The festival of St Michael was celebrated on September 29^th. As the patron saint of the sailors it is a very important festival in Scotland with its hundreds of fishermen. One of the important parts of the celebration was harvesting the carrots usually done on the weekend before the festival. The carrot was a fertility symbol usually given from a woman to a man.

Another part of the celebration was to bake a Michael's Cake, which was made from oats, bere, and rye. The meal was moistened with milk from sheep and baked on a lambskin by the eldest daughter of the family. It was basted using a rooster feather with a batter of butter, eggs, and cream while it baked. Fruit, honey and caraway seeds were also added. If the cake would happen to break while being baked it was bad luck and the broken cake was thrown away.

Crumbs from the cake were given to the sheep on St Michael Day. In Uist a piece of dough, called the devil's dough was toasted and thrown over the left shoulder to keep the devil away from the cattle.

A male lamb without a spot or blemish was killed for the feasting. A quarter of the lamb was given with a peck of meal, a quarter of a Bannock, a quarter of cheese and butter to the poor.

The Bannock was baked and eaten on St Michael's day and everyone in the house got a piece. Later scones made with flour and treacle or currants and caraway seeds were substituted for the Bannock.

There were many other customs across Scotland, which went with this festival, and a good source for information is Scottish Festival by Sheila Livingston.

Since September 1, 1999