Romance Customs

Love, courtship and marriage: charms to see a future sweetheart, Valentine customs, wedding ways and the days for divining who you will marry.

1 to 15 of 15 entries in May

1 May

Folklore from the old calendars

Birch for a sweetheart, alder for a scold No longer kept CheshireIn Cheshire young men used to put birch boughs over their sweethearts' doors on May Day, and marked the house of a scold with an alder bough.
Fishing for the ring in the May syllabub No longer kept NorthumberlandHutchinson's History of Northumberland describes a syllabub made for the May feast from milk warm from the cow, sweet cakes and wine.
Rosemary at the maidens’ windows on May morning No longer kept WalesUntil about forty years before Trevelyan wrote, young Welshmen decked a large bunch of rosemary with white ribbons on May Day morning and set it at the bedroom window of the girl they admired.
The May ball for the newly married No longer kept Ireland, MunsterOn May Day the young men of each district in the south of Ireland went in procession in ribbons and garlands, their leader carrying a pole with a double hoop and a gilt ball hanging in it.
The Raine’s school bride No longer kept LondonA correspondent told Hone that every May Day a girl from Raine's charity school at St George in the East, near London, was chosen to be married.
The snail on the slate Lore and belief StirlingshireRobert Kier's letter from Falkirk said that in Scotland no one would marry in May.