Folk Calendar round-up for w/c 28 September 2026

Folklore from the old calendars

Kept once, and some of it still:

• Griggling, Monday, West of England: After the orchards had been picked, farmers left the small apples, called griggles, on the trees for the village boys.
• Half an Apple Goes to the Core, Tuesday: The 1849 edition of Brand prints a rhyme said to be proverbial in Suffolk for Michaelmas and the apple season.
• The Old Mayor’s Geese at Nottingham, Tuesday, Nottingham: Nottingham chose its mayor on Michaelmas Day, and Deering’s History of Nottingham records that the outgoing mayor used to give hot roast geese at his house that morning, before the election of his successor.
• Chopping Sticks and Counting Hobnails, Tuesday, Westminster, London: At Michaelmas the new sheriffs of London went by barge to Westminster to be sworn in at the Court of Exchequer, where the City also paid two ancient quit rents.
• Burying the Mace at Nottingham, Tuesday, St Mary’s Church, Nottingham: On Michaelmas Day, when Nottingham’s new mayor took office, the corporation went in procession to St Mary’s Church.
• The Lawless Hour at Kidderminster, Tuesday, Kidderminster, Worcestershire: When Kidderminster chose its bailiff at Michaelmas, the town-house bell gave the signal for an hour in which the townspeople pelted each other with cabbage stalks in the main streets.
• The Moon and the Michaelmas Floods, Tuesday: An old weather saying held that you could count the floods of the coming season from the moon on Michaelmas Day.
• St Michael’s Sheep in Ireland, Tuesday: Macaulay, quoted by Hone, says that in Ireland every family that could afford it killed a sheep on Michaelmas Day, and part of it had by law to go to the poor.
• St Michael’s Bannock, Tuesday, Western Isles: Martin’s account of the Western Isles, quoted by Hone, says the islanders kept St Michael’s Day with a cavalcade in each parish, and at Kilbar with a turn round the church.
• Goose on Michaelmas Day, Tuesday: Roast goose was the Michaelmas dinner, when stubble geese were at their best, and it was said that whoever ate goose that day would never want money all year.
• Apple-throwing at Kidderminster, Wednesday, Kidderminster, Worcestershire: On the first Monday after Michaelmas, when Kidderminster’s magistrate and officers took office, each of them threw apples to the crowd from their windows or from the town hall, often twenty or thirty baskets in all.
• Brother Salter, Thursday, St Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, London: Under the will of Sir John Salter, who died in 1605, the beadles and servants of the Salters’ Company had to go to St Magnus church by London Bridge in the first week of October.
• The Lawless Court, Thursday, King’s Hill, Rochford, Essex: On the Wednesday after Michaelmas, tenants of the manors around Rochford had to attend a court held on King’s Hill at first cock-crow, in the dark.
• Nottingham Goose Fair, Friday, Nottingham: Nottingham’s great holiday fair was held on 2, 3 and 4 October, straight after Michaelmas.
• Rushes for Dedication Day, Sunday, St Margaret’s, Westminster: An Act of Convocation of 1536 ordered that the feast of the dedication of every church should be kept everywhere on the same day, the first Sunday in October, and the churches’ own saints’ days laid aside.

Find the books: Hone’s Every-Day Book at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Brand’s Popular Antiquities at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Chambers’s Book of Days at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks; Hone’s Table Book at Amazon, Bookshop.org or AbeBooks. (Affiliate links: we may earn a small commission.)