This weekend on 15 July we celebrate St. Swithun’s Day, a day on which people watch the weather. Tradition says that whatever the weather is like on St. Swithun’s Day, it will continue for the next forty days.
There is a weather-rhyme that is well known throughout the British Isles since Elizabethan times.
‘St Swithun’s Day, if it does rain
Full forty days, it will remain
St Swithun’s Day, if it be fair
For forty days, t’will rain no more.’
St. Swithun was a Saxon Bishop of Winchester and legend says that as he lay on his deathbed, he asked to be buried out of doors, where he would be trodden on and rained on. For nine years, his wishes were followed, but then, the monks of Winchester attempted to remove his remains to a splendid shrine inside the cathedral on 15 July 971. According to legend there was a heavy rain storm either during the ceremony or on its anniversary.
This led to the old wives’ tale (folklore) that if it rains on St Swithun’s Day, it will rain for the next 40 days in succession, and a fine 15 July will be followed by 40 days of fine weather.
Let’s hope it’s a sunny weekend!
