Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/384

 352 Collectanea.

Beef-brose an' bannock day

Please let us home, For a' the folk in oor toon

Hae gone to Foggie loan.

(Said by Rothienorman school children on " Faster's-even." The custom was for the children to write this on the black-board before the master carne in, and he, when he saw it, granted the holiday.)

"Next comes Candlemas, and then the new meen. An' the first Tuesday after that is aye fasteren-een."

(Dinnie's History of Birse.)

A harden Sabbath's a linen week. (A coarse Sunday is followed by a week of good weather.)

Three bad Sundays will be followed by a week of fine weather.

" East and Wast

The sign o' a blast, Xorth and Sooth

The sign o' a drooth."'

(Said of the disposition of clouds in the sky.)

" Of fat's' before, yell hear no more, But fat's behin", ye'll bitterly fin."

This is said of parhelia, or mock suns. If seen to the east {i.e. "behind the sun"), they are of ill omen: if to the west {i.e. "before the sun"), they are of no moment.

" Fin the sea's at Aberdour, The ill weather's a' ower, But fin the sea's at Auchentumb The ill weather's a' t' come. '

(/.(f., It is considered a sure prognostication of coming bad weather when the noise of the waves beating on the rocky coast of Buchan is heard far inland.)