(St. Swithin's Day is July 15th, and St. Bartlemy's Day Aug. 24th.)
SEPTEMBER
September takes its name from the Latin word, septem, meaning seven. It was the seventh month of the year as long as March was constituted the first month. The Saxons named it Gerst Monat, or barley month, because they reaped the barley then.
Sayings regarding the month:—
(a) If it be fair on the First, it will be fair all the month.
(b) A wet June makes a dry September.
(c) September blow soft,
Until the fruit is in the loft.
(d) If Matthew's Day (Sept. 21st) is bright and clear
There will be good wine in the coming year.
(e) If the hart and the hind meet dry and part dry on Rood Day
Fair (Sept. 14th), for six weeks there will be no more rain.
(f) If on September 19th there is a storm from the south, a mild
winter is certain.
(g) If it does not rain on St. Michael's (Sept. 29th) and Gallus
(Oct. 16th), a dry spring is certain for the coming year.
(h) If St. Michael's (Sept. 29th) brings many acorns, Christmas will
cover the fields with snow.
(i) So many days old the moon on Michaelmas Day (Sept. 29th), so
many floods after.
(j) Michaelmas chickens and parsons' daughters never come to good.
OCTOBER
October is so called from being the eighth month in the old Latin calendar.
ALL HALLOW E'EN.—Hallow E'en, the vigil of All Saints' Day, was wont to be a season of merry gathering and quaint observances, especially where lovers were concerned. It is still kept up with great success in Scotland. Propitious omens were sought. Nuts, for instance, were burnt in pairs. If they lay still and burned together, it meant a happy marriage, but if they flew apart, the lovers would not live in harmony. All sorts of charms were practised. Girls pared apples and sought to discern an initial in the shape the peel assumed. The apple had to be peeled in one strip without any break, and the whole strip was then thrown over the left shoulder. Also, they stuck an apple pip on each cheek, and that which fell off first indicated that the love of him whose name it bore was unsound.
The customs varied with the locality, but many of them were not unlike the rites of St. Valentine's Day. Burns's poem enshrined most of the Scottish practices, such as throwing a ball of blue yarn into a kiln, winding it in a new one off the old, and, as the end was approached, the maiden enquired, "Who holds?" and a voice from the kiln-pot gave her the name of her future spouse.