The great November hiring fair, held at Martinmas (12 November). The principal day in the Manx agricultural calendar when farm servants were hired for the coming year and families moved between farms. Hollantide marked the beginning of the Manx winter half-year. It was a day of reckoning, settlement, and transition. The fair combined practical economic business with social gathering, and the movement of servants between farms maintained the connections across parishes that held rural communities together.