Country traditions of maypole dancing or choosing a May Queen from among a village’s most beautiful young girls, are complemented in Hungary by the tradition of making a May Tree. It is the pleasant task of any boy in love, secretly to tie coloured ribbons to a tree in the girl’s garden during the night before Mayday while she sleeps. She then has the equally pleasant task of speculating on the identity of her ‘anonymous’ admirer.
On my first Mayday, spent away from the city in Hajdúböszörmény, I witnessed the solution to the problem posed by the increasing urbanisation of even country people now living in blocks of flats. Though trees surrounded the block, a May Tree would obviously not indicate which particular girl had received such adulation. The young man in question made his way to a nearby copse, broke off a large branch and took it home. That night, he used the door key to the block (his married sister lived there) to let himself in, and propping the branch - resplendent in its myriad of coloured ribbons - outside the girl’s flat, he crept out, back into the night.
On my first Mayday, spent away from the city in Hajdúböszörmény, I witnessed the solution to the problem posed by the increasing urbanisation of even country people now living in blocks of flats. Though trees surrounded the block, a May Tree would obviously not indicate which particular girl had received such adulation. The young man in question made his way to a nearby copse, broke off a large branch and took it home. That night, he used the door key to the block (his married sister lived there) to let himself in, and propping the branch - resplendent in its myriad of coloured ribbons - outside the girl’s flat, he crept out, back into the night.
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