A Spell for Sharing

26th September 2026

"every family... at least of the ordinary sort of people, kill a sheep, and bestow the greatest part of it upon relieving the poor." - Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland, summarised in the Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society

The twenty ninth of September falls three days after this one lands, and the harvest is in by then in most places that do that sort of thing, which puts us (energetically if not agriculturally) at the point in the year where you can see what ya actually have. 

Counting it properly is the part most people do be skipping though, because once the final tally figure is in front of you, you have to decide what stays to be stored and used... and what goes out the door.

Kevin Danaher is straight about the date itself when he writes about it, that 29th Sept is Michaelmas but that carried no particular weight under the older Irish reckoning, and took its place in the calendar from the Anglo Normans and their legal customs, so the peg we'd be working with for this date is a borrowed one. Nonetheless, it's an established part of the folk tradition by now, so we'll carry on with it here.

What people hung on it was their own, though, and part of the living tradition of Irish witchcraft and folk magic... since the day is recorded as the goose harvest, with the women who kept large flocks making presents of geese to friends and to poor families, and Keating describing a sheep killed in the ordinary household with the greater part of it given away.

So let's do a portioning/ sharing spell, shall we?

Note: Free Tier Spells Sent 1st Sat Each Month, and Available in the Archive!