"If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight;
If Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again."
Some pretend to prophesy the coming weather from that of the last three days of March. These are called the "borrowing days."
"March borrowed from April
Three days and they war ill;
The first o’ them war wind and weet,
The next o’ them war snaw and sleet,
The last o’ them war wind and rain,
Which gar’d the silly puir ewes come hirpling hame."
Of Michaelmas Day it is said: "So many days old the moon is on Michaelmas Day, so many floods after."
If it rains on Friday it is sure to rain on Sunday—“wet Friday, wet Sunday."
Watch the cat as she washes her face, and if she passes her paw over her ear it will rain to-morrow.
The oak and ash-trees are considered to prophesy the weather:
"If the oak bud before the ash,
We shall be sure to have a splash;
But if the ash bud before the oak,
We shall have weather as hard as a rock."
If you will begin the year auspiciously, be careful that your first foot "is a fair man." Men still go about to "bring the New Year in," and their guerdon is usually a glass of whisky. On no account should a woman be the first foot, for she would bring misfortune. But before this the New Year has been ushered in by the ringing of church bells, and sounding of buzzers from all the collieries.
Nothing should be allowed to go out of the house on this day, for that would mean a year of poverty, but as much as possible should be brought in, as that will insure a year of plenty; and for the same reason a new dress should be worn with money in its pocket.