{"id":104,"date":"2007-10-05T10:06:27","date_gmt":"2007-10-05T10:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/?p=104"},"modified":"2018-01-15T12:30:39","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T12:30:39","slug":"michaelmas-and-october-goose-or-goosey-fairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/?p=104","title":{"rendered":"Michaelmas and October Goose (or Goosey) fairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"miniature
\u00a9 F H Powell 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOK so we don’t yet have a knitted goose toy, but we can offer miniature knitted ducks!<\/p>\n

These annual fairs now take place in various parts of England at the end of September and in the first half of October. Many can date their origins back to the 12th century, such as the Goose Fair in Nottingham and the Goosey Fair in Tavistock, Devon. <\/p>\n

Traditionally these fairs were set up for farmers who used to bring their geese, which were driven through the streets to the fair, where they were sold. The geese could be walked in to the fairs from the surrounding counties and sold at the fair which could last a week or more in days gone by. The Nottingham Goose Fair was originally held on St Matthews Day (21st September) but moved to early October in 1752.<\/p>\n

Roast goose was the traditional meal served at Michaelmas (The feast of St Michael on 29th September), so goose fairs grew up around this time in areas were geese were traditionally bred. <\/p>\n

Michaelmas was also one of the traditional times for hiring farm labourers, so many other English towns were granted charters to hold a Michaelmas Fair in late September\/early October. Details of a Georgian Hiring Fair can be found on the Georgian Index<\/a><\/p>\n

Today geese and farm labourers are no longer found at these fairs, but many towns have fairground rides and market stalls.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK so we don’t yet have a knitted goose toy, but we can…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british-customs-and-traditions","tag-traditions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/toyducks2.jpg?fit=912%2C516","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Q29Z-1G","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14323,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/14323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/store.buttercupminiatures.co.uk\/newsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}