March

 

 

 

1st

Beginning of Mulligrubs (see Old Cheshire Dialect), a time when Little Folk are restricted in the amount of food they eat. This is because generally food stores are by now running low, before the arrival of Spring. Mulligrubs is an old Cheshire word for tummyache!

Little Folk also gather at Four Winds on this day to ask the cold, dry March wind to stay away until the spring shoots are strong.

 

 

17th

Buggle Day: Any folk who grow crops or have even a little vegetable garden, or "kail-yard", tend a small patch of their ground on this day. They sow and tend it, hoping to bring good luck to the rest of their land. For the Moles of Cornfield this is a particularly special day, because it is the corn from this small patch which is used to make the following year's wheelbread.

(Wheelbread is a round loaf, clipped around the edge to resemble the sun, and decorated on the opposite side with a winter tree. At the beginning of Spring the wheelbread is rolled down a hill and, depending on whether it lands sunny side up, or on the side with a bare-branched tree, Little Folk will expect either a prosperous or a difficult year ahead. When Spring is in full swing, other folk also observe this custom by making smaller versions called Buggle-cakes.)

 

21st

Spring or Vernal equinox. Folk celebrate the lengthening and brightening of days.

 

30th

The Affrodile or Daffodil Ceilidh is held today. A barn dance is held on the Coppice in one of the Coppice folk's roundhouses, which is decked out by all with bright daffodils. Folk share some of their remaining food stores. This Ceilidh cheers folk up during Mulligrubs!