Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore

by Elizabeth Mary Wright

Perhaps the commonest of all sayings concerning the weather is: A red sky at night Is the shepherd’s delight; A red sky in the morning Is the shepherd’s warning. The wording varies slightly in different districts, but the sense is always the same, cp. ‘When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the sky is red and lowring,’ St. Matt. xvi. 2, 3. Another very common adage is: Rain before seven, fine before eleven. Among the Yorkshire Dales people will tell you that when you see the cattle on the tops of the hills, it is a sign of fine weather. The early mist called the pride of the morning (n.Cy. Midl. Dor.), harr, and hag, foretells a fine day. A moorn hag-mist Is worth gold in a kist; A northern harr Brings fine weather from far (Yks.).

Foretelling the Seasons

But popular meteorology does not confine itself to foretelling the weather of the immediate future; there are plenty of prophetic utterances concerning the seasons, and their effects on the crops of weeks and even months ahead. For instance: If the ice will bear a man before Christmas, it will not bear a mouse afterwards. If the sun shine through the apple-tree on Christmas Day there will be an abundant crop of apples in the following year. If the wind is in the west at noon on Candlemas Day it will be a good year for fruit. If Cannlemas Day be lound [calm] and fair, Yaw hawf o’ t’winter’s to come an’ mair; If Cannlemas Day be murk and foul, Yaw hawf o’ t’winter’s geean at Yule (Yks.). A January spring is worth naething. If in February there be no rain, The hay won’t goody, nor the grain, All other months of the year Most heartily curse a fine Februeer (Dev.). If the cat in February lies in the sun, she will creep under the grate in March (Dev.). So many frogs in March, so many frosts in May (Rut.). A peck of March dust is worth a king’s ransom. When the oak is before the ash, The summer will be dry and mash [hot] (Bdf.). If the oak before the ash, Then we’re sure to have a plash, If the ash before the oak, Then we’re sure to have a soak (Nhb.). When the hair-beard [the field woodrush] appear, The shepherd need not fear (Nhp.). Rain on Good Friday and Easter Day Brings plenty of grass but little good hay (Glo.). Cold May, Long corn, short hay (Rut.). A wet May, Maks lang-tail’d hay (Yks.). A lecky [showery] May, plenty o’ hay, A lecky June, plenty o’ corn (Nhb.). A wet May and a winnie [windy], Makes a fou stackyard and a finnie [plentiful] (Sc. n.Cy.). A dry summer never begs its bread (Som.). If it sud rain on St. Swithin’s Day, We’re feckly sarrat [served] wi’ dwallow’d hay (Cum.). If it rains on St. Swithin’s Day, even if only a few drops, the apples are christened, and early sorts may then be picked. Very hot weather in July, August, and September breeds hard frosts for January (Dev.). If the buck rises with a dry horn on Holyrood morn, Sept. 14, it is a sign of a Michaelmas summer. A warm October presages a cold February (Dev.). As the weather is in October, so it will be next March (Dev.). Where the wind is at Holland-tide, the Season of All Saints, it will be most of the winter (Glo.). If there’s ice in November will bear a duck, There’ll be nothing after but sludge and muck. Many hips, many haas, Many frosts, many snaas. When patches of snow linger after the rest has melted, these are snowbones, and more snow will come to fetch them away.

When children see the snowflakes falling they say: There’s the old domman [woman] a-picking her geese, An’ sellin’ the feathers a penny apiece (Oxf.); They’re killing geese i’ Scotland, An’ sending t’feathers here (Yks.); The folk i’ the eas’ is plotin’ their geese, An’ sendin’ their feathers ti huz (Nhb.); Keelmen, keelmen, ploat yor geese, Caad days an’ winter neets (Nhb.).

Tusser’s ‘Husbandrie’

From weather lore we are naturally led to turn to the farm and the farmer, and here, at the outset, we are reminded of that father of English ‘Husbandrie’, Thomas Tusser. Writers on Literature tell us that he was one of the most popular authors of his time, judging from the number of editions through which his work—A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, afterwards enlarged to Fiue hundred pointes of good Husbandrie—passed in the first forty years after its publication in 1557. A further testimony to the popularity of the book lies in the fact that copies of any one of the thirteen editions of this period are very scarce, and nearly all imperfect. It certainly is a most attractive handbook to farming, and one can easily imagine how the family copy would be thumbed by father and son, consulting it on every occasion for its practical advice, useful information, and homely maxims, till the book fell to pieces. A glance at Tusser’s ‘Table of the pointes of husbandrie mentioned in this booke’ will show that he does not confine himself strictly to agricultural subjects. Here we find: ‘A description of life and riches,’ ‘Against fantastical scruplenes,’ ‘A Christmas caroll,’ ‘A Sonet against a slaunderous tongue,’ sandwiched in between such titles as: ‘Seedes and hearbes for the kitchen,’ ‘A medicine for faint cattle,’ ‘Howe to fasten loose teeth in a bullocke,’ and the ‘Abstract’ for every month in succession. His verses may not be poetical, but they contain much matter plainly expressed in little room, and their good rhythm and rhyme made them easy to remember. For example:

Get into the hopyard, for now it is time,

to teach Robin hop on his pole how to climb.

Maies husbandrie.

When frost will not suffer to dike and to hedge,