Weather-rhymes

: NATURE SONGS
: Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales

The ev'ning red, and the morning gray,

Are the tokens of a bonny day.



Winter's thunder

Is the world's wonder.



From Lancashire.



As the days grow longer,

The storms grow stronger;

As the days lengthen,

So the storms strengthen.



No weather is ill,

If the wind be till.



When clouds appear like rocks and towers,

The earth's refresh'd by frequent showers.



This proverb is sufficiently homely, yet the first line reminds us of

the description of the clouds in Anthony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 12;

but the commonest observer must have seen the "tower'd citadel," and the

"pendant rock."



A northern har

Brings drought from far.



A har is a mist or thick fog.



First comes David, next comes Chad,

Then comes Whinwall as if he was mad.



Alluding to the storms about the day of St. Winwaloe, March 3d, called

St. Whinwall by the country people.



Rain, rain, go to Spain;

Come again another day:

When I brew and when I bake,

I'll give you a figgy cake.



This appears to be a child's address to rain, a kind of charm or

entreaty for its disappearance. A plum-cake is always called a figgy

cake in Devonshire, where raisins are denominated figs, and hence the

term. Other versions are given by Chambers, p. 155, who remarks that it

was the practice among the children of Greece, when the sun happened to

be obscured by a cloud, to exclaim, {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}--Come forth, beloved

sun! Howell, in his Proverbs, 1659, p. 20, has,--



Rain, rain, go to Spain;

Fair weather, come again.



"Little children have a custome, when it raines, to sing or charme away

the raine; they all joine in a chorus, and sing thus, viz.:



Raine, raine, goe away,

Come againe a Saterday.



I have a conceit that this childish custome is of great antiquity, and

that it is derived from the gentiles." (Aubrey, MS. Lansd. 231.)



If Candlemas day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another flight.



It is generally the case that fine weather continues if it is mild at

Candlemas. A somewhat similar proverb is given by M. Kuhn, Gebraeuche und

Aberglauben, ii. 12.



It is time to cock your hay and corn,

When the old donkey blows his horn.



The braying of the ass is said to be an indication of rain or hail.