Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/543

 The Origin and Value of Weather Lore. 195

rooting up little mounds ; the fur of coons and skunks was thinner by half than usual. The same view was published in Virginia based on the fact that there were very few persimmons, and that hornets' nests had been built in the tops of the trees. It is plain that the condition of the plant and animal gives absolutely no indication of the coming season, but is due rather to good nourishment or lack of it.

There are also found the following in England and Germany as early as the sixteenth century : " If Christmas day be on Sunday, that year shall have a warm winter. If on Monday, there shall be a mild winter. If on Tuesday, it shall be a cold winter and moist," and so on through all the days of the week. There is often a good deal of rhyme about such sayings, but there is absolutely no reason in them.

If there was a single spring or source from which the stream of weather lore had started, and if into this stream other smaller rivu- lets have flowed from time to time, on following back the main stream we would naturally expect to find it gradually narrowing to its source. This, however, is not the case, and it is not difficult to see that if there is any relation between the appearance of clouds, the behavior of animals and plants, and the ensuing weather, such relationship could be discovered independently by observers in all parts of the world and all along the passing centuries. The origin of a good deal of our weather lore is dependent upon the climate of the country in which it began, and in many cases the weather of the country will be a valuable criterion by which to trace such sayings. For example, all the weather sayings regarding rain or the rainy season in Greece or Palestine must harmonize with the fact that all the precipitation in those countries falls between November and March.

There is a kind of weather lore that has been greatly misinter- preted, in many cases, from a failure to recognize its origin. Before the establishment of the calendar and the setting in order of the months and seasons of the solar year, it was very necessary to deter- mine the approach of each season in order to facilitate farming oper- ations. At the first this could be done only by watching the rising and setting of the constellations. Thus Hesiod says that when the Pleiades rise, the harvest begins. Such sayings have been inter- preted as indicating an actual benefic or malevolent influence from stars, but seem, in the first instance, to have depended simply on the necessities of the observer. So the piece of weather lore con- tained in Job, referring to the sweet influences of the Pleiades, depends on nothing more than the indication of the coming season as shown by the appearance of these stars.

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