The peasant world. The reed crosses. Weather. The moon. The destiny

The peasant world is rich in ancestral customs, which in recent years have begun to investigate, collecting testimonies and anecdotes.
Among the many beliefs typical of the peasant world, several were aimed at the success of the harvest, a vital necessity for the survival of the family.
On May 3, the feast of the Holy Cross, the peasants made crosses with canes and tied one or more blessed olive branches to them, with a piece of the Candelora candle. The crosses thus created were planted on the ground in the fields, one or more depending on the size of the fund, and, when placed in the ground, an Our Father was recited. The cross accompanied the life of the field until the harvest. In this way the peasants hoped for divine intercession and prayed that the harvest would reach maturity, protected from disease and atmospheric events. A violent hailstorm, for example, could destroy an entire crop in a few hours and throw the whole family into poverty.
Incantations were made against hail. If the weather threatened hail or was already hailing, Candelora candles were thrown whole or in pieces on the threshing floor, to ask for divine intercession. As an alternative to candles, you could spread a little ashes from the Christmas log, kept by the peasants, who attributed numerous prodigies to it. Some witnesses recall that, in the imminence of the storm, in the absence of anything better, it was also a good idea to throw common ash, salt or some twigs of blessed palms. Another incantation was made with the sickle, with which crosses were symbolically traced in the air, in the direction of the storm clouds.
When it started to hail, the women knelt in prayer in front of the niches which, in rural houses, housed the statuettes of the patron saints, or in front of little altars made on the spot on the chests. When the first hailstones fell, a few were collected and placed in the hands of the children, in the belief that the Lord would more easily hear the prayer of an innocent.
Pseudoscientific remedies are also known against hail. In Controguerra, until the middle of the last century, there were "stations" for launching small rockets into the sky, in the belief that the explosion would have favored the thinning out of the storm clouds and the heat would have melted the ice and caused the fall droplets of water, thus preventing hailstorms. In addition to the rockets, the parish priest was asked to ring the bells, always in the belief that the movement of air would have avoided the hailstorm, causing the clouds to thin out.
Even the Moon was recognized as having the power to influence the lives of men. The phases of the moon determined the right time to sow and the movement of the satellite was believed to affect some chronic diseases, such as epilepsy. The spots on the lunar surface, which can be seen with the naked eye, were believed to be Adam and Eve.
Another rite of the peasant world was the "fate". If a gift was given, it had to be reciprocated with a coin, which assumed a high symbolic value. This exchange, in fact, was called "the lot" and had auspicious value. Furthermore, the delivery of the lot had a high social importance: by accepting the coin, the donor reassured the donee that he would never again ask for the good of which he had been stripped. A reminiscence of Lombard law seems to me to be hidden behind this ancient use.