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Author
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Comment
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(2/2/05 8:54 am)
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Groundhog Day
Given that today is a beautiful, sunny Groundhog Day (where I live, anyway) forecasting six more weeks of bitter winter, I was wondering if there were any other tales of animals or other creatures that forecast the seasons or the weather.
Best,
Alice
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(2/2/05 12:14 pm)
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Re: Groundhog Day
In England swifts flying high is a sign of good weather (probably because we can't see them up there if the weather's bad and they only migrate here for the summer!). I believe this lore is also applied to seagulls and rooks.
Do English Christian Saints count as creatures Alice?
"St Swithin’s Day, if it does rain,
Full forty days, it will remain.
St Swithin’s Day, if it be fair,
For forty days, t’will rain no more."
If it rains on Winchester cathedral on St Swithin’s Day then it'll supposedly rain for the next 40 days, or if it's fine it'll be fine for the following 40 days, but according to the Meteorological Office this doesn't happen. They collected evidence in fifty-five different years and 40 days of similar weather never followed on from St Swithin's Day.
General world wide weather lore, including plenty of animals, from the Hitchhiker's Guide:
www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A641305
Edited by: Black Sheep at: 2/2/05 12:16 pm
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(2/2/05 3:35 pm)
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Re: Groundhog Day
Thank you, Black Sheep. :D And yes, saints definitely fit. My favorite from your link has got to be:
"When the rooster crows on the heap of dung the weather will change or stay as it is."
Kind of sums it up. :lol
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 2/2/05 3:36 pm
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Gails
Unregistered User
(2/2/05 4:09 pm)
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Weather Lore
www.coldal.org/weather.htm
Has some animal weather lore on their site, reprinted from "The Story of Weather" by Bill Giles. There is a long verse about the behavior of diverse animals as indicators of rainy weather.
Too long of a shopping list for me to notice!
GailS
;)
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Black Sheep
Registered User
(2/4/05 4:00 pm)
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Re: Weather Lore
Lovely webpage Gail. Thanks for the link.
I forgot to mention the legend attached to Saint Swithin's day. Swithin was bishop of Winchester and he willed that when he died he should be buried out of doors where he would be trodden on and rained on. After he was sainted they reburied his bones in a shrine inside the cathedral. The vengeful saint reputedly caused a rainstorm so severe that it caused flooding, drowned people, and destroyed enough crops to cause a famine.
One of my Aussie friends tells me that it snowed in Melbourne a couple of days ago even though they're in the middle of their summer!
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