St. Luke’s Little Summer
All my life I’ve heard “Indian summer” used for the warm days that return after the weather turns cold. Recently I came across another name for them: St. Luke’s Little Summer.
It’s an old English name for a spell of mild, sunny weather around St. Luke’s feast day, October 18. It’s a brief return of warmth after the first cool days of autumn, before winter settles in.
For centuries, rural Europeans marked the year by saints’ days rather than calendar dates. These seasonal encores took their names from whichever feast day they fell near. Fine weather around September 29 belonged to St. Michael. A warm spell around November 11 became St. Martin’s Summer, the best known of them all. Shakespeare used the phrase in Henry VI, Part 1: “Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days.” The French call it l’été de la Saint-Martin, and some regions also speak of l’été de la Saint-Denis in early October.
“Halcyon days” goes back even further, to the Greek myth of Alcyone. Each winter the gods calmed the seas so she, transformed into a kingfisher, could nest. “Indian summer” is the American version. It first appears in writing in the late 1700s, and no one is quite sure where the name came from.
People, it seems, have been watching autumn change its mind for a very long time.
I’m rather taken with St. Luke’s Little Summer. There’s something appealing about giving a small stretch of fine weather a name of its own.
Here in Arkansas, of course, returning warmth can overstay its welcome. By October we’ve earned a few cool mornings. We’d like to wear the sweater for more than the first hour of the day.
We’re ready for a proper taste of fall. But if another warm spell comes along, I’ll call it St. Luke’s Little Summer and enjoy it for what it is: a brief encore, with the sweater waiting by the door.
Janis @ Maison Tranquille
Still Curious. Still Growing. Still Grateful.
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