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October were fine autumnal months, as they often would be after a 

 wet summer, November would be almost sure to be wet, and the 

 festival in question might be about the time of the wet setting in. 



It is not pretended, indeed it is not possible, to give any 

 explanation of these traditional sayings so thoroughly in accordance 

 with facts as to claim our unhesitating assent. It is only 

 attempted, looking at the subject in a scientific point of view, to 

 show what may have led to their origin. Taking one year with 

 another, there is relatively speaking a diy half of the year and a 

 wet half, the latter being further divisible into two wet periods 

 separated by a dry period. In other words, some portion of the 

 summer is wet, and some portion of the autumn is also wet, the 

 Saints'-Days above named pointing in a general way to the setting 

 in of those periods. But between these two wet periods there 

 usually occurs an interval of fine settled weather, this being also, 

 curiously enough, associated with other Saints ; if the first wet 

 commence, as it normally would do, about the end of July and 

 continue through August — so that it can be fairly laid to the 

 charge of St. Swithin — then, when the dry comes in September, St. 

 Bartholomew, whose festival occurs exactly 40 days after that of 

 St. Swithin, is considered as bringing about the change, according 

 to the old adage : — 



All the tears that St. Swithin can cry 

 St. Bartlemy's dusty mantle wipes dry. 



If this dry period does not set in till later in the season, we have 

 then no less than four Saint or Festival Days brought in to mark 

 the fine settled weather, especially if mild as well as fine, and 

 lending their names to what is considered as a second summer. 

 We have a Michaelmas Summer, St. Luke's Little Summer, a 

 Halloween Summer, and a St. Martin's Sumraer ; the dates being 

 resjectively Sept. 29, Oct. 18, Oct. 31, and Nov. 11. The 

 expression of a Michaelmas Summer is well known. That of " St. 

 Luke's Little Summer" seems to be much used by " the good folks 

 of Hants and Dorset," who are said " always to expect it about 

 the 18th of October."* A Halloween Summer and a St. Martin's 

 Summer are expressions that occur both of them in Shakspeare, 



* "Notes and Queries," vol. xii., p. 366. 



