A Seasonal Checklist for Michaelmas Folklore: Customs, Food and Superstitions

Michaelmas turns up in old books without much explanation, as though everyone ought to know it. It falls on 29 September, the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, and for centuries it did more work than one saint's day could reasonably carry: rents were paid, servants hired, geese killed, blackberries declared off-limits and the harvest finally called in. Much of that has gone quiet, but not all of it. What follows is a working checklist for the season — customs worth knowing, food worth cooking, and lore worth testing against the weather outside your own window.

The Two Michaelmas Dates

In England, Wales and Ireland, Michaelmas was one of the four quarter days, along with Lady Day in March, Midsummer in June and Christmas. Quarter days were the hinges of the working year: rents fell due, wages were paid, tenancies began or ended and accounts were settled. Scotland kept a different set of term days, but the habit of squaring up as the season turned was much the same.

Then came 1752, when Britain moved from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and eleven days vanished overnight. Some communities refused to move with it. They kept to the old date, which gives us Old Michaelmas on 11 October — still the day some fairs observe, and the deadline many people apply to blackberries. If you are unsure which version a local custom follows, assume the old date. It is usually the safer one.

The Michaelmas Goose

No food is more tied to the feast than the goose. Birds were fattened on the stubble after harvest and were at their best in late September, which is why the goose became the standard rent payment, the landlord's gift back to the tenant, and the centrepiece of the Michaelmas table. The saying attached to it is blunt: eat goose at Michaelmas and you will not want for money all year.

The story goes that Elizabeth I was eating goose when news of the Armada's defeat reached her, and that she ordered the bird eaten every Michaelmas afterwards. It is a fine tale and probably a Tudor embellishment, but it has kept the goose on the menu. Order yours from a butcher or farm shop in mid-September; geese are seasonal and the best ones go early. A bird of around 4–5kg will feed six or more, and the rendered fat is worth keeping for roast potatoes.

Hiring Fairs and Mop Fairs

Michaelmas was the great hiring season. Farm servants, dairymaids, ploughmen and household staff were engaged for a year at statute fairs, also called hiring fairs — and, across much of the Midlands and the west, mop fairs. The name came from the mop, sickle or spade a worker carried as a sign of their trade.

The ritual was simple. Those seeking work stood in the market square with a token in a hat or buttonhole. Employers walked the line, asked about skills and struck a bargain. A shilling — the fasten penny or hiring penny — sealed it, and the contract ran for a twelvemonth. The rest of the day was a party: gingerbread stalls, cheapjacks selling ribbons, roundabouts and ale, and the accepted tradition that a newly hired servant should spend a good part of their first wages before going home.

A handful of these fairs survive, mostly as pleasure fairs with the hiring long gone. Tavistock's Goose Fair in Devon, held on the second Wednesday in October, is an Old Michaelmas descendant. Nottingham's Goose Fair runs in early October. If you go, look for the tokens, the ribbons, the gingerbread and the older names still chalked on the stalls.

Weather Lore for the Turning Year

Michaelmas sits close to the equinox, which is why so much weather lore attaches to it. The commonest sayings run along these lines: a fair, clear Michaelmas promises an easy winter; a dark Michaelmas, a light Christmas; rain on the day and the rain settles in for a while. Almost every saints' day in the calendar has a forty-days-of-rain claim pinned to it, so treat that one as poetry rather than forecast.

The acorn saying is more useful. A heavy crop of acorns in the hedges is a genuine sign of a good mast year, worth noting if you keep pigs, feed wildlife or simply enjoy watching the squirrels make off with them. What the day certainly marks is real: the last of the harvest, frosts on the way, swallows gathering on the wires. Write down what the weather does on the day, then compare it with what follows. That is the only test of lore that has ever really mattered.

Blackberries, Daisies and Other Small Rules

Some Michaelmas customs are small enough to keep without much effort.

• Blackberries. Do not pick them after Michaelmas — more often, after Old Michaelmas on 11 October. The reason given is that the Devil was thrown out of heaven, landed in a bramble and cursed the fruit. The practical reason is better: by then the berries are watery, mildewed and full of wasps. Pick, jam or freeze yours before the deadline.
• Michaelmas daisies. The asters that open in late September take their common name from the feast. Counties disagreed about whether they belonged in the house or only in the garden, so grow them where you can see them and take the rest as regional taste.
• Feathers and fat. Michaelmas was a plucking season as much as a roasting one. Feathers went for beds, quills and stuffing, and nothing was wasted. Cook a goose, keep the fat, and dry the wishbone if you fancy a bit of luck-pulling.
• Quarter-day accounts. If you rent land, a house or an allotment on a Michaelmas term, the date still carries weight. Read your agreement rather than trusting custom; if anything is unclear, ask a solicitor or adviser.

A Michaelmas Checklist

1. Mark the dates. 29 September, and 11 October if you are following Old Michaelmas.
2. Order the goose by mid-September, or decide on your alternative early — chicken, game pie or a hearty mushroom dish all sit happily on the table.
3. Pick and freeze blackberries before Old Michaelmas, and make at least one jar of jam while the fruit is firm.
4. Bake a bannock. Oats with a little barley and rye, mixed with water or milk, patted into a round and cooked on a griddle. In the Hebrides this was struan Micheil, baked for the feast.
5. Get to a goose fair if there is one within reach, and go in the evening when the stalls are lit.
6. Record the weather on the day, then again at Christmas. Compare the two.
7. Settle the small accounts — the odd debt, the borrowed tool returned, the promised favour honoured. It was the point of the quarter day.

Keeping the Feast at Home

None of this needs to be elaborate. A Michaelmas supper wants a bit of shape: something rich, something sharp, something from the hedgerow. Goose if your budget and oven allow, with apple sauce, roast roots and a bannock on the side. Cook it at around 200°C, prick the skin and drain off the fat as it renders. Allow roughly twenty minutes per 500g and check the juices run clear, following your butcher's guidance for the size of bird you have.

Then raise a glass to the harvest, to the year behind and the one ahead, and tell whoever is at the table about the hiring penny and the blackberries. Afterwards, go for a walk, see what is left in the hedges, and note the weather. Whether or not the goose brings you a year of plenty, you will have marked a quarter of the year properly — which is what Michaelmas was always for.

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