Literal translation
For All Saints' Day, the olive in hand
Meaning
olives are harvested around All Saints' Day
Explanation
This saying fixes, within the Provençal agricultural calendar, the moment when olive harvesting begins, around All Saints' Day in early November. The image is simple and direct: by this date, one should have the olive in hand, meaning already busy picking it, without further delay. The context points to a second, more symbolic layer of meaning, where the feast of the dead coincides with the gesture of picking a fruit associated since antiquity with life, peace and continuity, as though the olive harvest, falling exactly when the dead are honoured, recalled the persistence of life beyond death. It is used to mark the calendar of farm work, but also, more broadly, to evoke that time of year when autumn nature gives its last fruits. The register is traditional, close to a weather or farming saying, handed down from generation to generation.