Michaelmas term Michaelmas term Michaelmas term is the first academic term of the academic year in a number of English-speaking universities and schools in the northern hemisphere, especially in the United Kingdom. Michaelmas term derives its name from the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, which falls on 29 September. The term runs from September or October to Christmas. The term is also the name of the first of four terms into which the legal year is divided by the Courts of England and Wales and the Courts of Northern Ireland. While the name is not used in the legal systems
Michaelmas parts of barley, oats, and rye without using any metal implements. In remembrance of absent friends or those who had died, special "Struans", blessed at an early morning Mass, were given to the poor in their names. Nuts were traditionally cracked on Michaelmas Eve. Folklore in the British Isles suggests that Michaelmas day is the last day that blackberries can be picked. It is said that when St Michael expelled Lucifer, the devil, from heaven, he fell from the skies and landed in a prickly blackberry bush. Satan cursed the fruit, scorched them with his fiery breath, stamped, spat and