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NOVEMBER- MONTH OF THE CRONE
By Anna Franklin
The name of the month is derived from novem, the Latin word for nine, as November was the ninth month in Rome’s oldest calendar.
The beginning of November is All Saints’ Day in the Christian calendar. It was customarily a day for practical jokes, hiding farm implements, letting animals out of their pens, and blocking chimneys, Soul-caking was traditional, going from door to door asking for money or food in return for a song, originally to pay for prayers for the dead. Every house had to make a quantity of soul cakes to give to each visitor.
Some of these cakes were kept for many years, and thought to be lucky. The tradition may derive from the practice of putting food out for the dead.
The day of the dead is celebrated on this date in Latin America and Spain, with offerings of food to honour the spirits of deceased loved ones.
A festival known as Reign of the Old Woman or Cailleach is celebrated on this day in honour of the ancient Celtic crone-goddess. She was another form of the Irish Scathach and the Norse Skadi. Medieval legend turned her into the Black Queen of a western paradise.
Romans honoured the goddess of fruit trees, orchards, and all fruit bearing plants with a festival called the Pomonia (feast of Pomonia), which marked the end of the growing season.
Bonfire night on 5th November, ostensibly celebrates the foiling of Guy Fawkes plot to blow up the houses of Parliament, but probably dates back to the Samhain fires. At Lewes in Sussex an image of the pope is burned, while at Ottery St Mary blazing tar barrels are carried through the streets by brave men, signifying the driving out of evil. It is said that this day is the festival of Thor.
On 11th of November is Martinmas Day or Old Samhain Eve. This day of St Martin, a forth century saint, but the fact it is old Samhain Eve may better explain all the ghostly appearances, fairies and divinations associated with it. According to legend, on this day Lyonesse sank the land of Arthur’s birth. The Horseman’s word ceremony took place on Matinmass, when horsemen were initiated into the mysterious horsemen’s society. Cattle were sacrificed.
On 12th of November is Hollantide or Old Samhain, a special day on the Isle of Man when the frightful Hogmen fairies move home.
Children carry turnip lanterns in procession and sing anti-witch charms.
THOUGHTS FOR NOVEMBER
By Ron Fox
Hi Folks,
November’s has arrived, the trees have lost their leaves and our gardens, woods and parks are covered in a carpet of colour. The cold bites a little deeper and work the land comes to an end. The old rhyme states; as November takes flail let no ships sail. November was the ninth month of the old Roman year with the 11th mark-posting the beginning of winter. The Anglo Saxons calling it Blot-monath’, (Blood month)
Because in the past it was customary at this time of year to slaughter any livestock that could not be fed through the coming winter, their meat salted and preserved for the baron months ahead.
Around this time we celebrate the festival of Shamhain, (summers end) it’s modern day name of Halloween derived from the word Hallow or holy. It was traditional to make and share soul cakes for this festival; here’s old Shropshire souling song for you.
Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your keys,
Go down to the cellar and draw what you please,
Soul, soul, for an apple or two,
If you have no apples, pears will do.
It is a time when the ancestors and family members that have passed away were invited to return to this world to be with family and friends; a pivotal point between summer and winter when the gates of the spirit realm swing open allowing them to cross over more freely.
As we move further into the dark half of the year and Samhain we return to the use of lanterns for light and the lighting of bonfires for purification, celebration and ritual. In the past candles and lanterns were also to guide the ancestor’s home or frighten away harmful spirits on the eve of Samhain. It’s a time when our starlings flock together heralding the beginning of their journey away from our shores with some choosing to stay. This serves as a good reminder to start feeding our garden birds on a more regular basis as the winter makes it harder for them to find the food they need.
Bird seed nuts and fruit are very good, bread has very little nutritional value any birds relying on this can end up doing very poorly or even die from a lack of nutrition.
Many have tided up and closed down their gardens until the return of spring but please remember to keep your local wildlife fed when ever possible.
Many leaves, seeds and fruit drop to the ground to be collected or left to return to the earth as nutrition for the diverse amount of wildlife still foraging. Mushrooms and toadstools show in abundance, nature’s way of providing the last of the food born of the mothers’ womb, but be carful of what you pick and eat, not all are there to sustain life, some may kill, make you very ill or even take you into the land of fey.
On a brighter note, it’s also a time to listen out for the Song Thrush; it lifts the heart within winter’s cold dark time with the promise of things to come.
Here is a lovely poem by Edmond Holms that serves to remind me that not all in winter is cold and baron but the place from where all life springs eternal.
Like as the thrush in winter, when skies are drear and dark, and all the woods are bare,
Sings undismayed, till from his melodies odours of spring float through the frozen air, so in my heart when sorrows icy breath is bleak and bitter and its frost is strong:
Leaps up, defiant of despair and death, a sunlight fountain of triumphant song.
Sing on sweet singer till violets come and south winds blow, sing on prophetic bird!
O if my lips, which are forever dumb, could sing to men what my sad heart has heard
Life’s darkest hour with songs of joy would ring; Life’s blackest frost would blossom into spring.
About this time our hedgehogs and many other types of wildlife search for a place to hibernate, some of these include dormice, ladybirds, butterflies moths and others, so a few words on this subject might be of interest or of help to our wandering garden pest controllers.
There are many natural and unnatural hazards that deplete hedgehog numbers, most dying before they reach the age of one year old, their largest killer is a lack of sufficient fat reserves, a minimum of 600grams needed to safely get them through their hibernation, this along with a strong warm nest situated in a safe place.
In this country the badger is one of the hedgehog’s greatest natural predators in winter having the ability to sniff out hibernating hedgehogs and uncurl them to get at their soft unprotected underside, other predators include the Fox, Mink, and birds of prey.
As if this wasn’t enough to contend with there are also many other man made hazards waiting to take there toll on their numbers.
I’m sure many of you are aware of the damage roads and cattle grids do but there are other things that kill or injure our hedgehogs some we can watch out for.
Items such as left over garden netting, household drains with no grills, and sunken dog loos with their covers left off. If you have a pond it’s always a good idea to make sure there is a way for hedgehogs or other wildlife to climb out should they fall in. Hedgehog’s often make their winter nests in unlit bonfires and compost heaps, so check carefully before setting them alight or pushing in your garden fork.
In recent years there has been a large increase in injuries related to the use of garden strimers. Hedgehog’s will more often rollup into to a ball rather than run away when threatened, so check your long grass, weed beds and wood piles before starting any final striming in these areas.
Let’s not slip into too much doom and gloom but move onto some of their unusual habits behaviour and diet.
There are many folk stories telling of hedgehogs eating fruit or taking it away attached to there spines. Although they do eat small amounts of fruit it’s more likely that they are drawn by the smell as it rots on the ground. This they use for self anointing, just as dogs and other animals roll about in all sorts of smelly things to attach or deposit a sent, hedgehogs also self anoint by repeatedly licking the fruit, while doing this producing large amounts of saliva. This in turn is flicked over their spines as they twist and writhe until most if not all of their coat has been anointed. This type of behaviour may last for a few minutes or even hours. When engaging in this anointing ritual allsorts of debris including fallen fruit attaches it’s self to their spines so giveing rise to the folk lore of them carrying off the fruit on their backs.
In the main hedgehogs are insectivores eating mainly a natural diet of insects, these varying from beetles to caterpillars, they have been known to eat dead bees, but there diet also includes butterflies, moths, larvae, earwigs, slugs, and snails with some learning to roll a slug backwards to remove it’s slime to stop it sticking to there mouth and feet; the list is long and also includes earthworms, millipedes, spiders, flies, woodlice, ant’s small vertebrates, and birds eggs.
Old tales tell of witches turning themselves into hedgehogs to suck the local cows dry of milk, although a starving or adolescent hedgehog might lick a dribble that has fell to ground because the cows udder was over full, these beliefs are only tales.
In centuries past many farmers and their workers would kill a hedgehog on sight, a cow drying up or giving bloody milk seen as testament to their misguided beliefs. Early documented records show that these ideas were believed to have substance becoming official policy around the Tudor era but most likely existing well before this. A report in the church warden’s accounts of Ecclesfield in 1851 states that regular payments were made for dead vermin; this included hedgehogs.
Sadly these folk tales and beliefs continued to persist in many parts well into the twentieth centaury.
A hedgehog’s digestive system is unable to cope with large amounts of milk and as a result can harm or kill them if given too much.
Many people often come across hedgehogs in there gardens about this time as they search for the last of any food before they hibernate. Some kindly people unknowingly put out a plate of bread and milk; this possibly a remnant form of supplication from times past in the belief that witches or fairies would take the offering and leave the cows and them alone.
Please do not give them milk, but instead in mild winters if you see them leave out a little dog or cat meat and a bowl of water.
There is a great deal of folk lore associated with hedgehogs, weather prediction, healing, familiars, and more, one little known fact is that the spines of a hedgehog are a form of modified hair.
Their colouring going from natural, to albino with red eyes, white with black eyes, blond, golden or black, black being rarer than the white.
Although these colours are unusual or extreme and not the norm, it gives a good indication of what the spines truly are, modified hair.
November is a time when we celebrate Samhain, a time when those of the otherworld are more present in our minds and attention so it seemed appropriate to give a few thoughts aimed towards our hedgehog’s welfare as they too move into hibernation and the underworld, here to rest and sleep until spring returns once more.
Blessing, Ron Fox.
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