And if you lend me days three
I’ll find a way to make them dee.
The first o’ them was wind and weet.
The second o’ them was snaw and sleet.
The third o’ them was sic a freeze,
It froze the birds’ beaks to the trees.
And when the three days were past and gane,
The three poor sheep came hirpling (limping) hame.”
Some girls got the “borrowed days” mixed up with the extra day that comes in Leap year. One told us that they were “the mild days of winter borrowed from Spring.” Another gave them as “Sunday, Monday and Saturday.” Three or four furnished an interesting piece of local information to the effect that in Cheshire the name “Borrowed Days,” is given to the first eleven days of May.
35. What is the simplest and least troublesome of all cookery processes?