Page:Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders.djvu/117

Rh Brand gives the verses somewhat differently:

A third variation, common in my native county, runs thus:

It is curious that in the country parts of Devonshire the same three days are called “blind days,” and considered unlucky for sowing any kind of seed. And it is yet more remarkable that the Highlanders have their borrowed or borrowing days, but with them February borrows from January, and bribes him with three young sheep. These first three days of February, or Faiolteach, by Highland reckoning (that is, old style), occur between February 11 and 15. And it is accounted a most favourable prognostic for the ensuing year that they should be stormy and cold.

Of the next month we have the following rhyme in Durham:

or, as it runs in Yorkshire,