Michaelmas

Today is the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, traditionally known in England as Michaelmas. This is a feast which has marked the beginning of autumn and of the new academic year in universities, as well as the end of the summer holidays (and the beginning of the grim long winter's nights...). There is also as far as I'm aware a superstition that it is bad luck to pick blackberries after this feast. If this is true, it does not bode well for me, as I have yet to harvest the considerable crop that appears in Birmingham for jam and puddings!

Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis,
satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude.
Amen.