to particular dreams, possibly taking them to be the means these invisible attendants make use of to inform their wards of any imminent danger.

Michaelmas, says Bailey, is a festival appointed by the Church to be observed in honour of St Michael the Archangel, who is supposed to be the chief of the host of heaven as Lucifer is of the infernal; and, as he was supposed to be the protector of the Jewish, so is he now esteemed the guardian and defender of the Christian Church.

A red velvet buckler, writes Bishop Hall in his Triumphs of Rome, is said to be still preserved in a castle in Normandy, which the Archangel made use of in his combat with the Dragon.

In the same work is indicated the superstition of sailors among the Romanists who, when they passed by St Michael's Grecian promontory, Malta, used to ply him with their best devotions, entreating him not to press too heavily with his wings upon their sails.

THERE

HERE is an old custom still in use among us, of having a roast goose to dinner on Michaelmas Day.

"Goose-intentos," as Blount tells us, is a word used in Lancashire, where "the husbandmen claim it as a due to have a Goose Intentos on the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: which custom took origin from the last word of the old church-prayer of that day: 'Tua, nos quæsumus, Domine, gratia semper præveniat & sequatur; ac bonis operibus jugiter præstet esse intentos. The common people very humorously mistake it for a goose with ten toes."

This is by no means satisfactory. Beckwith, in his new edition of the Jocular Tenures, annotates: "But, besides that the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, or after Trinity rather, being moveable, and seldom falling upon Michaelmas Day, which is an immoveable Feast, the service for that day could very rarely be used at Michaelmas, there does not appear to be the most distant allusion to a Goose in the words of that prayer. Probably no other reason can be given for this custom, but that Michaelmas Day was a great Festival, and Geese at that time most plentiful." In Denmark, where the harvest is later, every family has a roasted goose for supper on St Martin's Eve.t

In Poor Robin's Almanack for 1695, under September, are the following quaint lines

"GEESE now in their prime season are,

Which, if well roasted, are good fare:
Yet, however, friends, take heed
How too much on them you feed,

Lest, when as your tongues run loose,

Your discourse do smell of Goose."

Buttes, in his Dyets Dry Dinner (1599), says that "a Goose is the emblem of meere modestie."

+ The practice of eating goose at Michaelmas does not appear to prevail in

As early as the tenth year of Edward IV. we read that John de la Hay was bound, among other services, to render to William Barnaby, Lord of Lastres, in the county of Hereford, for a parcel of the demesne lands, one goose fit for the lord's dinner on the feast of St Michael the Archangel.

Douce mentions having somewhere read that the reason for eating goose on Michaelmas Day was that Queen Elizabeth received the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, whilst she was eating a goose on Michaelmas Day, and that in commemoration of that event she ever afterwards on that day dined on a goose. But this appears rather to be a strong proof that the custom prevailed even at Court in Elizabeth's time.

We have just seen that it was in use in the tenth year of King Edward IV. The following passage from Gascoigne's Posies (1575) shows it to have been in practice in Elizabeth's reign before the event of the Spanish defeat

"And when the tenauntes come to paie their quarter's rent,

They bring some fowle at Midsummer, a dish of fish in Lent,

At Christmasse a capon, at Michaelmasse A GOOSE;

And somewhat else at New-yeres tide, for feare their lease flie loose."

In Deering's Nottingham mention occurs of "hot roasted geese having been given on Michaelmas Day by the old mayor, in the morning, at his house, previous to the election of the new one.

A note by Park informs us that Crossthwaite Church, in the Vale of Keswick, in Cumberland, has five chapels belonging to it. The minister's stipend is £5 per annum, and GOOSE-GRASS, or the right of commoning his geese; a Whittle-gait, or the valuable privilege of using his knife for a week at a time at any table in the parish; and lastly a hardened sark, or a shirt of coarse linen.

Horace Walpole in The World, remarking on the effects of the alteration of the style, tells us: "When the reformation of the Calendar was in agitation, to the great disgust of many worthy persons who urged how great the harmony was in the old establishment between the holidays and their attributes (if I may call them so), and what confusion would follow if MICHAELMAS DAY, for instance, was not to be celebrated when stubble geese are in their highest perfection; it was replied, that such a propriety was merely imaginary, and would be lost of itself, even without any alteration of the Calendar by authority: for if the errors in it were suffered to go on, they would in a certain number of years produce such a variation, that we should be mourning for good King Charles on a false thirtieth of January, at a time of year when our ancestors used to be tumbling over head and heels in Greenwich park in honour of Whitsuntide: and at length be choosing king

any part of France. Upon St Martin's Day they eat turkeys in Paris. They likewise eat geese upon St Martin's Day, Twelfth Day, and Shrove Tuesday,

in Paris.

In King's Art of Cookery we read

"So stubble Geese at Michaelmas are seen

Upon the spit; next May produces green."

and queen for Twelfth Night, when we ought to be admiring the London Prentice at Bartholomew Fair."

It is a popular saying, “If you eat goose on Michaelmas Day you will never want money all the year round."

In the British Apollo (1708), we read

"Q. Supposing now Apollo's sons

Just rose from picking of Goose Bones,
This on you pops, pray tell me whence
The custom'd proverb did commence,
That who eats Goose on Michael's Day,
Shan't money lack his debts to pay.

"A. This notion, fram'd in days of yore,
Is grounded on a prudent score;
For, doubtless, 'twas at first designed
To make the people Seasons mind,
That so they might apply their care
To all those things which needful were,

And, by a good industrious hand,

Know when and how t' improve their land."

In the same Work (1709), we have

"Q. Yet my wife would persuade me (as I am a sinner),
To have a fat Goose on St Michael for dinner :
And then all the year round, I pray you would mind it,
I shall not want money-oh! grant I may find it.
Now several there are that believe this is true,
Yet the reason of this is desired from you.

"A. We thinke you're so far from the having of more,
That the price of the Goose you have less than before:
The custom came up from the tenants presenting

Their landlords with geese, to incline their relenting
On following payments."-

Here we must not omit to record a good anecdote related of Dr Thomas Sprat, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, who at the Restoration became chaplain to the witty and profligate Duke of Buckingham. At his first dinner with the Duke, his grace, observing a goose opposite to his chaplain, remarked that he wondered why it generally happened that geese were placed near the clergy. "I cannot tell the reason," said Sprat; "but I shall never see a goose again, but I shall think of your grace."

Allusion must also be made to the great holiday fair held at Nottingham, called Goose Fair, probably from its taking place immediately after Michaelmas Day, and from the vast quantity of geese then slaughtered and eaten. Popular tradition, however, assigns a far different origin to its name. A father for some reason or other had brought up his three sons in total seclusion, so complete indeed that they had never set eyes on one of the female sex. On arriving at manhood, he took them to the October fair, promising to buy each of them what he thought best. They gazed around, asking the names of all

they saw; and, upon beholding some women working, they demanded what they were. Alarmed at the eagerness of their inquiries, the farmer replied: "Pho! Those silly things are geese;" whereupon all three instantly exclaimed: "O father, buy me a goose !"

Geese are eaten by ploughmen at harvest home.

ST MICHAEL'S CAKE OR BANNOCK.

Martin, in his Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, speaking of the Protestant inhabitants of Skye, says: "They observe the festivals of Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, and that of St Michael's. Upon the latter they have a cavalcade in each parish, and several families bake the cake called St Michael's Bannock."

Referring to Kilbar village, he observes that they have likewise a general cavalcade on St Michael's Day in Kilbar village, and do then also take a turn round their church. Every family, as soon as the solemnity is ended, is accustomed to bake St Michael's cake, and all strangers, together with those of the family, must eat the bread that night.

In Macaulay's History of St Kilda we read that it was, till recently, an universal custom among the islanders, on Michaelmas Day, to prepare in every family a loaf or cake of bread, enormously large, and compounded of different ingredients. This cake belonged to the Archangel, and had its name from him. Every one in each family, whether stranger or domestic, had his portion of this kind of showbread, and had, of course, some title to the friendship and protection of Michael.

So also in Ireland a sheep was killed in every family that could afford one, on the same anniversary; and it was ordained by law that a part of it should be given to the poor. This, and a great deal more, was done in that kingdom, to perpetuate the memory of a miracle wrought there by St Patrick through the assistance of the Archangel; in commemoration of which Michaelmas was instituted a festal day of joy, plenty, and universal benevolence.

The following very extraordinary septennial custom at Bishops Stortford, in Hertfordshire, and in the adjacent neighbourhood, on Old Michaelmas Day, is narrated in a London newspaper of October 18, 1787. "On the morning of this day, called Ganging Day, a great number of young men assemble in the fields, when a very active fellow is nominated the Leader. This person they are bound to follow, who, for the sake of diversion, generally chooses the route through ponds, ditches, and places of difficult passage. Every person they meet, Male or Female, is bumped, that is to say, two other persons take them up by their arms, and swing them against each other. The women in general keep at home at this period, except those of less scrupulous character, who, for the sake of partaking of a gallon of ale and a plum-cake, which every landlord or publican is obliged to furnish the revellers with, generally spend the best part of the night in the fields, if the weather is fair; it being strictly according to ancient usage not to partake of the cheer anywhere else."

Stevenson, in The Twelve Moneths, gives the following superstition: "They say, so many dayes old the Moon is on Michaelmass Day, so many Floods after."

At this season, in the west of England, village maidens are wont to go up and down the hedges gathering crab-apples, which they carry home and, putting them into a loft, form therewith the initials of their supposed suitors' names. Those initials which on examination are found to be most perfect on Old Michaelmas Day, are considered to represent the strongest attachments, and the best for marital choice. This custom is said to be of very great antiquity, and much reliance is placed on the aspect and state of decomposition of the crabs.

IN

ST ETHELBURGH'S DAY.

11th of October.

'N Fosbrooke's British Monachism mention occurs, amidst the annual store of provision at Barking Nunnery, of "wheat and milk for Frimité opon St Alburg's Day."

ST SIMON AND ST JUDE'S DAY.

28th of October.

IN and St

́N the Runic calendar St Simon and St Jude's Day was marked

From the following passage in the old play of the Roaring Girls, it appears that St Simon's and St Jude's Day was accounted rainy equally with St Swithin's: "As well as I know 'twill rain upon Simon and Jude's Day." And again: "Now a continual Simon and Jude's rain beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes." And we learn from Holinshed that, in 1536, when a battle was appointed to have been fought upon this day between the king's troops and the rebels in Yorkshire, so great a quantity of rain fell upon the eve thereof, as to prevent the battle from taking place.

About this time it was the custom at Bedford for boys to cry baked pears in the town with the following stanza

VULGARLY HALLE EʼEN, AS ALSO, IN THE NORTH, NUTCRACK NIGHT.

IN

IN the Ancient Calendar of the Church of Rome we find the following observation on the 1st of November

"The feast of Old Fools is removed to this day." *

Hallow Even is the vigil of All Saints Day, which is on the 1st of November.

* It was perhaps afterwards removed to the 1st of April.