Folklore: When you pass a load of moving hay, make a wish.
Genre: superstition, sympathetic magic; plant husbandry: Appalachia, possibly British origins.
Bonus folklore: family history, a moniker, and a diamond ring
Informant: Donna Champion, female, 64
English/Spanish-speaking Guamanian-Chamorro, Guatemalan, Spanish, French/Norman Irish-American
ESL instructor, Sonoma County, CA
Dec. 9, 2018
Collected in Cotati, CA (in a car on Hwy 116)
I collected a new bit of folklore that arrived by way of Guam, of all places. It probably arrived by way of Texas, possibly originally from Kentucky, or even the British Isles, ca. 1910. The saying was a favorite of Donna Champion's grandfather, Chester Carl, aka "CC," or “Pinky” Butler, who passed it onto his Guamanian daughter, Clara Mae Butler.
Donna and I were driving down Highway 116, when an overladen hay truck was approaching us, coming the other way. She said, Quick! Make a wish. So I did. Then she told me the superstition that her mother, Pinky’s daughter, Clara Mae Butler Champion, who was born on Guam, taught her. Donna said, "Whenever we passed a hay truck, my mother would say: when you pass a load of moving hay, make a wish. It didn't have to be a truck." She also said, "You need to keep the wish to yourself."
I got a few bits of folklore for the price of one, from how the Coca-Cola franchise arrived on Guam, to how Pinky got his Guamanian moniker. Chester Carl, aka C.C. (b. In Sunset, TX, ca., 1884), was a redhead of Norman-Irish descent (by way of Illinois, and W. Virginia); his father, James Berry Butler, a newspaper editor from Illinois, took to drink after Chester’s mother, Melissa Belle Payne, a Baptist who hailed from Rockwell Texas, died in childbirth when he was eight years old).
Living with his three brothers at the relatives didn't pan out, and after Chester finished eighth grade, he ran away from his mother’s extended family. When he was 14, he went to seek his fortune out west. He arrived San Francisco, where he was employed to sell fruits vegetables in a pushcart on Nob Hill. His employer took him in and gave him room and board. When Chester was 18 (ca. 1902), he joined the Navy, and served aboard the USS Pensacola. That's how he wound up on Guam.
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| Chester "Pinky" Butler of the USS Pensacola, showing off his tats |
A fair-freckled, blue-eyed redhead, Chester's fair complexion didn’t fare too well on Guam, he was always sunburned—hence the moniker "Pinky." With the help of his greengrocer savings, which he had converted into a diamond ring he kept hidden in his pillow, he used the ring as collateral, and with that, made a family fortune. Pinky was industrious, he brought a Coke franchise, and seltzer water machines to Guam, and sold American made goods to the Pacific islands. That enterprise became a thriving chain of businesses, Butler's Inc.
That grubstake ring became an engagement ring for the 17-year-old Ignacia Bordallo, who was from the large Kotla Chamorro clan. They were married on the 8th of January, 1915, in Agat, Guam. They had six children. He was taken a prisoner of war Dec. 8, 1941, and held in Kobe, Japan for the duration of the war. His health was broken. He died on Valentine's Day, 1952, in Oakland, CA. Donna's eldest sister, Connie still has that diamond ring.
The first time my friend Donna remembered hearing the saying, When you pass a load of moving hay, make a wish, was in the early 1960s, was when she was a child. Donna learned it from her mother, Clara Mae (Pinky’s daughter), in Sebastopol, CA.
What makes this bit of folklore interesting to me is that there were no hay trucks or haywains on Guam, and yet the saying survived three generations. Donna's brother Greg, born in 1952, didn't recall the hay saying, but he did add that his maternal great-great-grandfather, from Spain, raised cattle on Guam.
Apparently the second part of the hay-wish formula was that you couldn’t look back at the passing vehicle either, a condition which my friend said she never learned. I found another account online where you had to lick your thumbs, and snap your fingers/slap your thigh, too. (see my notes below.)
REFERENCES
After a few false leads, and secondary blog sources, I finally hit pay dirt (a reliable documented source): The Frank C. Brown Collection of NC Folklore: Vol. VII: Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina, Part 2
They all have similar motifs: the passing a load of new mown hay, or cut hay, on its way to somewhere else, whether by wagon, truck, or train - luck.
And from a book blog, Chest of Books: This section is from the book "Kentucky Superstitions", by Daniel Lindsey Thomas, Lucy Blayney Thomas. Also available from Amazon: Kentucky Superstitions.
161. Make a wish at the sight of a hay wagon.
162. When you see a wagon of hay, make a wish. Count thirteen while you look, then turn away, and do not see the wagon of hay again. The wish will come true. If the hay is baled, the wish will not come true until the bales are broken.
163. If you pass a loaded wagon, make a wish. If you pass it a second time, the wish will not come true and you will have bad luck.
164. It brings bad luck to pass a hay wagon without making a wish. A serious sickness in the family or death will ensue.
Jan Harold Brunvand does cover the use of hay derricks in the Utah Folklore Collection, but I don't have access to the papers, and have no idea if he discussed haying with luck. Worth a check.
OTHER BLOG SOURCES:
One blog documented a folk rhyme:
Daily Om, Make a Wish, Ralph Marston
Make a Wish
Bale of hay
Bale of hay
Make a wish
And look away.
I overheard this conversation yesterday on a school bus filled with second graders (in Texas)
"What does that mean?"
"You make a wish and don't ever look at the hay again. Then your wish will come true."
"How do you know?"
"My grandma told me."
"Did you make a wish?"
"Yeah. It hasn't come true yet. But it will... My grandma's wish came true. But you can't tell what it is or it won't come true."
And from a blog called Knitrageous:
As I go under the overpass I touch a screw and make a wish, and when the hay truck passes me on the other side of the road I’ll say the rhyme my mother taught me, “load of hay, load of hay, make a wish and look away” and won’t look in the rearview mirror until I’m sure I won’t be able to see it.
KrisMulkey.com Making wishes (on hay) From the archives, originally posted in 2011.
After a few false leads, and secondary blog sources, I finally hit pay dirt (a reliable documented source): The Frank C. Brown Collection of NC Folklore: Vol. VII: Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina, Part 2
They all have similar motifs: the passing a load of new mown hay, or cut hay, on its way to somewhere else, whether by wagon, truck, or train - luck.
And from a book blog, Chest of Books: This section is from the book "Kentucky Superstitions", by Daniel Lindsey Thomas, Lucy Blayney Thomas. Also available from Amazon: Kentucky Superstitions.
161. Make a wish at the sight of a hay wagon.
162. When you see a wagon of hay, make a wish. Count thirteen while you look, then turn away, and do not see the wagon of hay again. The wish will come true. If the hay is baled, the wish will not come true until the bales are broken.
163. If you pass a loaded wagon, make a wish. If you pass it a second time, the wish will not come true and you will have bad luck.
164. It brings bad luck to pass a hay wagon without making a wish. A serious sickness in the family or death will ensue.
Jan Harold Brunvand does cover the use of hay derricks in the Utah Folklore Collection, but I don't have access to the papers, and have no idea if he discussed haying with luck. Worth a check.
OTHER BLOG SOURCES:
One blog documented a folk rhyme:
Daily Om, Make a Wish, Ralph Marston
Make a Wish
Bale of hay
Bale of hay
Make a wish
And look away.
I overheard this conversation yesterday on a school bus filled with second graders (in Texas)
"What does that mean?"
"You make a wish and don't ever look at the hay again. Then your wish will come true."
"How do you know?"
"My grandma told me."
"Did you make a wish?"
"Yeah. It hasn't come true yet. But it will... My grandma's wish came true. But you can't tell what it is or it won't come true."
And from a blog called Knitrageous:
As I go under the overpass I touch a screw and make a wish, and when the hay truck passes me on the other side of the road I’ll say the rhyme my mother taught me, “load of hay, load of hay, make a wish and look away” and won’t look in the rearview mirror until I’m sure I won’t be able to see it.
When I was a kid, anytime we saw a truck full of hay we would make a wish. You had to follow a few rules in order for your wish to come true."
And some of the comments on her blog date the saying back to the 1920s, and quite possibly to England.
1) lick the end of your thumb, hold it up, and let it dry as you made your wish2) make the wish and don't look back until you're sure the truck is out of sight
tmc emt May 1, 2016 at 1:03 AM I've heard of wishing on moving hay while listening to a radio show from 1942 called The Great Gildersleeve...so yes its not a myth.Anonymous November 24, 2017 at 10:30 AM Around 1975 or so, my mother told me about making wishes on hay and the phrase that she used was,"See a bale of hay, make a wish and look away," I still do this
Unknown December 1, 2017 at 4:36 PM I also learned from my mom to 'wish upon a moving hay truck when I was little. Another rule according to her was you have to keep the wish to yourself.
Unknown July 7, 2018 at 9:33 PM My grandfather, who was raised in New Jersey in the mid 1920's, told me about this when I was very young. My sister and I both grew up in Montana, so we always made wishes on the semis that we passed on the interstate carrying hay. We were never allowed to tell the wish to another person and also had to watch the truck until it was out of sight. Still to this day I make a wish on moving hay, and I fondly think of my grandfather. Its a small world knowing that my family isn't the only one who did this! :)Anonymous September 1, 2018 at 12:12 PM I am in England and my dad always said "That's lucky" when we saw a truck loaded with hay! My dad passed away last year aged 86 and I never got round to asking him the origin of the saying. My mum has no idea why they always said it. I wonder if the saying came over with the soldiers in the war and the Brits got hold of it and changed it along the way. Whatever it means I say it to my grandchildren all the time and I hope in time they will be saying it.
Frank C. Brown, Wayland D. Hand, Newman Ivey White - 1964 - History VII: Popular Beliefs and Superstitions from North Carolina; Superstitions, Plant Husbandry. P. 495, No. 7930: "when you see a loaded hay truck, make a wish..." variants were collected from Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Ontario, Washington, and California. Informants seem to be mostly from the British Isles. See also Nos. 7931 to 7937. Also 8565, Chapter 13.