the house where we baited. The flowers and wheat-stalks had been hung up on the Greek first of May, and would be allowed to stay there as long as they could. It is the custom to pick out the longest stalks to form the bunch.

My dragoman, Mr. John F. Weale, a native of Corfu, informed me that in Corfu the children go about singing May songs on the first of May. The boys carry small cypresses, decorated with ribbons, flowers, and the fruits of the season. They receive a glass of wine at each house. The girls go about carrying bouquets of flowers. One of them is dressed up like an angel, with gilt wings, and scatters flowers. The following is one of the songs sung by the children in Corfu on this occasion. The Greek text was procured for me by Mr. J. F. Weale, from his brother-in-law, who is a schoolmaster in Corfu.