More than a season...autumn is really a state of mind

 


Delicious autumn!

My very soul is wedded to it,

and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth

seeking the successive autumns.

 ~ George Eliot

 

 I love autumn. 
 It has always been my favorite time of the year. 

What's not to like about the autumn? 

Between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice we get...

• My Daughter's Birthday
• Indian Summer
• Apple Cider
• Good Sleeping Weather
• Root Vegetables




• Beautiful Fall Foliage
• The Beginning of Hunting Season
• An Abundant Harvest of Good Things
• Halloween
• Migratory Birds on the Move
• The End of the Mosquito Season
• Thanksgiving


• Sweaters
• Buck and Does on the Move
• Crisp, Cool Nights
• Snuggling under Quilts
• The Hunter's Moon
• The Fall Constellations:  Pegasus, Perseus, and Cassiopea (plus a few more)
• Combines in the Fields and the Sights and Sounds of Harvest
• Crackling Fires -- Inside and Outside
• The Harvest Moon
• Pumpkins
• ...and a Cornucopia of Other Wonderful Things

We seem to start to slow down a bit and we are not all rushing around in the autumn like we are in the summer and in the spring and during the Christmas season. 

 It is warm and cozy and wonderful.  Nothing like putting a fire in the fireplace and curling up with a good book or crocheting or practicing my dulcimer on these kinds of evenings. 

  
I have always preferred the term 'autumn' over the term 'fall'. I have never really thought much about why I have this preference...I just know that I do.  So, of course, being the Google ferret that I am, I started to dig to see if there was anything about the use of the word 'autumn' vs. the use of the word 'fall'.  Here is what I learned:

Autumn has been used since the 14th Century, Fall is much later, during the 17th Century.  At that time, both autumn and fall (often as part of the phrase fall of the leaf) were common in England.  This was the Middle English period. 

After the Revolution, British usage began shifting to the more Latinate term, influenced perhaps by Continental usage (French automne, Spanish otono, Italian autunno) or upper-class striving for refinement. Americans, much less affected by such influences, stuck with their Yankee ancestors' simple and direct term.

John Keats, an Englishman, began his "To Autumn" with the lines,

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun."

By contrast, James Whitcomb Riley's peerless American poem about the season climaxes with

"Oh, it sets my heart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock."

A nation that could produce those lines was bound to opt for the short and bluntly descriptive term over the more cultivated Old World variant. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2001/7/2001_7_22c.shtml

So what did Old English speakers call the season? 





Harvest. 
My very favorite time of year.