*Ø* Blogmanac | No .... vember!



No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon –
No dawn – no dusk - no proper time of day ...
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, –
November!
Thomas Hood, English poet, 1799-1845, No!

If on All Saints’ Day the beech nut is dry, we shall have a hard winter; but if the nut be wet and not light, we may expect a wet winter.
English traditional proverb

If All Saints’ Day will bring out the winter, St Martin’s Day will bring out Indian summer.
American traditional proverb

On All Saints day hard is the grain,
The leaves are dropping, the puddle is full;
At setting off in the morning
Woe to him that will trust a stranger ...
All Saints day, a time of pleasant gossiping,
The gale and the storm keep equal pace,
It is the labour of falsehood to keep a secret ...
On All Saints day the stags are lean,
Yellow are the tops of birch; deserted is the summer dwelling.
Woe to him who for a trifle deserves a curse.
From the Heroic Elegies of Llywarch Hên (6th Century Welsh), translated by Dr W Owen Pughe, 1792

Third Station of the Year (Pagan)
The Isia, ancient Egypt, (Oct 28-Nov 3)
Kalends of November, ancient Rome
El Día de los Muertos, Mexico (Day of the Dead)

Bamboches for guédé mystères: the dead who come out of the cemeteries, possess their ‘horses’, and come into the oum´phors to amuse themselves in the form of souls incarnated or reincarnated, Voudon (Voodoo) (Nov 1, 2)

November
(Lat. novem, nine). It was the ninth month in the ancient Roman calendar, when the year began in March. The old Dutch name was Slaghtmaand (slaughter-month, the time when the beasts were killed and salted down for winter use); the old Saxon Wind-monath (wind-month, when the fishermen took their boats ashore, and put aside fishing till the next spring); it was also called Blot-monath – the same as Slaghtmaand. In the French Republican Calendar it was called Brumaire (fog-month, 23 October to 21 November).

Saxons called it blot-monath, meaning blood month, because they killed cattle for Winter store; the name might also have referred to human sacrifice.

Frankish name: Herbistmanoth, or harvest (of animals) month. Asatru: Fogmoon. American backwoods: Beaver Moon.

Almost the whole month coincides with the goddess-calendar month of Samhain (pronounced sow-ain), the feminine personification of the Nove. She is an aspect of the Cailleach (veiled woman).