haysel

From hay + sele (“season”).

haysel (plural haysels)

1. The season of making hay.
   • 1873, Gardeners Chronicle & New Horticulturist, page 119:

     There has been no lack of other monitors — a ticklish haysel, a flooded harvest all through the north

   • [1890], William Morris, News from Nowhere, Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, page 281:

     Now we are in a fit mood for dinner,” said Dick, when we had dressed and were going through the grass again; “and certainly of all the cheerful meals in the year, this one of haysel is the cheerfullest; not even excepting the corn-harvest feast; for then the year is beginning to fail, and one cannot help having a feeling behind all the gaiety, of the coming of the dark days, and the shorn fields and empty gardens; and the spring is almost too far off to look forward to. It is, then, in the autumn, when one almost believes in death.

   • 1892, Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening, volume 25, page 70:

     Much good hay continues to be made, and so far the season bids fair to be more favourable to the farmer than the last three have been. Late springs and wet haysels have brought bankruptcy upon many a man […]

• Ashley, Haleys, Halsey, Hasley, Healys, Shealy, shaley