Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales Part 22

When clouds appear like rocks and towers, The earth's refresh'd by frequent showers.

This proverb is sufficiently homely, yet the first line reminds us of the description of the clouds in Anthony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 12; but the commonest observer must have seen the "tower'd citadel," and the "pendant rock."

A northern har Brings drought from far.

A har is a mist or thick fog.

First comes David, next comes Chad, Then comes Whinwall as if he was mad.

Alluding to the storms about the day of St. Winwaloe, March 3d, called St. Whinwall by the country people.

Rain, rain, go to Spain; Come again another day: When I brew and when I bake, I'll give you a figgy cake.

This appears to be a child's address to rain, a kind of charm or entreaty for its disappearance. A plum-cake is always called a figgy cake in Devons.h.i.+re, where raisins are denominated _figs_, and hence the term. Other versions are given by Chambers, p. 155, who remarks that it was the practice among the children of Greece, when the sun happened to be obscured by a cloud, to exclaim, ??e?' ? f??' ???e-Come forth, beloved sun! Howell, in his Proverbs, 1659, p. 20, has,-

Rain, rain, go to Spain; Fair weather, come again.

"Little children have a custome, when it raines, to sing or charme away the raine; they all joine in a chorus, and sing thus, viz.:

Raine, raine, goe away, Come againe a Saterday.

I have a conceit that this childish custome is of great antiquity, and that it is derived from the gentiles." (Aubrey, MS. Lansd. 231.)

If Candlemas day be fair and bright, Winter will have another flight.

It is generally the case that fine weather continues if it is mild at Candlemas. A somewhat similar proverb is given by M. Kuhn, Gebrauche und Aberglauben, ii. 12.

It is time to c.o.c.k your hay and corn, When the old donkey blows his horn.

The braying of the a.s.s is said to be an indication of rain or hail.

SNOW.

In Yorks.h.i.+re, when it begins to snow, the boys exclaim,-

Snow, snow faster, The cow's in the pasture.

When the storm is concluding, or when they wish it to give over, they sing,-

Snow, snow, give over, The cow's in the clover!

_White_ is the rural generic term for snow, and _black_ for rain. Thus, in the well-known proverb,-

February fill the d.y.k.e, Be it black or be it white; But if it be white, It's the better to like.

The Anglo-Saxon and Northern literatures are full of similar poetical synonymes. A common nursery riddle conceals the term snow by the image of a white glove, and another in the same manner designates rain as a black glove:

Round the house, and round the house, And there lies a white glove in the window.[38]

Round the house, and round the house, And there lies a black glove in the window.

[Footnote 38: A copy of this riddle occurs in MS.

Harl. 1962, of the seventeenth century.]

THE WIND.

When the wind is in the east, Then the fishes do bite least; When the wind is in the west, Then the fishes bite the best; When the wind is in the north, Then the fishes do come forth; When the wind is in the south, It blows the bait in the fish's mouth.

This weather-wise advice to anglers was obtained from Oxfords.h.i.+re. It is found in a variety of versions throughout Great Britain.

The Lincolns.h.i.+re shepherds say,-

When the wind is in the east, 'Tis neither good for man nor beast: When the wind is in the south, It is in the rain's mouth.

March winds are proverbial, and the following distich is not uncommon in Yorks.h.i.+re:

March winds and April showers, Bring forth May flowers.

To which we may add,-

The south wind brings wet weather, The north wind wet and cold together; The west wind always brings us rain, The east wind blows it back again.

The solution of the following pretty nursery-riddle is a hurricane of wind:

Arthur o' Bower has broken his band, He comes roaring up the land: The King of Scots, with all his power, Cannot turn Arthur of the Bower.

THE MOON.

The inhabitants of most of our rural districts still retain the old dislike to a new moon on Friday, and perpetuate it by the saying,-

Friday's moon, Come when it wool, It comes too soon.

Or by the following,-

Friday's moon, Once in seven year comes too soon.

Some persons, however, contend that Sat.u.r.day is the unlucky day for the new, and Sunday equally so for a full moon. So runs the distich,-

Sat.u.r.day's new, and Sunday's full, Was never fine, nor never wool.

The moon anciently occupied an important place in love-divinations. The following invocation to the planet is used by young women throughout the country:

New moon, new moon, declare to me Shall I this night my true love see?

Not in his best, but in the array As he walks in every day.