60 On Wiltshire Weather Proverbs and Weather Fallacies. 
There is a very curious old Wiltshire prejudice against a new 
moon occurring on a Saturday, which (if not common in the county 
now) prevailed not many years since, but the origin of which, and 
the meaning of which, I am at a loss to conjecture: it is handed 
down in the following proverb :— 
‘“*A Saturday’s moon 
If it comes once in seven years 
Comes once too soon.” 
Or, (as I have heard it) in another version :— 
‘* A Saturday’s moon 
Come when it will, it comes too soon,” 
Scarcely less obnoxious to our rustic prognosticators was a full 
moon on Sunday, and they expressed their objection thus :— 
‘‘ Saturday’s change and Sunday’s prime, 
Once is enough in seven years’ time.” 
But for a choice morsel of our broadest vernacular, let me commend 
the following to especial notice :— 
‘‘ Saturday’s change and Sunday’s full 
Never brought. good, and never wull!” 
Many other quaint superstitions did our Wiltshire “ Moonrakers ” 
of former days cherish in regard to the moon, to which the following 
proverbs testify :— 
‘¢ Two full moons in a calendar month bring on a flood.” 
‘¢ Tf the moon change on a Sunday, there will be a flood before the month 
is out.” 
‘‘ Sow peasen and beans in the wane of the moone, 
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone.” 
‘¢ In the wane of the moon 
A cloudy morning bodes a fair afternoon.” 
‘‘ The Michaelmas moon 
Rises nine days alike soon.” 
Let me add as an antidote to these fallacies, the thoroughly correct 
proverb with regard to the éwrr round the moon :— | 
