Ruth Edna Kelley

“ On Walpurgis Night as on Hallowe'en strange things may happen to
one. Zschokke tells a story of a Walpurgis Night dream that is more
a vision than a dream. Led to be unfaithful to his wife, a man
murders the husband of a former sweetheart; to escape capture he
fires a haystack, from which a whole village is kindled. In his
flight he enters an empty carriage, and drives away madly, crushing
the owner under the wheels. He finds that the dead man is his own
brother. ”

“ 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
Will ever after handsome be."
Encyclopedia of Superstitions.
A heavy dew on this morning presages a good "butter-year." ”

“ John's Day.
"On Walpurgis Night rain
Makes good crops of autumn grain,"
but rain on May Day is harmful to them.
[Illustration: THE WITCHES' DANCE (VALPURGISNACHT.)
From Painting by Von Kreling.]
Lovers try omens on this eve, as they do in Scotland on Hallowe'en.
If you sleep with one stocking on, you will find on May morning in
the toe a hair the color of your sweetheart's. Girls try to find
out the temperament of their husbands-to-be by keeping a linen
thread for three days near an image of the Madonna, and at midnight
on May Eve pulling it apart, saying:
"Thread, I pull thee ”