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Anyone milking cows, three or four generations back, would have been totally preoccupied, at dawn, next Sunday morning. This is the first of May and besides the young women washing their faces in the May morning dew to maintain their beautiful complexions, the uneasiness of farmers related to their cows and their butter profit.
From the late 18th century onwards, butter was transported in 56lb firkins to the market and once tested for quality, it was a major source of income in a newly developing market economy. The money earned from the butter was, for many, the only source of meagre luxuries such as whiskey, tobacco, sugar and tea.
Perhaps the most benign charm was the idea that you should never be the first to light your fire
May Day and specifically twilight on May morning was the singular point in the Irish cycle of the year when all manner of superstitious activity could take place to “steal” away someone’s butter profit for the year.
This involved a whole host of magical ritual practices that were believed to be effective in this malevolent pursuit and most involved taking “luck” and “bounty” to oneself while ridding oneself of any “bad luck” and infertility. Importantly this had to be done at this pivotal point in the year.
Perhaps the most benign charm was the idea that you should never be the first to light your fire as anyone who had sight of smoke coming from your chimney could pull that element to them and you would be bereft of its essence for the rest of the year.
It was considered very bad luck to have someone take fire on that day and the folk record is full of accounts of someone lighting their pipe while churning is taking place on May Day and then leaving the house, bringing the butter profit away with them.
Malicious activites
The more malicious activities were undertaken, most usually, by an old woman in a locality, who would only have a few cows but somehow produced great quantities of butter. She would walk across the pastures at dawn on May morning carrying a long briar, skimming the dew off the grass, and incanting a charm such as “all to me, all to me”!
There is an account of the priest who one morning, returning late from a wake, heard the old woman’s strange spell and shouted out “and half to me!” When he got home to the parochial house, there was consternation in the dairy there, where the servant girl was struggling with her churn overflowing with butter.
On other occasions, the old woman would ask an unsuspecting servant boy to dip a hair spancel in the churn and she would proceed to milk this spancel, robbing the farm of its butter. Equally, the spancel- the tie used to fetter the cows while milking- was placed in the spring well as a very effective “piseog”. The piseogs were often objects that were binding like the spancel, or items that were dirty and connected with infertility.
However, the butter-stealers were open to potent counter charms
If a calf was stillborn, it was left in the dung heap until May Day and on that day it was jettisoned into someone else’s land. Similarly, the “glugger” infertile eggs that never hatched were placed in the potato drills or haggard of someone you did not like, ridding yourself of such infertility.
The pure, unadulterated waters of the spring well, vital for washing the buttermilk from the butter, was another clear target for such piseogs and along with spancels, eggs and dead animals, it was contaminated with human faeces and urine and other taboo items.
However, the butter-stealers were open to potent counter charms. If a farmer thought his butter profit was being stolen, they would redden the tongs or a plough shear in the fire. In turn, they bolted the doors and when ready, they plunged the red-hot iron into the cream of the churn, causing the butter-stealer outside to scream in agony as the counter charm revealed her identity and undid her magical hold on the butter. Thankfully, the days of the butter-stealers and piseogs are long behind us.
Shane Lehane is a folklorist who works in UCC and Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus. Contact: shane.lehane@csn.ie
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