If you travel to Hungary at the right time of year and you get to the countryside, you might see a May Tree! Here is some information about this tradition, which is still practiced in some areas of Hungary today!
Have any of you ladies ever received a “Május Fa” a “May Tree”? This Hungarian tradition is simply amazing to me; for a young man to do this is simply extraordinary and beyond the call of infatuation.
When a boy wants to court a gal, he and his friends go into the forest and chop down a tree, remove the bark except a little on top, they tie ribbons on top, and the boy writes a ribbon note to the girl. At night, on May 1st, they plant the tree in her backyard without her knowing. It stays like that for the entire month of May and on the last day of May, her father takes down the tree and now she can read the ribbon note that the boy wrote to her and now she knows who the boy is. In my town [Szentpéterfa, Vas-Megye, right on the Austrian border], every May there are at least 6 of them…sometimes more. I’m amazed by this! It used to be like this all over Magyarország!
My church is in the background which is about 750 years old.
Thank you, Stephen, for sending along the photo and the information on the Majus Fa or May Tree. What a lovely tradition! This photo were taken in Szentpeterfa, Hungary; May, 2010.
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