Michaelmas daisies and quarter days

The Michaelmas daisy is an aster, and like chrysanthemums, they evoke all the mixed feelings of fall. Asters can be dainty plants or tough and shrubby like mine which come back every year, and flop over about the time they bloom. They're too messy for inside, so I usually put some in a watering can on the back deck and look at them from the kitchen.

St. Michael doing Good Deeds

Michaelmas daisies are named for the festival of St. Michael and All Angels, because they are in bloom during this holiday. Michael was the highest ranking of the seven archangels and the leader of the celestial armies, if you can imagine heavily armed hordes "up there." His saint day is one of four "quarter days" in England. Quarter days date back to the middle ages, and fell on four religious festivals close to the two solstices and equinoxes. These were the dates in each year when servants were hired and rents were due to landlords.

But the name aster has its roots in Greek mythology. In the Golden Age, before the time of evil, a goddess of innocence named Astraea lived on the earth. When sin began to prevail, she left and turned into the constellation Virgo. Zeus was so annoyed with the evil conditions on earth that he created a flood that destroyed everything except one couple who fled to the top of Mt. Parnassus. When the waters receded and the survivors were wandering around the muddy world, Astraea created starlight to guide them. Her tears fell in the mud and changed into star-shaped flowers, or asters.
There are many reference to asters in literature and poetry. The aster, or some closely related daisy, is the flower Goethe used in his drama "Faust." In the garden, Margaret picks off the florets one by one as an oracle, and on the last petal realizes "he loves me." This is also a famous scene in Gounod's 1859 opera "Faust."

Here's a poem from The Country Flowers of a Victorian Lady:

Thus when out Autumn comes, and quietly
We rest contented, but with wings furl'd close,
May we, like it, bind in our garner'd stores
Fresh blooming flowers, nursed into brighter glow
By sunshine of kind looks, and kindly deeds,
While music of kind voices, ever nigh,
Shall be to us, as redbreast's melody.