St. Swithin's Day rain
An old rhyme lets St. Swithin's Day, in mid-July, decide the next six weeks of weather, wet or dry. Records show no such run, though the jet stream's position in early July does shape much of a British summer.
What it may mean
Behind the rhyme sits a story about a wish. As Brand tells it, Swithin, a ninth-century bishop of Winchester, asked to be buried in the open churchyard rather than inside the church, and when the monks later prepared to carry his body into the choir, a downpour began on the very day and lasted forty days, so they gave up and built a chapel over the grave. Told that way, the downpour is less a forecast than a protest on behalf of a man who could no longer speak for himself. The record is less tidy: historians date the move of his bones into the cathedral to July 15, 971, and early sources suggest the move was what Swithin himself had asked for. The legend kept the wish all the same. A wet July 15 is a good day to ask whose wishes you still carry out.
Depending on how you saw it
A dry, bright St. Swithin's Day
The rhyme cuts both ways: if the saint's day is fair, "for forty days 'twill rain na mair." A sunny start was credited with a whole dry summer. Which good beginning have you given credit for everything that came after it?
Rain on the young apples
An old English saying gave the same shower a gentler reading: a wet St. Swithin's Day was the saint christening the apples still growing on the trees. The weather is identical; only the story changes. Which ordinary nuisance in your week could use a kinder name?
Waiting for St. Bartholomew
A second proverb set a limit on the first: "All the tears that St. Swithin can cry, St. Bartholomew's dusty mantle wipes dry," St. Bartholomew's Day being August 24. Country people marked the summer by saints' days like these. Which dates in your own year work as markers?
Why it happens in nature
One day's weather cannot fix the next six weeks, and weather records show no forty-day run of rain after July 15; in 1924, 30 of the 40 days were wet. The grain of truth lies in the jet stream: a northerly position in early July makes a drier, sunnier British summer more likely, so mid-July can work as a rough guide.
What folk beliefs say
Britain
A rhyme still common in many parts of the country in Brand's time ran: "St. Swithin's Day, if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain; St. Swithin's Day, if thou be fair, for forty days 'twill rain na mair."
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (1849), vol. 1, p. 341. View the page
Winchester, England
The story told to explain the saying: Swithin, bishop of Winchester, wished to lie in the open churchyard, and when the monks set out to move his body into the choir on July 15, it rained so heavily for forty days that they gave up the plan.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (1849), vol. 1, p. 340. View the page
Britain
An old saying held that if St. Swithin's Day is wet, the saint is christening the apples.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (1849), vol. 1, p. 342. View the page
Britain
Another proverb gave St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, the last word: "All the tears that St. Swithin can cry, St. Bartholomew's dusty mantle wipes dry."
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (1849), vol. 1, p. 351. View the page
To reflect on
Whose wish, spoken years ago, do you still honor, even when it would be easier not to?