64 On Wiltshire Weather Proverbs and Weather Fallacies. 
o’clock, and see which way the wind is: there it will stick for the 
next three months.” Christmas day too was another epoch worthy 
of observation, as the following wise saws show: “A windy Christmas 
and a calm Candlemas are signs of a good year;” “ A warm Christmas 
foretells a cold Waster: a green Christmas, a white Easter.”+ And 
again on New Year's eve very anxious were the enquiries as to the. 
direction of the wind, as from that token the weather of the entire 
coming year might be foreknown :— 
‘‘ Tf New Year’s Eve night wind blows South, 
It betokeneth warmth and growth ; 
If West, much milk and fish in the sea, 
If North, much cold and storms there’ll be ; 
If East, the trees will bear much fruit, 
If North-East, flee it man and brute.” 
The festival of the Conversion of St. Paul® was another day from 
which accurate prognostics of coming seasons might be framed, and 
not only of the seasons but even of the welfare of the nation. The 
rhymes run thus :— 
‘Tf St. Paule’s daie be faire and clear, 
It doth betide a happy yeare ; 
But if perchance it then should raine, 
It will make dear all kinds of graine: 
And if the clouds make dark the skie, 
Then neate and fowls this yeare shall die ; 
If blustering winds doe blowe aloft, 
Then war shall vex the realm full oft.” 
But the Feast of Purification® was perhaps the most noted, as a 
day by which to foretell the coming weather. This is embodied in 
the following well-known monkish legend to the effect that a bright 
sun on the Feast of the Purification betokens more frost after than 
before that festival :— 
‘¢ 8i sol splendescat Maria Purificante, 
Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante.”* 

1 These prognostics from the state of the heavens on Christmas day are 
carried to a great extent in Russia, where they have a proverb that “‘ a dark 
Christmas foretells that cows will give much milk ; and a bright Christmas that 
hens will lay well.” 
* Jauuary 25th; O.S. February 6th. 
3 February 2nd; 0.8. February 14th. 
* Sir Thomas Brown’s ‘* Vulgar Errors,’’ edit. folio., London, 1646, p. 289, 
