29 September: Michaelmas

Today is Michaelmas. Here are 10 Michaelmas traditions from around the world:

1. According to English folklore, it was on this day that the Devil fell from Heaven, landed on a blackberry bush, and cursed the berries. Therefore, it is unlucky to pick Blackberries after Michaelmas.
2. In Scotland they eat Michaelmas cakes, known as bannocks, to ward off evil and misfortune in the coming year. One of these cakes, and a lamb, would be blessed in the church on this day, and afterwards cake and roast lamb would be distributed to the poor. Once that was done, people could get on with the serious business of enjoying themselves with horse racing along a beach, with pieces of seaweed being used instead of whips. The horses were ridden bareback and barefoot.
3. It is celebrated in Ireland with a Michaelmas pie. According to tradition, the person who finds a ring hidden in the Michaelmas pie will be the next person to get married. Eating goose on Michaelmas means you will never want for money for the next year.
4. In Sweden, Michaelmas is celebrated as Mikaeli Day. Traditions there include maintaining total silence while bringing farm animals in for the night: even the jingle of the bell-cow must be silenced. If the animals can be brought in with complete silence, you'll be safe from witchcraft all winter. Witches are said to be around on this night. It was also a day for divining who your future spouse would be. Men would gather at a well for the night and could get a vision of their future wife while they stayed up all night. Women would go to sleep as usual but may dream of their future husbands. If a woman dreamt that she fell into water, though, was unlucky. It was a sign she was pregnant and would have a baby within the next year.
5. If St Michael brings many acorns, Christmas will cover the fields with snow. Traditional English proverb
6. Michaelmas used to be the day for choosing magistrates and bailiffs. This meant that for a time, there weren't any. This was known as the lawless hour and people would observe it by committing the heinous crime of throwing cabbage stalks at each other, until the newly elected bailiffs paraded through the town. The Lord Mayor of London was also elected on this day by the liverymen of the city’s 81 guilds. The Guildhall floors were strewn with aromatic herbs as the voting took place, under strict rules and rituals dating from the 1190s.
7. In Ireland, Michaelmas marked the end of the fishing season, the beginning of the hunting season, the traditional time to pick Apples and the time to make Cider. It used to be the custom for each family to slaughter a sheep in commemoration of a miracle performed by St Patrick with St Michael’s aid. Irish farmers gave geese as gifts to the poor and sold the down as filling for mattresses and pillows. In County Waterford, at the end of the tourist season, a quaint custom was observed by the tourist trade: they held a procession to the beach and cast an effigy of the archangel into the sea, symbolically protesting against loss of earnings.
8. Once every seven years, Michaelmas was known as a ganging day. Young men went through the parish, jokingly bumping into everyone they met. Local publicans were obliged to provide them all with alcohol and Plum cake.
9. In Norwich, vendors sold ritual biscuits in the form of a man riding on a goose.
10. In Germany, it is regarded as Winter’s beginning and is marked with celebrations, markets and bonfires.

My Books:

If you like stories about:

• Superheroes
• Psychic detectives
• Romance
• Alternative dimensions
• Time travel 
• Secrets
• Friendship
• Family relationships
• Ghosts
• Adventure
• Crime

If you want to read about superheroes who aren't the usual Marvel/DC staples, who don't all live in the USA.

If you like quirky tales.

If you like to support independent self published authors.

Check out my books page.