“September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.”
–   Alexander Theroux, 1981

Yesterday, the 23rd September, was the equinox – the official start of autumn. In days of old, today was the traditional time to bring in the harvest. The hedgerows are laden with the fruits of autumn and there is still time to pick sloes – unless you are a purist and want to want until after the first frosts. Blackberries are almost over – picked by families who enjoy foraging. I can never resist shiny new horse chestnuts. Sadly today’s over protective society frowns on the ancient game of conkers. I recall my late brother John using our Dad’s bradawl to bore a hole into his best conker before threading it onto  a knotted storing and sallying forth to take on his friends’ conkers in a “battle”. I never ever remember John complaining of being hit by a mis-aimed conker – his bruises and nose-bleeds came from fist fights. Never understood that either. The skirmishes with his friends were more about rough and tumble than actual animosity.

Wikipedia has this story about autumn: Calling the Mare

As the last of the crops are gathered in, there used to be a lovely ceremony called ‘Calling the Mare‘. The farmers all wanted to prove that they had the best reapers, so they tried to gather in the last of their crops before the neighbouring farmer did. The last sheaf of the harvest was used to make a rough mare shape and it was quickly sent round to any farmers who had not finished gathering his crops. It was a way of saying to the farmer that wild horses would be after his crops, if he didn’t gather them in quickly. The men would run round to the neighbouring farm, throw the mare over the hedge into the field where the other farmer was working, and they would shout ‘Mare, Mare’ and then run away. The farmer, who received the mare, would then have to work quickly to see if he could finish before another farm did, then he would throw the mare to them. The farmer who was last to finish had to keep the mare all year and have it on display so that everyone knew he had been the slowest farmer of that year.

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