Meaning & Analysis
On the Feast of Holyrood (Holy Cross Day, 14 September), it’s said the Devil is out gathering nuts—so people should keep away from nutting then.
Insights
Sacred-day taboo
Warns against profaning a holy feast with worldly foraging or merrymaking; the Devil’s presence marks the day as unfit for such pursuits.
Temptation at thresholds
At a seasonal turning point, desire runs high; casting the Devil as a fellow ‘nutter’ dramatizes how appetite and mischief peak at liminal times.
Social regulation
A folk rule that protects commons and ripening crops: by tabooing early harvest, the community ensures later abundance and fairer distribution.
Chastity caution
‘Nutting’ carried courtship and erotic overtones in woodland jaunts; the Devil ‘a-nutting’ doubles as a warning against sexual mischief in the bushes.
Calendar symbolism
Holyrood Day (Sept. 14) honors the Cross and sits at summer’s end; the proverb fuses sacred time with rural seasonality, making a liturgical date govern field behavior.
Commons and husbandry
Hazel and beech mast fed swine and people; delaying nut-gathering guards ripeness and keeps forage for livestock. The Devil becomes a mythic ranger who ‘polices’ patience.
Inversion and apotropaic wit
Putting the Devil to work on a holy day is comic inversion; naming him functions apotropaically—by joking he’s abroad, one keeps children home and tongues sober.
Liminal risk psychology
At transitions—new seasons, feast days—rules loosen and crowds gather. The saying externalizes heightened impulse as a roaming Devil, giving desire a face to resist.
Cross-cultural echo
Many traditions reserve ‘first fruits’ for gods or spirits. Here, nuts on that day ‘belong’ to the Devil, encoding a universal caution: honor the margin, then harvest.
Rhetorical Devices
Personification
The Devil is cast as a rustic forager, turning abstract evil into a familiar figure with a basket in the hedgerow.
Irony
On a holy feast, the unholy walks; the clash of Cross and Devil sharpens the warning through sacred–profane contrast.
Alliteration
The d-surge in “Devil… Day” gives the line a catchy, chant-like snap suited to oral transmission.
Temporal anchoring
Tying counsel to a named feast fixes memory and behavior: a calendar hook that ritualizes prudence.
Folk compression
Brief, image-rich phrasing packs social, moral, and agrarian norms into one rustic vignette.
Transcription
Quotations
The devil, as some people say, A-nutting goes Holy Rood Day.
Cross References
- See Ѕм., р. 337.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.