Note 814 — Chapter XI · THE BEGINNING OF WINTER
Reading edition
Tille, Y. and C. 34, 65; Pfannenschmidt, 206; Dyer, 418; N. Drake, Shakespeare and his Times (1838), 93. Martinmas was a favourite Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval legal term. It survived also as a traditional ‘tyme of slauchter’ for cattle. ‘Martlemas beef’ was a common term for salt beef. In Scotland a Mart is a fat cow or bullock, but the derivation of this appears to be from a Celtic word Mart = cow.