November Notebook - The Peaceful Issue
Take a deep breath and let those shoulders drop. Permission to rest.
Hello!
Welcome to quiet season.
November for me has a kind of deep, quiet peace that you only notice when all the noise and fuss of October has burnt itself out in a flurry of pumpkin spice, Halloween and early-autumn excitement. As with many quiet things, November can often be overlooked, but it’s actually a really beautiful month if you approach it in the right way.
November days are short, but that means evenings are long and peaceful. There are crackling bonfires to look forward to, books to read, candles to light and, above all, stories to tell. Because this is a month of story telling. The dark nights are made for it and the folklore of November is pleasingly strange; full of wolves, owls and ancient ghosts that come to life around around a crackling fire.
Who’s ready to gently amble into November with me? We’ll look at three of the best seasonal things, discover what to see and do this month, and end with some excellent November folklore.
3 Things to love about November
Starling Murmurations
Apart from the fact that it’s a really pleasing word to say, a murmuration of starlings is an amazing thing to see. November marks the start of the murmuration season and watching a huge cloud of starlings swoop and turn together against a darkening sky seems fitting during the dark and eerie month of November. Take a look at this article for the best places in the UK to see them.
Woodsmoke
Linked to bonfire night (more of which later), but worthy of its own mention, woodsmoke is a uniquely November-y kind of smell. There’s nothing cosier than being outside at dusk and catching a drift of woodsmoke on the air as you make your way home, with all its associated undertones of cosiness, warmth and fireside contentment. It’s a deeply comforting, and slightly magical, smell that seems to tap into a collective sense of nostalgia that peaks at this time of year.
Peace
November can be a deeply peaceful month. If you look to nature for clues, the next few weeks are all about hunkering down, shedding unnecessary layers and settling into dark season as the colour melts out of the landscape and winter approaches. December is on the horizon, with all its glittering midwinter festivities, but for the next few weeks, a little gap opens up in the year for some much-needed rest.
Things to do in November
Feeling suitably November-y yet? I hope so. Right, here’s your list of things to do, see and eat this month:
1. Listen out for Owls
If you need a way to feel better about the dark afternoons in November, did you know this is the perfect time of year to hear owls? At this time of year you are most likely to hear Tawny Owls as you walk home at dusk, as this is when they start to look for a mate and establish territories.
This is also an opportunity for me to tell my all time favourite owl story about two neighbours in Devon who spent a year unknowingly hooting at each other over their shared garden fence. Each thought the other one was an owl answering their call. They did this for an entire year. I think about this a lot.
2. Remember, Remember the 5th November
Bonfire night is a November institution in the UK. But why are we all so keen to celebrate a failed attempt to set the Palace of Westminster alight over 400 years ago? The timing of bonfire night (5th November) in the UK roughly lines up with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain on November 1st, which was a time for lighting fires to mark the start of winter. So if you ask me, our enduring love of this festival probably has less to do with Guy Fawkes and more to do with a deeply-rooted need to gather around a big fire at a time when the dark nights are drawing in.
(To anyone reading this outside the UK, Remember, Remember the 5th November is a really creepy nursery rhyme about the gunpowder plot that we all learnt as kids and is annoyingly difficult to get out of your head once you’ve heard it, but it means we all remember Bonfire Night without fail.)
3. Make Soul Cakes and Suffolk Cakes
This is a month with not one but two cakes recipes in it.
2nd November is traditionally the date to make Soul Cakes. I talked about these in my last post on Ancient and Peaceful Halloween Traditions. Scroll to the bottom of this post for a recipe.
20th November is traditionally the date to make Suffolk Cakes. These are an East Anglian tradition to celebrate the very strange story of our first ever Patron Saint of England (and King of East Anglia), St Edmund. Scroll down to the end to read the story and get the recipe.
4. Embrace books and Dark Academia
There’s just something about this month that suits books, storytelling and dark academia. The concept of ‘dark academia’ is a new one for me, but oh the sense of recognition when I stumbled across it.
According to the New York Times, dark academia is “a subculture with a heavy emphasis on reading, writing, learning — and a look best described as traditional-academic-with-a-gothic-edge; think slubby brown cardigans, vintage tweed pants, a worn leather satchel full of a stack of books”. Have you ever heard anything more November-y? Give me a gothic library and a satchel full of books this month and I’ll ask for nothing more.
Folklore
This month there are folklore dates for formally closing the harvest, dates for eating buns, and rhymes for predicting the severity of the winter ahead.
1. Leave your fields for the fairy folk
According to Celtic folklore, all the harvest must be gathered in by the 1st November. Anything left in the field after this date belongs to the fairy folk and shouldn’t be touched.
2. Celebrate St Edmund’s Day with a Suffolk Bun
Forget St. George, did you know the original Patron Saint of England was actually St Edmund? (I hadn’t heard of him either. Don’t know what they taught us at school in the 90s). He was the King of East Anglia in the 800’s until his death at the hands of the famous Danish Viking invader Ivar the Boneless. According to folklore, when he refused to renounce his faith, he was tied to a tree, shot with arrows and beheaded. His head was later found and protected by a wolf who howled (in Latin, no less) to allow the English army to find and retrieve it, upon which he was declared a Saint.
Sounds far fetched? His legacy is very much alive today - the town where he was buried was renamed Bury St Edmunds in his honour (see what they did there?) and to this day, their official town coat of arms features a wolf guarding the crowned head of a king.
But what does this have to do with buns you ask? Well, many centuries later, someone had the bright idea of linking this gory story with the much more pleasant tradition of eating buns. It’s a big leap but I’m glad someone made it. The St Edmund Suffolk Bun was invented and they were baked each year on the day of his death, 20th November (St Edmunds Day). In fact they are still given out in churches and schools in Suffolk to this day. Want to make one? Here’s a recipe to try.
3. Use ducks to predict the weather
Finally, according to weatherlore, St.Martins Day (November 11th) was traditionally the day you could predict the severity of the coming winter based on whether a duck could walk across a frozen pond, or not. Here are three common variations of the rhyme.
If there’s ice in November that will bear a duck, there’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck.
“If the ice on St.Martin’s Day will bear a duck, there will be none that will bear a goose all winter.” (not quite as catchy)
Ice in November brings mud in December. (more straightforward, but no ducks)
Ok, that’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed your November newsletter and I hope you have a wonderful month filled with owl sightings, sure-footed ducks and spiced cakes.
I’ll see you next month for a December edition of the Monthly Notebook. We’ll be diving into Midwinter magic, Solstice traditions and Winter sun rituals. I’ll add a sprinkling of weird and wonderful folklore for you too. Look forward to seeing you there. If you haven’t already Subscribed then just click below to make sure that post arrives safely in your inbox.
Vicky xx
Thank you! Lovely to know you also appreciate the energy of this month. Happy November to you! ☺️
What a gorgeous post, loved it! I also found dark acedemia this year and have become obsessed. Its got everything I love! 😁