The Antiquary.

JULY, 1882.

St. Swithin's Day.

By HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A. OPULAR delusions often appear to be endowed with a perpetual youth; and this perhaps may be accounted for by the fact that they are seldom entirely false. Thus, the widespread faith in the meteorological influence of St. Swithin is not altogether without a certain foundation in truth. An industrious sceptic actually took the trouble to examine the Greenwich observations for twenty years, in order to prove the fallacy of this popular superstition, and he found that during that period there were six wet St. Swithins and fourteen dry ones. Moreover, he found that the average of rainy days was greater after the dry than after the wet fifteenths of July. Such a result might, very naturally have been expected, for statistics and general assertions are not likely to run amicably together; nevertheless, the original spirit of the superstition may have been correct in the main, although the letter was wrong in the particular instances. The period fixed for the duration of the wet should have caused us to see that the prophecy was not intended to be taken literally, for the number forty has been generally used to imply the indefinite; and we must, therefore, allow the same latitude as to the exact time as we do in the case of quarantine, a word in which the original idea of forty is now entirely lost. If we understand the prophecy to mean that when rain sets in in July it is likely to last for two or three weeks, we shall find that it is in the main correct.

Those persons in all ages whose occupations have taken them much in the open air have usually been observers of Nature, and the result of much of their observation has VOL. VI.

come down to us in the form of proverbs. It seems highly probable that these observers, wishing to draw attention to a likely time of wet, should connect it with some saint's day, in order that the people might remember it the better. It is rather curious that several saints have had the character of patrons of rain attributed to them; but St. Swithin has beaten the others out of the field, and his fame has survived to the present day. The Rev. Leonard Blomefield (late Jenyns), a veteran meteorologist, has given some attention to these weather saints, and written a valuable and interesting Paper upon them, which is printed in the Proceedings of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club. The days of these rainy saints are, with one exception, all in June and July, and Thomas Forster, the meteorologist, regards this as a proof that the superstition was "founded on the experience of those who had observed, that whatever weather set in soon after the summer solstice was of long continuance." Mr. Blomefield also points out that meteorological observations, extending over a long period of time, indicate the percentage of wet to be very high both in July and August. The first in point of time of the ominous saints' days is that of St. Vitus, which falls on the 15th of June, but as he comes so early he is only allowed thirty days of wet. In the Sententiæ Rythmica of Buchlerus the following lines

occur:

Lux sacrata Vito si sit pluviosa, sequentes
Triginta facient omne madere solum.

A few days after this, on the 24th, is St. John the Baptist's Day, rain on which is sure to be followed by forty days of wet, as an old Latin proverb informs us. The 2nd of July is the Festival of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, the day of Saints Processus and Martinianus, and the festival of St. Swithin in the Roman Martyrology, and the same prophecy about forty days of wet has been applied to it. The 4th is the day of the translation of St. Martin, and rain then betokens either twenty or forty days of wet weather, the prophets disagreeing a little in the matter. In Scotland it used to be called St. Martin of Bullion's day, and there was a proverb that if the deer rose dry and

B

lay down dry on that day it was a sign of a good harvest, in accordance with the old couplet

Bullion's day gif ye be fair,

For forty days there'll be nae mair.

In considering these different dates, we ought not to forget that they are not the same as when the superstitions first grew up. If we take into consideration the change made in our calendar in the year 1752, and add eleven days, which is the difference between the old and the new style, we shall find that St. Vitus's Day would fall on the 26th of June, St. John the Baptist's on the 5th of July, the Festival of the Virgin's Visitation on the 13th of July, St. Martin of Bullion's Day on the 15th of July, and St. Swithin's on the 26th of July.

Foreigners do not recognize our rainy saints, but have different ones of their own. In France, Saints Médard, Gervais, and Protais are looked upon as exerting considerable influence over the weather. St. Médard's day falls on the 8th of July, and some old lines say—

S'il pleut le jour de Saint Médard,
Il pleut quarante jours plus tard.

The 19th of the same month is dedicated to Saints Gervais and Protais

S'il pleut le jour de Saint Gervais et de Saint
Protais

Il pleut quarante jours après.

Saint Médard's Day is still watched with anxiety in the rural districts of France, and the old proverb quoted above has been amplified into the following lines :-

Du jour de St. Médard, qu'est in Juin,
Le laboureur se donne soin,

Car les vieux disent que s'il pleut,
Quarante jours durer il peut;
Et s'il fait beau tu est certain
D'avoir abondance en grain.

Of the rainy saints' day in other countries we may mention St. Godeliève in Flanders, the Festival of the Seven Sleepers (July 27), and two others in Germany, St. Galla (October 5) in Tuscany, and any day within the octave of the Feast of St. Bartholomew the Apostle (August 24), at Rome. This last is in contradiction to the English couplet, which says that

All the tears that Swithin can cry

St. Bartlemy's dusty mantle wipes dry.

The English notion as to St. Bartholomew arises from the fact that his day falls exactly forty days after St. Swithin, so that should the latter be wet, the former brings about a change of weather.

Having dismissed the rivals who have in vain attempted to drive St. Swithin from his chief place as a prophetic meteorologist, we will now say a few words about the saint himself and his day. Most of us are familair with the lines

In this month is St. Swithin's day,
On which if that it rain they say,
Full forty days after it will,

Or more or less some rain distil.

These were amplified by Gay in his Trivia, who added to them a little moral lecture

Now if on Swithin's feast the welkin lours,
And every penthouse streams with hasty showers,
Twice twenty days shalt clouds their fleeces drain,
And wash the pavement with incessant rain.
Let not such vulgar tales debase thy mind;
Nor Paul nor Swithin rule the clouds and wind.

Gay here glances at the popular belief, to which we shall refer further on, that the weather on St. Paul's Day (January 25) was an omen of what the year would turn out. The most usual belief as to St. Swithin's Day is limited to the wet; but some say that if the 15th of July is fine, the forty following days will also be fine, and this view is taken in the Northern proverb

St. Swithin's day, gif ye do rain,
For forty daies it will remain ;
St. Swithin's day, an ye be fair,

For forty daies 'twill rain nae mair.

Ben Jonson mentions the belief in St. Swithin's in his play of Every Man out of his Humour; but it does not appear to have been more literally true in the seventeenth than in the nineteenth century—

O, here's St. Swithin's, the fifteenth day; variable weather, for the most part rain; good! for the most part rain. Why it should rain forty days after, now more or less it was a rule held afore I was able to hold a plough, and yet here are two days no rain, ha! it makes me muse.-Act i. sc. I.

It is time now to ask who St. Swithin was, and why he should be connected with wet weather; but the first part of the question is easier to answer than the last.

St. Swithin, or more properly speaking