Your correspondent μ asks whether any traces of such a popular belief exist at present.
In the Highlands of Scotland, where at this season the heather is burned by the shepherds, the belief is general among the people; I may add that it is a belief founded on observation. In Australia a hot wind blowing from the north caused (in part at least) by bush fires in the interior, is invariably succeeded by rain from the opposite part.
It would not be difficult, perhaps, to assign a satisfactory reason for a meteorological fact, which by a misnomer is dubbed "Folk Lore."
W. C.
It is believed in the neighbourhood of Melrose that burning the heather brings rain.
It must be remarked that Tweeddale runs mainly west and east; that the heather-covered hills are all to the west of this place. West wind brings rain.
†
In the north of England, and in Scotland, and probably in all moorland districts of the country, it is the practice of shepherds in spring, when the heather is dry enough, to set fire to it and burn large tracts of it, in order to get rid of the old woody plants. The young heather which springs up from the roots produces much better and more palatable food for the sheep. In this process, which takes place at the same time in a whole district (viz. when there has been no rain for some time), the whole air becomes loaded with smoke, and a very misty state of the atmosphere is produced. It is the general belief throughout the south of Scotland and in the Cheviot range, that this burning "doth draw downe rain."
Luckily this season, though there has been much moor burning, the general expectation has been agreeably disappointed, and the weather has now continued perfectly dry for several weeks, and appears likely to do so for some time to come, to the great delight of the farmers, as most propitious for sowing their grain of all kinds.
J. SS.