"Michaelmas Day" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on Michaelmas Day, and lasts all the month of October, by which time the herrings draw off to sea, shoot their spawn, and are no more fit for the merchant's business—at least, not ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... one thinks, looks with a watery eye; and when she weeps, weeps every little flower'; 'Upon the corner of the moon there hangs a vaporous drop profound'; and so forth. Then we have the old proverb: 'So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after.' Other beliefs are mentioned by Mr. Harley, such as, that if Christmas comes during a waning moon, we shall have a good year, and the converse; that new moon on Monday is a certain sign of good weather; that a ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... nor me. But, as I'm saying, I'd niver a chance; for our pig, as I were sa fond on, and fed mysel', and as would ha' been fourteen stone by now if he were an ounce, and as knew me as well as any Christian, and a pig, as I may say, that I just idolized, went and took a fit a week after Michaelmas Day, and died, as if it had been to spite me; and t' next is na' ready for killing, nor wunnot be this six week. So I'm much beholden to your missus, and so's Charley, I'm sure; though he's ta'en a turn to betterin' sin' he came out here ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had resolved to pass in solitude and fasting having terminated on Michaelmas Day, this new man, whom perfect love had transformed by a lively resemblance into Him whom he loved, descended from the mountain, carrying with him the image of Jesus Christ crucified, not modelled by the hand of a workman on wood ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... judgement and sentence given upon Sir JOHN OLDCASTLE Knight and Lord of COBHAM, the Monday [September 25th] next before Michaelmas Day, at the Friar Preachers's [the Dominican Friary within Ludgate] in London, in the year of our Lord, a thousand, four ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... too, a good few times, walking round first on her husband's arm, and afterwards on other people's; and some of the boys said they had seen her sitting with a redcoat up among the juniper-bushes. 'Twas Michaelmas Eve before they moved the camp, and 'twas a sorry goose was eat that Michaelmas Day at Wydcombe Farm; for when the soldiers went, Sophia went too, and left Michael and the farm and the children, and never said good-bye to anyone, not even to the baby in the cot. 'Twas said she ran off with a sergeant, but no one rightly ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... relief to Mrs. Trevennack's mind when, after one or two alterations, she knew the third was finally fixed upon. She had good reasons of her own for wishing it to be early; for the twenty- ninth is Michaelmas Day, and it was always with difficulty that her husband could be prevented from breaking out before the eyes of the world on that namesake feast of St. Michael and All Angels. For, on that sacred day, when in every Church ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... and nine men in ten will tell you, if you ask them the reason why goose is always eaten on the 29th Sept., Michaelmas Day, that Queen Elizabeth was eating goose when the news of the destruction of the Invincible Armada was brought, and she immediately put down her knife and fork, and said, "From this day forth let all British-born subjects eat goose on ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... maintained at times of service. Under him were four Vergers (wand-bearers), who enforced the Sacrist's rules, and took care that bad characters were not harboured in the church, and that burden-bearers were kept out. We have seen that these duties fell largely into abeyance at certain times. Every Michaelmas Day the Verger appeared before the Dean to give up his wand, and to receive it back if his character was satisfactory. The Verger was bound to be a bachelor, because, said the statute, "having a wife is a troublesome ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... England and Ireland Lady Day, 25th March; Midsummer Day, 24th June; Michaelmas Day, 29th September; and Christmas Day, 25th December; while in Scotland the legal terms are Whitsunday, 15th May, and Martinmas, 11th November, though the Whitsunday term is now ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... such great abundance in the river, that some of the fishermen (contrary to God's law and their own order) took boats and nets and fished, and caught near three hundred salmons; but from that time until Michaelmas day that I was there, which was nine weeks, and heard the report of it, and saw the poor people's miserable lamentations, they had not seen one salmon in the river; and some of them were in despair that they should never see any more there; affirming ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas Day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning; at first there was a vast fog, but, by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... will do me very little good. I don't know how the devil this has come about, or how this love I have for him got in; I such a young girl, and he such a mere boy; for I verily believe we are both of an age, and I am not sixteen yet; for I will be sixteen Michaelmas Day, next, my father says." ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... costiveness.' According to an old English fancy, if any one who is suffering from a wound in the head should eat strawberries it will lead to fatal results. In the South of England the folk say that the devil puts his cloven foot upon the blackberries on Michaelmas Day, and hence none should be gathered or eaten after that day. On the other hand, in Scotland the peasants say that the devil throws his cloak over the blackberries and makes them unwholesome after that day, while in Ireland he is said to stamp on the berries. Even that ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... time, and up to our day, the title and dignity of "Father of English prose" has been borne by Sir John Mandeville, of St. Albans, knight, who, "in the name of God glorious," left his country in the year of grace 1322, on Michaelmas Day, and returned to Europe after an absence of thirty-four years, twice as long as Robinson Crusoe remained ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Friday night. Michaelmas Day. Hotel Pay Bas, Rotterdam.—Back again! and to-morrow at 8.15 a. m. we go back to dear old Antwerp. For the solemn fact has made itself apparent, that the money will not hold out till to-morrow ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... then we must get paternal consent, Or an unblest match may vex ye"— "Her father is dead; I fetched him away. In the midst of his goose, last Michaelmas day— He died of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb |
