Michaelmas Goose

Helen Edden* points out that the custom of eating goose at Michaelmas seems to have arisen from the practice among the rural tenantry of bringing a good stubble goose to propitiate the landlord when paying their rent. As the old rhyme has it:

And when the tenants come to pay their quarter’s rent

They bring some fowls at Midsummer,

A dishe of fishe in Lent;

At Christmas a capon, at M