There is something particularly lovely about an unexpectedly warm day in the middle of October. The mornings may be chilly (finally!), the leaves are turning, and darkness comes earlier every evening. Then, suddenly, the sun comes out. The afternoon warms. The sky turns a brilliant blue, and for a few precious hours, it feels as if summer has returned. Our ancestors noticed these days too.
October Folklore & Kingsmill’s Sunflower Festival
October 18 is the feast day of St. Luke the Evangelist, and in old weather lore, a stretch of fine, warm weather occurring around this date became known as St. Luke’s Little Summer.
Like Indian summer and St. Martin’s Summer, which traditionally occur later in the autumn, St. Luke’s Little Summer describes one of those brief spells when the seasons seem to turn backward. Autumn loosens its grip, the sun feels warm again, and winter suddenly seems much farther away.
Of course, there is no guarantee that St. Luke’s Day will be warm. Weather folklore is rarely that accommodating. But I have always loved the old names people gave to these seasonal moments. Long before weather apps and ten-day forecasts and Accu-radar, people watched the skies, the plants, the animals, and the changing light. Over generations, certain days became associated with particular kinds of weather, and those observations became part of local folklore.
When I was writing my Kingsmill story His Wildest Sunflower, I knew I wanted the town’s newly revived Sunflower Festival to take place in October. And St. Luke’s Little Summer gave me the perfect day. There was something irresistible about imagining Kingsmill glowing beneath a warm October sun, with fields of late sunflowers, festival booths, food, music, and everyone in town gathering together before the colder days arrived. I even have characters wearing coats in the morning and slipping into T-shirts and sundresses in the afternoon.
It also felt very much like Kingsmill. If you’ve spent any time in my fictional Virginia town, you know that its traditions are rarely just traditions. Old stories linger. Families remember things they probably shouldn’t. The woods have long memories. And even the happiest celebrations seem to carry echoes of what came before. But sometimes a beautiful autumn day really can just be a beautiful autumn day. Or at least mostly.
I also love the symbolism of the sunflower itself. Sunflowers turn toward the light. By October, their season is nearly finished, yet their great golden heads still seem to hold the last warmth of summer. That makes them perfect companions for St. Luke’s Little Summer–a final blaze of gold before the year begins its slow descent toward winter.
Maybe that’s why these old bits of weather lore still appeal to me. They remind us to notice things like the unexpectedly warm afternoon. The particular slant of October sunlight. The last flowers blooming in the garden. The sound of dry leaves underfoot. Those fleeting days when summer seems to return just long enough for us to appreciate it one more time.
And somewhere in Kingsmill, Virginia, that seems like the perfect excuse for a Sunflower Festival.
