Chapter Good Time to Goose at Michaelmas of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Good Time to Goose at Michaelmas

Good Time There is a good time coming. This has been for a long, long time a familiar saying in Scotland, and is introduced by Sir Walter Scott in his Rob Roy. Charles Mackay has written a song so called, set to music by Henry Russell.

Good Turn (To do a). To do a kindness to any one.

Good and All (For). Not tentatively, not in pretence, nor yet temporally, but bonâ fide, really, and altogether. (See All.)

"The good woman never died after this, till she came to die for good and all." - L'Estrange: Fables.

Good as Gold Thoroughly good.

Good for Anything Ripe for any sort of work.

"After a man has had a year or two at this sort of work, he is good ... for anything." - Boldrewood: Robbery under Arms, chap. xi.

   Not good for anything. Utterly worthless; used up or worn down.

Good Wine needs no Bush It was customary to hang out ivy, boughs of trees, flowers, etc., at public houses to notify to travellers that "good cheer" might be had within.

"Some ale-houses upon the road I saw,
And some with bushes showing they wine did draw." Poor Robin's Perambulations (1678).

Goods I carry all my goods with me (Omnia mea mecum porto). Said by Bias, one of the seven sages, when Priene was besieged and the inhabitants were preparing for flight.

Goodfellow (Robin). Sometimes called Puck, son of Oberon, a domestic spirit, the constant attendant on the English fairy-court; full of tricks and fond of practical jokes.

"That shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow."
Shakespeare: Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 1.

Goodluck's Close (Norfolk). A corruption of Guthlac's Close, so called from a chapel founded by Allen, son of Godfrey de Swaffham, in the reign of Henry II., and dedicated to St. Guthlac.

Goodman A husband or master is the Saxon guma or goma (a man), which in the inflected cases becomes guman or goman. In St. Matt. xxiv. 43, "If the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched." Gomman and gommer, for the master and mistress of a house, are by no means uncommon.
   The phrase is also used of the devil.

"There's nae luck about the house
When our gudeman's awa."   Mickle.

Goodman or St. Gutman. Patron saint of tailors, being himself of the same craft.

Goodman of Ballengeich The assumed name of James V. of Scotland when he made his disguised visits through the country districts around Edinburgh and Stirling, after the fashion of Haroun-al-Raschid, Louis XI., etc.

Goodman's Croft A strip of ground or corner of a field formerly left untilled, in Scotland, in the belief that unless some such place were left, the spirit of evil would damage the crop.

"Scotchmen still living remember the corner of a field being left for the goodman's croft." - Tylor: Primitive Culture, ii. 370.

Goodman's Fields Whitechapel. Fields belonging to a farmer named Goodman.

"At the which farm I myself in my youth have fetched many a halfpenny-worth of milk, and never had less than three ale-pints for a halfpenny in summer, nor less than one ale-pint in winter, always hot from the kine ... and strained. One Trolop, and afterwards Goodman, were the farmers there, and had thirty or forty kine to the pail." - Stow.

Goodwin Sands consisted at one time of about 4,000 acres of low land fenced from the sea by a wall, belonging to Earl Goodwin or Godwin. William the Conqueror bestowed