March hack ham, comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb. A bushel of March dust is worth a king's ransom. March grass never did good. A windy March and a rainy April make a beautiful May. A March wisher is never a good fisher. March wind and May sun make clothes white and maids dun. So many frosts in March, so many in May. March many weathers. March birds are best. April showers bring forth May flowers. When April blows his horn, it's good both for hay and corn. That is when it thunders in April; for thunder is usually accompaniec with rain. April cling good for nothing. Somerset. April borrows three days of March, and they are ill. April fools. (People sent on idle errands.) An April flood carries away the frog and her brood. April and May are the keys of the year. May, come she early or come she late, she'll make the cow to quake. May seldom passes without a brunt of cold weather. Some will have it thus, She'll bring the cow-quake, i. e. Gramen tremulum, which is true, but I suppose not the intent of the proverb. Beans blow before May doth go. A May flood never did good. Look at your corn in May, and you'll come weeping away: Look at the same in June, and you'll come home in another tune. Shear your sheep in May, and shear them all away. Calm weather in June sets corn in tune. It foretels a wet harvest, men sain ; If the first of July it be rainy weather, 'Twill rain more or less for four weeks together. A shower in July, when the corn begins to fill, Is worth a plough of oxen, and all belongs there till. D No tempest, good July, lest corn come off blue by. To blow the hog acorn and mast. November take flail, let ships no more sail. When the wind's in the east, it's neither good for man nor beast. The east wind with us is commonly very sharp, because it comes off the continent. Midland countries of the same latitude are generally colder than maritime, and continents than islands: and it is observed in England, that near the sea side, as in the county of Cornwall, &c., the snow seldom lies three days. When the wind's in the south, it's in the rain's mouth. This is an observation that holds true all over Europe; and I believe in a great part of Asia too. For Italy and Greece the ancient Latin and Greek poets witness; as Ovid, Madidis notus evolat alis: and speaking of the south, Metamorph. 1, he saith, Contraria tellus nubibus assiduis pluvioque madescit ab Austro. Homer calls the north wind, άonyeverns. Pliny saith, In totum venti omnes à Septentrione sicciores quàm à meridie. lib. ii. cap. 47. For Judæa, in Asia, the Scripture gives testimony; Prov. xxv. 23. The North-wind drives away rain. Wherefore, by the rule of contraries, the south-wind must bring it. The reason of this, with the ingenious philosopher Des Cartes, I conceive to be, because those countries which lie under and near to the course of the sun, being sufficiently heated by his almost perpendicular beams, send up a multitude of vapours into the air, which, being kept in constant agitation by the same heat that raised them, require a great space to perform their motions in; and now still ascending, they must needs be cast off part to the south and part to the north of the sun's course; so that were there no winds, the parts of the earth towards the north and south poles would be most full of clouds and vapours. Now the north-wind blowing, keeps back those vapours, and causes clear weather in these northern parts: but the south wind brings store of them along with it, which by the cold of the air are here condensed into clouds, and fall down in rain. Which account is confirmed by what Pliny reports of Africa, loc. cit. Permutant & duo naturum cum situ: Auster Africa serenus Aquilo nubilus. The reason is, because Africa being under or near the course of the sun, the south-wind carries away the vapours there ascending? but the north-wind detains them; and so partly by compressing, partly by cooling them, causes them to condense, and descend in showers. When the wind's in the south, It blows the bait into the fishes' mouth. No weather is ill, if the wind be still. A hot May makes a fat church-vard. When the sloe-tree is as white as a sheet, Sow your barley, whether it be dry or wet. A green winter makes a fat church-yard. This proverb was sufficiently confuted in the year 1667, when the winter was very mild; and yet no mortality or epidemical disease ensued the summer or autumn following. We have entertained an opinion, that frosty weather is the most healthful, and the hardest winters the best; but I can see no reason for it; for in the hottest countries of the world, as Brazil, &c., men are longest lived where they know not what frost or snow means, the ordinary age of man being an hundred and ten years: and here in England we found by experience, that the last great plague succeeded one of the sharpest frosty winters that hath lately happened. Winter never rots in the sky. Ital. Nécaldo, né gelo resta mai in cielo. Neither heat nor cold abides always in the sky. 'Tis pity fair weather should do any harm. Hail brings frost in the tail. A snow year, a rich year. Anno di neve, anno di bene. Ital. A winter's thunder's a summer's wonder. Quand il tonne en Mars on peut dire helas. Fr. Drought never bred dearth in England. Whoso hath but a mouth, shall ne'er in England suffer droughth. When the sand doth feed the clay (which is in a wet summer) England woe and well-a-day. But when the clay doth feed the sand (which is in a dry summer) Then it is well with England. Because there is more clay than sandy ground in England. After a famine in the stall, The worse for the rider, the better for the bider. Bon pais mauvais chemin.-Fr. Rich land, bad way. We shall have weather thick and thin : We shall have weather hard as a block. These prognostics of weather and future plenty, &c. I look upon as altogether uncertain; and were they narrowly observed, would. I believe. as often miss as hit. In the old of the moon, a cloudy morning bodes a fair afternoon. As the days lengthen, so the cold strengthens. Cresce dì, cresce'l freddo dice il pescatore. Ital. The reason is, for that the earth having been well heated by the sun's long lying upon it in summer time, is not suddenly cooled again by the recess of the sun, but retains part of its warmth 'till after the winter solstice; which warmth, notwithstanding the return and access of the sun, must needs still languish and decay; and so, notwithstanding the lengthening of the days, the weather grows colder, 'till the external heat caused by the sun is greater than the remaining internal heat of the earth; for as long as the external is lesser than the internal (that is, so long as the sun hath not force enough to produce as great a heat in the earth, as was remaining from the last summer), so long the internal must needs decrease. The like reason there is why the hottest time of the day is not just at noon, but about two of the clock in the afternoon; and the hottest time of the year not just at the summer solstice, but about a month after; because 'till then the external heat of the sun is greater than the heat produced in the earth. So if you put a piece of iron into a very hot fire, it will not suddenly be heated so hot as the fire can make it; and though you abate your fire before it be thoroughly heated, yet will it grow hotter and hotter, 'till it comes to that degree of heat which the fire it is in can give it. If there be a rainbow in the eve, it will rain and leave: But if there be a rainbow in the morrow, it will neither lend nor borrow. An evening red, and a morning grey, is a sign of a fair day. Le rouge soir et blanc matin font rejouir le pelerin.-Fr. Sera rosso, et negro mattino allegra il pellegrino.-Ital. A red evening, and a white morning, rejoice the pilgrim. When the clouds are on the hills, they'll come down by the mills. David and Chad, sow pease, good or bad. That is, about the beginning of March. This rule in gardening never forget, To sow dry, and set wet. Sow beans in the mud, And they'll grow like wood. Till St. James' day be come and gone, The pigeon never knoweth woe, But when she doth a benting go. If the partridge had the woodcock's thigh, Think no labour slavery That brings in penny saveriy Yule is good on yule even. That is, as I understand it, every thing in its season. Yule is Christmas. Tripe's good meat if it be well cleaned. Oysters are not good in a month that hath not an R in it. Where there is store of oatmeal, you may put enough in the crock-pot. Somerset. A nag with a weamb, and a mare with nean; i. e. none. Behind before, before behind, a horse is in danger to be prick'd. You must look for grass on the top of an oak tree. Because the grass seldom springs well before the oak begins to put forth. St. Matthie sends sap into the tree. A famine in England begins at the horse-manger. In opposition to the rack: for in dry years, when hay is dear, commonly corn is cheap but when oats (or indeed any one grain) is dear, the rest are seldom cheap. Winter's thunder, and summer's flood, Never boded Englishman good. Butter's once a year in the cow's horn. They mean when the cow gives no milk. And butter is said to be mad twice a year; once in summer time in very hot weather, when it is tou thin and fluid; and once in winter, in very cold weather, when it is too hard and difficult to spread. Barley-straw's good fodder when the cow gives water. If she be a good goose, her dame well to pay, She will lay two eggs before Valentine's day. Before St. Chad every goose lays, both good and bad. It rains by planets. This the country people use when it rains in one place, and not in another: meaning, that the showers are governed by the planets, which being ertatic in their own motions, cause such uncertain wandering of clouds and falls of rain. Or that the fall of showers is as uncertain as the motion of the planets are imagined to be. After Lammas corn ripens as much by night as by day. Winter will have another flight : If on Candlemas-day it be shower and rain, Winter is gone, and will not come again. This is a translation or metaphrase of that old Latin distich: Si sol splendescat Maria purificante, Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante. |