Jul 15, 2016
There are many superstitions, old lore and rhymes for a variety of life events. In this article from a variety of sources we find out the basis and background for St. Swithin's Day.
Today is St. Swithin's Day and is a day on which people watch the weather since tradition says that today's weather will predict the next forty days' weather!
There is a well known British rhyme that comes from Elizabethan times:
'St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.'
dost = does
thou = you
nae mair = no more.
A Buckinghamshire variation says
"If on St Swithun's day it really pours
You're better off to stay indoors."
St. Swithin (or more properly, Swithun) was a Saxon Bishop of Winchester. He was born in the kingdom of Wessex and educated in its capital, Winchester. He was famous for charitable gifts and building churches.
A legend says that as the Bishop lay on his deathbed, he asked to be buried out of doors where he would be "trodden on and rained on." For nine years, his wishes were followed, but then, the monks of Winchester attempted to move his remains to a splendid shrine inside the cathedral on July 15, 971. According to legend there was a heavy rain storm either during the ceremony or on its anniversary. This led to the old wives' tale that if it rains on St Swithin's Day, it will rain for the next 40 days in succession, and a rain-free day will be followed by 40 days of fine weather
However, according to the British Met Office (their weather office), this old wives' tale is nothing other than a myth. It has been put to the test on 55 occasions (according to the book 'Red Sky At Night'), when it has been wet on St Swithin's Day and 40 days of rain did not follow
More probable is John Earle's suggestion that the legend comes from a pagan or possibly prehistoric day of augury. In France, Saint Medard (8 June), Urban of Langres, and Saint Gervase and Saint Protais (19 June) are credited with an influence on the weather almost identical with that attributed to St Swithun in England. In Flanders, there is St Godelieve (6 July) and in Germany the Seven Sleepers' Day (27 June).
There is a scientific basis to the weather pattern behind the legend of St Swithun's day. Around the middle of July, the jet stream settles into a pattern which, in the majority of years, holds reasonably steady until the end of August. When the jet stream lies north of the British Isles then continental high pressure is able to move in; when it lies across or south of the British Isles, Arctic air and Atlantic weather systems predominate. A similarly themed proverb exists in Swedish, in which a mild and rainy 30 November (St Andrew's day) means a cold Christmas period, and vice versa.
The most false that the prediction has been, according to the Guinness Book of Records were 1924, when 13.5 hours of sunshine in London were followed by 30 out of the next 40 days being wet, and 1913 when a 15-hour rainstorm was followed by 30 dry days out of 40.
The emblems of St. Swithin refer to the legend of the forty days' rain (raindrops) and the apples from the trees he planted.
There is an old saying when it rains on St. Swithin's Day, it is the Saint christening the apples. Apple growers ask St. Swithin for his blessing each year because they believe
Rain on St. Swithin's day 'blesses and christens the apples'. It is believed that no apple should be picked or eaten before July 15th. Apples still growing at St Swithin's day will ripen fully.
Image: Swithun, Benedictional of St. Æthelwold,
Winchester, 10th century,British Library
- Wikipedia
Share this article with friends!
Tags:
#st.#Swithin's#Day,#day#of#watching#weather,#starzpsychics.com,#starzadvisors
