October Days

 OCTOBER

I'm not sure where September went but it's gone.

 October was originally the eighth month of the Roman calendar. The Anglo Saxons called it Wynmonath - the wine making month or Winterfylleth meaning the the month with the full moon (7th) heralding winter. This year the October full moon will be a super moon and is also the latest date possible for a Harvest moon.

I've probably mentioned all the bits of weather folklore for October in previous years but here are three good ones. 

Dry your barley in October,

Or you'll always be sober.

(Malted barley is the main ingredient of beer, which was drunk by everyone when water wasn't safe)

A good October and a good blast,

To blow the hog acorn and mast.

(Dating from the time when villagers were allowed to turn their pigs into the woods to feed on acorns and Beech mast - called pannage

In October manure your field

And your land it's wealth  shall yield

(Best time for muck spreading, before the fields get too wet,  ready to sow crops in the spring)

A page from the Brambly Hedge Autumn Story by Jill Barklem

A  poem from the book " A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson 

AUTUMN FIRES

In the other gardens

And all up the vale

From the Autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

 

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes

The grey smoke towers

 

Sing a song of seasons

Something bright in all

Flowers in the summer

Fires in the fall.

 

 

I like the line "Sing a song of seasons" and as I get older it seems to be easier to appreciate each season as it arrives - after all if I'm still around to see a new season then that has to be a good thing!

And Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday about the unusual crop growing in the fields around here. The conclusion was reached that it's definitely Quinoa ........probably!

Back Soon

Autumn Poetry and Painting

Firstly must say thank you to everyone for comments about village names yesterday and apologies for not replying and also for not commenting on any blogs. The day just went somewhere in a flash!

Had a blank for ideas for todays post so I cheated and looked back at some of the autumn poetry that's been on the blog...................

Autumn Leaves
Artist	John Everett Millais
Year	1856

                           

                                                                     Autumn Birds

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,

And heron slow as if it might be caught.

the flopping crows on weary wings go by

And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.

The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,

And darken like a cloud the evening sky.

The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,

Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.

The wild swan hurries high and noises loud

With white necks peering to the evening cloud

The weary rooks to distant woods are gone 

With length of tail the magpie winnows on

To neighbouring tree and leaves the distant crow

While small birds nestle in the hedge below

John Clare (1793-1864)

The Golden Rod is yellow

The Corn is turning brown

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down

The gentian's bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun

In dusty pods the milkweed

It's hidden silk has spun

The sedges flaunt their harvest

In every meadow nook

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes sweet odours rise

At noon the roads all flutter 

With yellow butterflies

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

With summer's best of weather

And autumns best of cheer

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

T'is a thing which I remember

To name it thrills me yet

One day of one September

I never can forget.

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

The verse of a poem by Alex Smith ,that's in the Diary of an Edwardian Country Lady book, possibly a Victorian Scottish poet.

Best I love September's yellow,

Morns of dew-strung gossamer,

Thoughtful days without a stir,

Rooky clamours, brazen leaves,

Stubble dotted o'er with sheaves-

More than Spring's bright uncontrol

Suit the Autumn of my soul

 SEPTEMBER

Now everyday the bracken browner grows,

Even the purple stars

Of clematis,that shone about the bars,

Grow browner; and the little autumn rose

Dons, for her rosy gown,

Sad weeds of brown.

 

Now falls the eve; and ere the morning sun,

Many a flower her sweet life will have lost,

Slain by the bitter frost,

Who slays the butterflies also, one by one,

The tiny beasts

That go about their business and their feasts.

                         Mary Coleridge ( 1861-1907)

 

SEPTEMBER

Golden in the garden,
Golden in the glen,
Golden, golden, golden
September's here again!
Golden in the tree tops,
Golden in the sky—
Golden, golden, golden
September's going by!

                                                         

                                                                   Annette Wynne (writing between 1919 and 1922)

Autumn Leaves by Paul Kenton

June Country Days on the 2nd of the Month

June - my favourite month of the year, meteorologically the start of summer (or  wait to the 21st for the astronomical start)

It is thought that June is named after the goddess Juno or possibly from Iuniores which was the lower level of the legislature in the constitution of ancient Rome.

Calm weather in June, sets the farmer in tune

 The weather pattern for June often alternates between spells of stormy weather and shorter periods of dry calm. The farmers prefer calm and warm with night-time dew to speed up crop growth and statistically June is England's sunniest month.

 

Summer Moon Walk . An Illustration by Angela Harding from her  book 'A Year Unfolding'

Other people in the past have also enjoyed June and written poems

 

Christina Rossetti said in her poem                    Summer

If the year would stand

Still at June for ever,

With no further growth on land

Nor further flow of river.

If all nights were shortest nights

And longest days were all seven,

This might be a merrier world

To my mind to live in.

JUNE 

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine

  The Month of Marriages!  All pleasant sights

And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,

  The foliage of the valleys and the heights.

Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;

  The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;

I am the mother of all dear delights;

  I am the fairest daughter of the year.

From 'The Poets Calendar' By Longfellow 

And another written for children by Irene F Pawsey

Month of leaves,
Month of roses;
Gardens full
Of dainty posies;
Skies of blue,
Hedgerows gay,
Meadows sweet
With the new mown hay.

Flowery banks,
A-drone with bees,
Dreaming cattle
Under trees:
Song-birds pipe
A merry tune—
This is summer,
This is June.

And way, way back in 1557 Thomas Tusser said in his Five hundred points of good husbandry

In June get thy wedehoke, they knife and thy glove,

And wede out such wede as the corn doth not love;

Slack no time weding, for darth nor for cheape;

Thy corn shall reward it, or ever thou reap.

I think this means - keep weeding that garden!

Back Soon

Sue

March 1st

 In the Roman calendar March, or Martius, was the first month of the new year. The month was named after Mars, the god of war and the guardian of agriculture. March was the month when both farming and warfare could begin again after winter.

1st March, St David's Day, The Patron St of Wales. The start of meteorological spring.

Upon St David's Day

Put oats and barley in the clay

2nd March, St Chad's Day(Bishop of Northumbria in the 7th Century)

Saint's David and Chad

Sow peas, good or bad.

Stained Glass from Holy Cross Monastery New York

4th March, Shrove Tuesday - Pancakes!

5th March, St Pirans Day and Ash Wednesday

Sprinkling of Ashes from a Polish Painting C19

6th March, World Book Day

14th March, Full Moon - The Lenten Moon or Plough Moon

 

17th March,  St Patrick's Day. Patron Saint of Ireland  and St Joseph of Arimathea.

If St Joseph's Day is clear

We shall have a fertile year.

 

20th March,  Vernal Equinox, the start of Astronomical spring and Ostara, The Pagan festival celebrating Eostre, Goddess of Spring. 

 21st  March, St Benedict's Day (also July 21st)

Whatever the weather on 21st, that weather will stay until 21st June

 

25th March, Lady Day. The feast of the Annunciation and 1st Quarter day

An east wind on Lady Day

Will keep on 'til the end of May

29th March, Super New Moon and Clocks go Forward Overnight

 

30th March, Mothering Sunday 

It is the first mild day of March:

Each minute sweeter than before,

The redbreast sings from the tall larch

That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,

And grass in the green field.

From ' To My Sister' by William Wordsworth

Back Soon

Sue

February Country Days

A February page from The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden

The Anglo-Saxons called February 'Solmonarth' which means flat-cake month. Cakes would be made as offerings to the gods in thanks for the lengthening daylight.

The full moon this month, on the 12th, was known as the Ice Moon or the Snow Moon and snow and ice are  just as likely in February as they are in January.

I found this February poem by Jane G Austin. An American poet and author who lived between 1831-1894.

February

by Jane Goodwin Austin

I thought the world was cold in death;
The flowers, the birds, all life was gone,
For January's bitter breath
Had slain the bloom and hushed the song.

And still the earth is cold and white,
And mead and forest yet are bare;
But there's a something in the light
That says the germ of life is there.

Deep down within the frozen brook
I hear a murmur, faint and sweet,
And lo! the ice breaks as I look,
And living waters touch my feet.

Within the forest's leafless shade
I hear a spring-bird's hopeful lay:
O life to frozen death betrayed
Thy death shall end in life to-day.

And in my still heart's frozen cell
The pulses struggle to be free;
While sweet the bird sings, who can tell
But life may bloom again for thee!

I wrote about Imbolc, St Bridget's  Day and Candlemas last year so won't repeat again so soon but there are lots of weather sayings for February....................

When gnats dance in February, the husbandman becomes a beggar

A February spring is not worth a pin

Fogs in February mean frosts in May

                                                                 Double faced February

There is always one fine week in February 

Two weather sayings for tomorrow, February 2nd............. 

If Candlemas Day be mild and gay,

Go saddle your horses and buy them hay

But if Candlemas Day be stormy and black

It carries the winter on it's back 

 If Candlemas Day be fair and bright

Winter will take another flight

If Candlemas Day be cloud and rain

Winter is gone and will not come again.

Back Soon

Sue

January Days and Thank You

 It was really good yesterday to have so many comments - I loved them all. Special thank you and "hello" to people who'd not commented before and apologies for not replying individually. My excuse was that I was out at Son and DiL's house with the two grandchildren plus YD and EGD who came over from the coast through the very wet and windy weather (luckily it had stopped raining and blowing by evening going home time) plus BiL came too, we were all there helping to eat up their Christmas food. They are never knowingly under-catered! Now they need more visitors to help eat yesterdays food!

It was a lovely surprise to switch on the lap top when I got in to find 60+ comments, cheered me up no end because coming home after family days is still tough, even if it is the 7th Christmas.

 

It's good to know from Debs that my punctuation is appreciated as I'm not always sure I have apostrophes in the right place! and I know I use far too many exclamation marks!!

So,  here we go into January..................

The January page from 'An Illustrated Country Year' by Celia Lewis

The Anglo Saxons used the name Wulfmonath for January, the month when wolves would be hunting for food. Difficult to imagine that wolves roamed the woods and forests of England, Scotland and Wales back in the 6th Century and it must be the reason the full moon this month was called the Wolf Moon. This year it's on the 13th and was also known as the Moon After Yule and, according to my new book  - Everyday Folklore by Liza Frank, it's also known as the Stay At Home Moon - which, considering tomorrows post is called  'Just Stay In January', is very apt! (Although they may well have made up that moon name, as I've never come across it anywhere else).

January is usually colder than December and this is one of the best known sayings..............

As the day lengthens, so the cold strengthens

Other sayings for the month include.............

                                                   
 

When oak trees bend with snow in January, good crops may be expected.

In January much rain and little snow is bad for mountains, valleys and trees

Mild weather isn't recommended, so it's probably good that the weather forecast is for a spell of colder weather over the next few days. 

 A January spring is good for nothing

January warm, the Lord have mercy

Us gardeners always want good frosts in winter to kill off all the nasties that lurk in the soil. Most years recently our winters just haven't been cold enough.

JANUARY 

Janus am I; oldest of potentates;
  Forward I look, and backward, and below
I count, as god of avenues and gates,
  The years that through my portals come and go.

I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;
  I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
  My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.

Longfellow -  Poets calendar

Back Tomorrow

Sue

November Country Days

 

A November page from The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden

   If there's ice in November to bear a duck

The rest of the winter is just mud and muck.

  

November takes its name from the Latin novem because it was the ninth month of the Roman year. The Anglo Saxons named November "Blodmonath" meaning Blood Month, maybe because this was the month when any older livestock would have been slaughtered before winter, so as to save fodder for the younger animals.

 Dull November brings the blast,
Then the leaves are whirling fast
(Months of the year by Sara Coleridge )

 

********************

 

 I love the fitful gust that shakes

The casement all the day,

And from the mossy elm-tree takes

The faded leaf away,

Twirling it by the window pane

With thousand others down the lane.

 

I love to see the cottage smoke

Curl upwards through the trees,

The pigeons nestled round the cote

On November days like these,

The cock upon the dunghill crowing,

The mill-sails on the heath a-going.

(John Clare)

Samhain which means "summers end" was the Celtic fire festival celebrated as the day shifted from October to November. The end of the light half of the year. Celts considered sundown as the start of a day, which is why although Samhain is November 1st, it would have been celebrated at sundown on the 31st. It was their new year and fires would have been lit on the hilltops to drive out the evil of  the last year and welcome in the new. Then later came the Christian feasts of All Saints on the 1st and All Souls on November 2nd, when the dead are remembered in prayers.

Back Soon

Sue

'"Tis But A Thing of Straw"

 I unpinned my corn dolly from the top corner of the bookshelves when they were emptied ready for moving when the floor was being done and bits fell off it. It's looking very faded too.

This is how it looked when new

 So I had to look back on the blog to see how old it was and turns out I got it in October 2020 because of the connection to the Ogham Tree Alphabet which has Wheat Straw representing October to November.

The Wheat-straw Page from Karen Cater's book" Ogham Sketch Book"

Later I was shifting more books from the living room shelves out of the way and re-found a sort of scrap book I started with great plans about 8 years ago. (This is a different scrap book to my two old fashioned scrapbooks started in 2021!) It has cuttings about the seasons and weather folklore taken from the pages that I wrote for the Suffolk Smallholders Society newsletter and cuttings from Country Wisdom and Folklore Diaries but not much else. Trouble is they are all stuck in with glue and can't be taken out.........Anyway, while I was flicking through a loose cutting fell out -taken from an old Folklore Diary all about Corn Dollies. Ah Ha I thought - I can make a blog post from this. ............

From the diary

Twisting and plaiting straw to make effigies and other objects has been practised all over the world and is closely linked to harvest thanksgiving. In the British Isles, the men who brought in the harvest traditionally made a human-like form out of the last wheat standing. This tradition developed to become a decorative pastoral craft often practised by women. Crafting these symbols of good luck and fertility, which reflected superstitious beliefs also enabled them to earn a small extra income. In it's purest form, the corn doll was used to than Mother Earth for the harvest.

'Tis but a thing of straw' they say,

yet even straw can sturdy be

Plaited into a doll like me.

And in the days of long ago

To help the seeds once more to grow

I was an offering to the gods.

A very simple way indeed

Of asking them to intercede

That barn and granary o'erflow

At harvest time, with fruit and corn

To fill again Amalthea's horn.

Minnie Lambert 1957 

(Amalthea's horn is another name for a Cornucopia)

From the book Cattern Cakes and Lace by Julia Jones

Great ceremony was always attached to the harvesting of the last sheaf  and a great Harvest Shout was raised by the reapers as it was cut. It was treated with special respect and used to make the corn dolly which would be carried home atop of the last load from the field. In the following year the Corn Dolly would be planted in the first furrow on Plough Monday, so that it's spirit would be released and ensure another good harvest.

Many parts of the country gave names to the dolly made from the last sheaf. In Devon the 'Crying The Neck and Kirn Baby'. In Hertfordshire 'The Mare'. In Shropshire ' The Old Hare'. In Hampshire 'Kern Baby' and in the Highlands of Scotland it was called 'The Maiden'.

I may have a morning out sometime to Corncraft  in Monks Eleigh for a new corn dolly, a look around their shop - and a coffee and cheese scone of course!

Back Soon

Sue

September Days

 The 1st of the month.... I'm a day late............. marks the start of meteorological autumn, astronomically Autumn doesn't begin until Mabon or the  Autumn Equinox which is on the 22nd this year................... So you choose.

There are old traditions about the most frequent weather patterns for September which tell of three periods of "Old-wives Summer", each are followed by stormy days. The dry spells were said to occur about the 7th - 10th, 16th to 21st and around the 30th as anti-cyclones move east across the UK. The most common time for gales was around the 24th. I wonder if things are still the same in 2024?

The Golden Rod is yellow

The Corn is turning brown

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down

The gentian's bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun

In dusty pods the milkweed

It's hidden silk has spun

The sedges flaunt their harvest

In every meadow nook

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes sweet odours rise

At noon the roads all flutter 

With yellow butterflies

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here

With summer's best of weather

And autumns best of cheer

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

T'is a thing which I remember

To name it thrills me yet

One day of one September

I never can forget.

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

September dries up wells or breaks down bridges

                                             

 September rain is much liked by  the farmer

Many haws and many sloes make many cold toes.

September 2nd 1666 was the day the the Great Fire of London started . It burned for 3 days and nights, destroying the Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, about 100 parish churches, many public buildings and more than 10,000  homes. Yet the death toll was much lower than the 75,000 that died during the Great Plague of the previous two years.

When the city was rebuilt roads were straightened, timber homes were replaced with brick and Sir Christopher Wren's designs were used for St Paul's Cathedral, 50 churches and the Monument - to remember those that died.

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 

Monument to the Great Fire of London story 2 of 4

Back Soon

Sue

JULY COUNTRY DAYS

Illustration by Eugene Grasset from the Illuminated Book Of Days edited by K and M Lee

Julius Caesar the Roman Dictator who reformed the calendar in 46 BC named the month after himself, he was killed in the Ides Of March so that he couldn't proclaim himself Emperor.  July often contains some good hot days sometimes referred to as Dog Days. At this time of year Sirius, the dog star, rises at the same time as the sun and was thought by the  Romans to give the sun extra heat. The Dog Days are from July 3rd until August 11th .

JULY 

My emblem is the Lion, and I breathe

  The breath of Libyan deserts o'er the land;

My sickle as a sabre I unsheathe,

  And bent before me the pale harvests stand.

The lakes and rivers shrink at my command,

  And there is thirst and fever in the air;

The sky is changed to brass, the earth to sand;

  I am the Emperor whose name I bear.  

Longfellow -  The Poets Calendar

Anglo-Saxon names for the month are Heymonath for haymaking or Meadmonath meaning flowering of the meadows. The full moon in July is called the Wyrt moon or Mead moon . Wyrt is an old English name for herbs and July was the traditional time for taking the first honey from the hive and making mead. 

The main date in July that people associate with weather rhymes is St Swithin's day on the 15th, although there is no record  of this day ever being followed by 40 days of rain even if it pours on the 15th, the average is 17 days with rain.

If St Swithin weep, that year, the proverb say

The weather will be foul for forty days

This old saying covers all eventualities...

If about St Swithin Day a change of weather takes place,

                                         we are likely to have a spell of fine or wet weather

There was also a belief about the ripening of apples. It was thought that if it rained on the 15th the Saint was christening the apples and there would be a good harvest. In many areas no one would eat an apple before this day but after the 15th windfall apples could be used for jam making.

'Til St Swithin's Day be past

Apples be not fit to taste 

Here in Suffolk our one week of Summer was last week and now we are back to cloudy and several degrees cooler.

(I caught up with the Cold Play set from Glastonbury on TV last night - how brilliant it was. Somehow listening to good music has disappeared from my life in the last six years. I've still got some favourite CDs - Divine Comedy, Chris Difford, Robbie Williams, Josh Groban and some Brass band stuff - just need to watch less TV!)

Back Soon

Sue

Goldfinch

One day towards the end of March  I could hear a Goldfinch  somewhere in the Sycamore tree............. they have a very twittery song - a mixture of different sounds............... and stood searching for it for several minutes because I've rarely seen any in the garden here. Later it was on the birdfeeder and I grabbed the camera and got a couple of not very good photos.

I bought a special Niger seed feeder to try and persuade them to visit but this one preferred the general seed feeder.

 When the family were visiting a couple of weeks ago Son (the only one of our 3 children to take after me and Colin in having any interest in birds) spotted two in the garden and there's been one singing  almost every time I've been outside since. Hopefully they are nesting somewhere around.

I did a search in posts to see if this was my first post mentioning seeing Goldfinches here and it is. Back in 2018 I took a picture of a whole group or "charm" of them on the ground under the feeders at Clay Cottage. A real difference in what we saw there - a cottage surrounded by fields with hedges and trees all round compared to here - a smaller garden surrounded by houses. 

Looking in my frequently mentioned book " A Sparrow's Life's as Sweet as Ours" I discovered the reason for a "charm" is because of the Old English for their twittering call "c'irm'.

It's a wonder we see any at all because in 1532 Henry VIII's Preservation of Grain Act put a price on the head of anything feathered or furred, that ate marketable food. It included the Goldfinch even though they feed mainly on thistle seed. The Act wasn't repealed until the eighteenth century.

 Then during the C19 they were often kept as caged birds.  W.H.Hudson wrote in 1895 "Unhappily it is now not very easy to see them, for the Goldfinch is a favourite caged bird and so long as bird-catching is permitted, this charming species will continue to decrease"

The Caged Goldfinch

Within a churchyard, on a recent grave

I saw a little cage

That jailed a Goldfinch. All was silence save 

It's hops from stage to stage.

There was inquiry in it's wistful eye,

And once it tried to sing,

Of him or her who placed it there, and why

No one knew anything

True, a woman was found drowned the day ensuing,

And some at times averred

The grave to be her false one's who when wooing

Gave her the bird.

Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

Number have increased since the mid 1980's when imported Niger seed became available for garden feeding and seemed to be a Goldfinch favourite.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

April Days

 

From the book 'The Illustrated Book of Days' Artwork by Eugene Grasset

April

I open wide the portals of the Spring

  To welcome the procession of the flowers,

With their gay banners, and the birds that sing

  Their song of songs from their aerial towers.

I soften with my sunshine and my showers

  The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide

Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours

  Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.  

from Longfellow; the poets calendar

Surely we will have some better weather in April? I know all about April Showers bringing forth May flowers but we've really had enough showers in January, February and March and could do with some dry weather. Although most of the old weather sayings prefer a wet month

A dry April

Not the farmer's will

April wet

is what we should get 

 

April wet, good wheat

 

April has thirty days, and if it rained on thirty-one,

no harm would be done.

Enjoy your Bank Holiday Monday, it became a holiday with the Bank Holiday's Act of 1871, before that people only had Good Friday and Christmas Day off work.

Back Tomorrow

Sue