Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/539

 The Origin and Value of Weather Lore. 191

��THE ORIGIN AND VALUE OF WEATHER LORE.

During the past twenty years there have been published a score of collections of weather proverbs and sayings, most of which are out of print to-day. These have culminated in an exhaustive treatise on weather lore by the President of the Royal Meteorologic Society of England, in the form of a book containing three thousand pro- verbs. So far as I can determine, authors have vied with each other in grinding out the largest possible list of weather sayings, but no attempt has thus far been made to trace this lore to its origin, or to give it an approximate value. The importance of such a study may be easily seen when we reflect that of current weather lore at least half is entirely worthless and half the remainder of very doubtful service. For ten years I have been preparing material for a book on this general subject, and present herewith a preliminary study of the questions involved.

Weather folk-lore is based on the knowledge of the common people acquired through the ordinary observations of nature, animals, plants, etc., unaided by instruments. This knowledge was the first obtained by primeval man. Before the study of the stars must be placed that of the weather, and traces of such knowledge may be found, perhaps, in the names of the signs of the zodiac given at least two thousand years before our era. Aquarius (the Water Man), and Pisces (Fishes) are both considered meteorologic or watery signs.

In order to be of value, a weather saying should be based on a suf- ficient number of coincidences between the sign and the supposed resulting weather to make it represent a law. The general tendency of mankind is to give undue prominence to a single marked coinci- dence, and to ignore entirely the numerous instances where there are none ; after a saying based on such hasty generalization is once started, it may be handed down to later generations, but its mere age can never add anything to its worth.

It is needful, in the first place, to mention a certain class of weather sayings or alleged rules for forecasting the weather which have no foundation in facts. It is easy to fancy that at the beginning of a new year the first twelve days ought to show the character of each of the following months. From such expectation arises the opinion, that as the weather is on January 1, so will it be through the month ; as it is on January 2, so will it be through February, and so on. That is, if the temperature is low, or below the normal of that sea- son, on any one of the twelve days, so the corresponding month will be cold ; if any one of these days is stormy, so will be the month in

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