Chambers's Book of Days

Robert Chambers, The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar (2 vols, 1862-1864).

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Two volumes, 1862 to 1864. Facsimile reprints are easy to find, and original sets turn up second-hand.

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226 to 250 of 439 entries

1 June, not tied to the day

Folklore from the old calendars

Catching fern seed Lore and belief EnglandBecause the seed of the fern is too small to see, people reasoned that whoever held it would become invisible.
Midsummer men Lore and belief EnglandOn Midsummer Eve girls set sprigs of orpine in clay on a slate or potsherd and called them Midsummer men.
St John’s Eve fires in Ireland Still kept IrelandDonald McQueen of Skye told of seeing the Irish St John's Eve fires in 1782.
The Marching Watch No longer kept LondonIn medieval London a watch of at least two thousand men paraded the city on Midsummer Eve and again on the eves of St Peter and St Paul.
The masons at Melrose No longer kept RoxburghshireSt John's Eve was a great day for the masonic lodges of Scotland, and Chambers took Melrose as the example, quoting a local history of 1861.
The Midsummer rose Lore and belief EnglandAmong the Midsummer Eve charms that a girl in the Connoisseur owned to trying was the rose.
The Midsummer watch at Nottingham No longer kept NottinghamshireUntil the reign of Charles I every householder of means in Nottingham sent a man, armed with pike, musket or halberd, to keep a general watch on Midsummer Eve.
The soul’s ramble on St John’s Eve Lore and belief IrelandChambers records the Irish belief that on St John's Eve every person's soul leaves the body and travels to the place where it will finally part from it in death.