Birds of a Feather Hate Fall

Fall is officially here! And if you were a young gentleman in nineteenth century England, you knew exactly how you intended to spend it. Ladies might have their Seasons in London, with shopping and balls and similar folderol, but any young man worth his salt knew that September marked the heart of shooting season.

Yes, shooting season. A gentleman shot birds and hare, and hunted fox. And they could hardly wait for the Season to be over so they could start! The Game Act of 1831 allowed for some shooting starting on August 12 (or 13, if the 12th was a Sunday). But by the first of October, black grouse, red grouse, ducks, pheasant, partridge, bustard, and woodcock were all in season. (Bustard was a new one for me; I had to look it up. But then I learned why the name wasn’t familiar from my previous research. The last bustard in England was apparently killed in a shoot in 1832!)

During the early part of the century, it was common for a gentleman and a few friends to set off in the morning with a well-trained dog running alongside and see if they could hunt up a few pheasant or partridge to bring home for dinner. The crisp fall air, the manly companionship, guns that belched smoke and made a loud BANG—ah, what more could a fellow ask! As the century wore on, however, shooting parties grew in size and length. Friends traveled for miles to reach your grouse moor (an estate in Scotland) or country estate and might spend a fortnight with you, partying inside between rounds of shooting outside. Ladies even came out at luncheon for picnics while the men boasted of their achievements. Wealthy lords hired beaters to chase the game toward a row of their fellow guests holding guns and even draped nets in the air to keep the birds from getting away. After everyone had finished pulling the trigger, repeatedly, other hired help called pickers-up rushed out to clean up the carcasses.

The numbers shot were staggering. According to some accounts, a single marksman could bag as many as 2,500 birds in a fortnight’s shooting party. One enterprising gentleman is said to have shot more than 300,000 birds over his 33-year career. Small wonder there are no more bustards in England!

The gentlemen shooters must have realized they were having an impact as well, for more and more of them began actively stocking and breeding gamebirds like pheasants and duck on their estates. Estate managers made sure to keep wooded areas healthy for the birds, and gamekeepers went out of their way to exterminate any predators, like fox and magpies, that might harm the young birds. All this effort helped the shooting party maintain a hold on English society well into the twentieth century.

But if I was a bird, I’d hate fall!

Michaelmas

If you’ve read much historical fiction set in Great Britain, you may have run across the word Michaelmas—there’s Michaelmas term at Oxford and Cambridge (and Eton, for that matter), and Michaelmas fairs, and Michaelmas geese…so just what is Michaelmas?

Michaelmas, celebrated on September 29, is the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, Captain of the Heavenly Host, who in the New Testament was responsible for booting Lucifer out of Heaven. St. Michael is the patron saint of soldiers, for obvious reasons.

His feast day became significant for several reasons—St. Michael an important figure in the heavenly hierarchy of the old (Roman Catholic) faith that was observed in England till the Reformation. But timing is also important here: his feast day here at the end of September more or less coincides with the autumnal equinox, the end of summer and beginning of fall and the three-quarter point of the year, and so became a Quarter Day, when rents and other quarterly payments were due. In case you were wondering, the others were Christmas Day on December 25, Lady Day (also known as the Feast of the Annunciation) on March 25, and St. John’s Day on June 24.

Several other autumn-related phenomenon eventually took on the Michaelmas name. Geese were often fattened on the leftover stalks in the field after the grain had been harvested, then driven to fairs to be sold before winter set in, so a “stubble” goose was a common Michaelmas dish. It was also common for farm laborers to seek new masters at those same post-harvest autumn fairs. And the start of the autumn term in both school (Oxford and Cambridge, as mentioned above) and the court system borrowed their name from St. Michael’s feast day. Fall-blooming asters are sometimes known as Michaelmas daisies.

And then there are blackberries. According to legend, it is very unlucky to eat blackberries after Michaelmas Day, because when Lucifer was cast from heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush…and supposedly returns each year on his nemesis’s feast day to curse and spit upon them!

And just in case you thought we’d forgotten…the winner of a copy of M.J. Putney’s new release, Dark Passage, drawn from last week's commenters, is Mirka Breen! Mirka, please email me via the contact form on my website so I can get your mailing address. And thanks, everyone, for welcoming M.J. last week. We'll be having another author guest next month, so stayed tuned!

Warm Thanks and Warm Drinks

Thank you so much for all your good wishes on the paperback release of Betraying Season and its recognition in the Heart of Denver Aspen Gold contest. As a small bit of further good news, I’m pleased to report that it is also now available as an e-book in multiple formats, including for the Kindle. Am I the only one struck by the delicious incongruity of reading about the 19th century on an e-reader?

Two commenters from last week are the winners of a copy of the paperback edition…so would Swallow-inthe-Cloud and Ettie be so kind as to e-mail me here so that we can arrange for you to receive your copies? And thank you, everyone, for entering!

Well, autumn certainly arrived with a vengeance this week in New England, with wind and rain and cooler temperatures and me once more wearing socks (aren't they pretty?) and ordering my coffee hot rather than iced from my favorite local coffee shop. Sniffing my Pumpkin Spice coffee yesterday sent me scurrying (once I got home) to my cookbook collection to find what kind of warm drinks a young lady might have enjoyed on a chilly October day two hundred years ago.

Coffee (though not Pumpkin Spice flavored), tea, and chocolate were all drinks enjoyed in the 19th century…but I found lots of others, enough to come to the conclusion that they knew a thing or two about warm drinks that maybe we don’t. Most of them seem to involve alcohol in one form or another, but I managed to find a few that don’t. These actually date to the 16th century...enjoy!

Spicy Pomegranate Drink

1 ½ cups water
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
4 whole cloves
½ unblemished lemon
1 quart pomegranate juice

In a large enamel pot combine the water, sugar, and all spices. Bring to boil and gently simmer for seven minutes. Remove the cloves.

Finely grate the peel from the lemon and set it aside. Squeeze the juice from the lemon.

Add the pomegranate and lemon juices to the hot water mixture. Bring to a slow boil, then simmer two minutes. Serve warm with a garnish of lemon peel in each glass. Can also be drunk cold.

Mulled Apple or Pear Cider

2 quarts fresh apple cider or pear juice
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon ginger powder
7 sticks of cinnamon
1 tablespoon finely crushed basil (for garnish)

In a large enamel pot, gently simmer the juice with the spices for seven minutes. Break the cinnamon sticks and put a piece in each cup. Pour in warmed cider, and sprinkle the basil sparingly on each.

Do you have any (non-alcoholic) hot beverage recipes you'd like to share?