183 



These are dangerous days to begin any business, fall sick, or undertake any 

 journey !"* 



To return to weather prognostications, it is rather singular that 

 while the above weather sayings all seem to point one way, 

 telling us the weather must be fine to insure prosperity, that 

 especially there must be bright sunshine on Christmas Day, St. 

 Vincent's Day, and the day of St. Paul's Conversion, to bring about 

 a hapjiy and productive year, on the Festival of the Purification, 

 the 2nd of February, and scarcely more than a week after the 

 Festival of St. Paul, it must be just the reverse. Good weather 

 on this day is said to indicate a long continuance of winter and a 

 bad crop, foul weather being on the contrary a favourable omen. 

 The old Latin monkish lines relating to this day are often quoted : — 

 Si sol splendescat Maria puriiicante, 

 Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante. 

 These lines occur in Sir Thomas Brown's " Vulgar Errors," but he 

 gives no explanation of the belief expressed in them, and seems to 

 consider it as a vulgar error only. There are several English 

 couplets similar, such as the following : — 



If Candlemas Day be fair and bright, 



"Winter will have another flight ; 



If on Candlemas Day it be shower and rain, 



"Winter is gone, and wUl not come again. 



The hind had as Hef see his wife on the bier. 

 As that Candlemas Day should be fine and clear. 

 And again : — 



If Candlemas Day be fair and clear, 

 Corn and fruits will then be dear. 

 Yet if this be entirely a " vulgar error," that is to say, if there 

 be no latent truth in it whatever, it were difficult to say what 

 could have led to such an idea so entirely opposite to the language 

 and spirit of the weather-sayings above spoken of. I am inclined 

 from this circumstance to think that it is not like those due 

 altogether to superstition, but founded on partly coixect obsei-va- 

 tion respecting the ordinaiy character of February weather, only 

 stiU so far fanciful as to be put in connection with a festival, as in 

 such a multitude of other instances, the Festival of the Purification, 



* " Notes and Queries," vol. vii., p. 599, 



