APRIL 61 



task of dispelling popular delusions, included belief in 

 the Borrowing Days among his Vulgar Errors ; but any 

 salmon fisher who tried to ply his craft in the tempest 

 which tore the early verdure at the beginning of the 

 present April must have realised plausible grounds for 

 the legend. I, at all events, battling with the furious 

 cutting wind in vain endeavour to straighten out a 

 sagging line, kept repeating to myself the verses handed 

 down, with many variants, from one generation of 

 shepherds to another : 



' March said to Averil, 

 " I see three hoggs on yonder hill ; 

 If ye will lend me dayis three, 

 I 'se find a way to gar them dee." 

 The first o' them was wind an' weet ; 

 The second it was snaw an' sleet ; 

 The third o' them was sic a freeze 

 It froze the birds' nebs to the trees. 

 When thae three days was past and gane, 

 The silly hoggs cam hirplin' hame.' 



Note, that ' hoggs ' here are not swine, but yearling 



In Southern Europe a different version of the same 

 story prevails, wherein the borrower is not March, but 

 a certain shepherd, who, seeing his flock in sore 

 jeopardy from the rude winds of March, promised to 

 sacrifice a lamb to that month if the storm were stilled. 

 There fell a calm, and the flock prospered; but the 

 shepherd never fulfilled his vow; so, in the following 

 year, March avenged the default by exchanging three 

 days with April, and has continued to do so ever since. 

 Science shrugs a scornful shoulder at most old ' freits,' 



