Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/540

 192 Journal of A merican Folk-Lore.

its order. Of somewhat the same character are sayings regarding the weather which is likely to follow that of special days ; for exam- ple, " If Candlemas day (February 2, instituted 542 a. d.) be fair and bright, winter will take a second flight ; " or, as current in this coun- try, " On February 2, the ground hog (wood-chuck) comes out of his den, and if he sees his shadow, he goes back and stays six weeks, knowing that the winter will be thus prolonged." One would natu- rally conclude that a bright sunny day should be token of an early spring and not the opposite.

The same may be said of the saying relative to St. Swithin's day : "If it rains July 15, it will continue raining for forty days." The legend is that for some reason there was a delay in removing the body of the saint for a second sepulture, and as a result the rain con- tinued forty days at the time. Such forecasts might be quoted by the hundred, and it is easy to see their worthlessness. One objec- tion urged against the validity of such sayings, however, does not seem well founded ; namely, that since the reform in the calendar all these days come out of joint, so to speak, and are growing far- ther and farther away from their proper place as originally suggested. If the position of the day, as regards the annual swing of the earth about the sun, be the all-important consideration in determining the day of the supposed influence upon the weather, then by the reform in the calendar the day has been put back and rigidly fixed in its proper place in the annual march of the earth, and hence the pro- verb applies properly to the day, provided, of course, that its origin was during the early years of the Julian calendar.

Much of our pseudo weather lore may be traced directly to the astrologer and his vagaries. The moon changes almost before our eyes, hence the weather changes with the moon. Mars is a red planet and relatively near the sun, hence as fire is red and hot, Mars must be heating and drying and productive of fires. Saturn was to the astrologer the most distant of the planets from the sun, hence his influence was to produce cold (we speak of a Saturnine disposi- tion). In like manner through the whole gamut of shooting stars, eclipses, comets, and so on. Shooting stars must be supposed to drive the wind before them, hence we should expect wind from the direction in which they are seen. The moon disappears from view three days before and after it is new, and these must be regarded as especially unlucky days and causing storms and wind.

An eclipse casts a shadow, or causes darkness over the earth, hence an eclipse portends storms and winds. Cardan has improved upon the ordinary astrologic view about eclipses, and has unwittingly introduced some truth in his interpretation of their influence, as fol- lows : " Some eclipses of the luminaries at the time or even before

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