We creatures who are made to sit still, enjoy pleasures unique to our lot in life. 
One such pleasure is the sighting of what we have named the First Autumnal Man. 

Each year the woodland creatures, both the hidden and known, sit in quiet rest, joyfully awaiting the passing by of the First Autumnal Man. Yes, it is sometimes a ladyfolk and not a manfolk yet our naming has stood and no other name, in all our remembering, could be said to have ever been used. To this, it must be said, that a ladyfolk is almost never the case and gives the mother shrews much to shrew over at mealtimes for weeks.

When he comes autumn falls into place. Around him in his passing, the old ones, the great trees, breathe out and come to rest, crackling their leaves in gratitude. Ochres, yellows, and reds blush the forest and we creatures of the wood can feel the turning, the magic of it, tickling, around our eyes and behind our ears.

Yes, we wait, happily in our way.
For the woodland's crackle,
the heaviness of the sleepful moss upon the stone,
the bold breeze reaching out, prickling, to touch us,
and to carry with it, the blessing of the approaching
First Autumnal Man.

"How do we measure it?" Stoorfoot asked his gnomish friend. Moddle pondered momentarily. Then, popping up, in the way of a doe's ear, exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that we rightly should!" "Should what?" "Should measure!" "Hmm, say more," said Ol' Borcreek Stoorfoot. The gnomish creature snugged himself down, as they are want to do and, after a long moment, from the little red topped bundle came his response. "Yes, true enough, we could measure our sweet days by the leaves we crunch under foot, wind tickles of the ear, or even by the bites of Old Mam Mordone's meatpies. Yet, how would we measure the breadth or weight of the goodness of feeling these giftings give us? No, we must not seek to measure overmuch or we miss the things, the good things, the rare ones beyond measure." Stoorfoot, sighing and smiling, put a hand on each side of Moddle's little face and kissed the old gnomish creature right square on the head. Grinning wholly Moddle snuggled down into a ball in the grass, as gnomish are want to do and, deep in the feeling of it all, smiled himself to sleep.

​Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

​  It was a strange happening, yes, but the beauty of it all caused a wonder to well up within the man, keeping any fear of the unknown bridled. For the change had come suddenly and quietly. It seemed to him a matter of winks of the eye, a turn of the head, for the wet air of summer and the green trees of the forest to be, with surety and the passage of not a moment, wholly altered. For, at once, his brow and the tops of his hands were chilled, the crisp feeling of the orange restfulness filled his hair and the small hairs of his chest bristled at the breeze about his collar. 

Finding himself, standing in the long moment, he felt about his person. Assuring himself nothing of himself had too transformed in the manner of the world around him. His mind easing the man breathed deep the dry air and listened, another moment more, to the new forest around him. Only the wind. Only the fire reds and soft yellows.

It had come again. The Hurried Autumn. A strange phenomena he had heard spoken of in whispers by those along the path. Even a couple at the last Tavern had mentioned it, though only in the way that someone speaks of a thing they will soon forget. Perhaps if the Hurried Autumn is more than an Eldman's lore the other stories may hold some truth also. 

Letting his breath out the man looked back once and then ahead, stretched his toes within his boots and stepped on into that ochre forest.

There are doorways all around us, yet so often, as we grow older, we forget that they are there. We forget how to see them, or that we ever could.  This is why I cherish so closely any object or thought that proves itself a gateway to the wonderous things, the daring things, to story, song, and meaning. Such things are such doorways to beauty and adventure. We do well to catalogue these when discovered. We do equally well to attend to them and to take the time to wonder and to dream. Below I have listed one of the great illustrators of the old tradition.

Frank C. Pape' illustration from "The Gateway to Spenser" by Emily Underdown.