United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Now save for the hours by the camp fire when he passionately blurted out again and again the tale of his rebellion until Brian knew his life as he knew the weather-lore of the open road, he seemed ever on the verge of laughter. Brian smiled. Attuned to the mood he summed up the achievement of his own summer. The brawn of splendid health and a clear head!

If the weather be clear on Candlemas Day "corn and fruits will then be dear," and "whoever doth plant or sow on Shrove Tuesday, it will always remain green." According to a piece of weather-lore in Sweden, there is a saying that to strew ash branches in a field on Ash Wednesday is equivalent to three days' rain and three days' sun.

The influence of the weather on plants is an agricultural belief which is firmly credited by the modern husbandman. In many instances his meteorological notions are the result of observation, although in some cases the reason assigned for certain pieces of weather-lore is far from obvious.

I had never before beheld a sky like it, but its aspect was sufficiently alarming to convince the veriest tyro in weather-lore that something quite out of the common was brewing; so I at once awoke the slumbering crew to inquire whether any of them could read the signs and tell me what we might expect.

The rain had all but ceased, and what there was came out of some northern quarter of the heavens mingled with stinging pellets of sleet, driven by a fierce gale. The turn of the storm had come, and I was wise enough in weather-lore to see that its rearguard was sweeping down upon us in all the bitterness of a winter's tempest.

He knows he must know how to make the wind carry his craft from one given point to another given point. He must know about tides and rips and eddies, bar and channel markings, and day and night signals; he must be wise in weather-lore; and he must be sympathetically familiar with the peculiar qualities of his boat which differentiate it from every other boat that was ever built and rigged.

"My own idea, Bob," replied I; "I have seldom seen a wilder sunset, and if it does not mean wind, and plenty of it too, all my weather-lore must go for nothing, and I shall have to turn to and learn everything over afresh."

Emerging from the plantation, an angry gust, laden with cold drops, dashed itself in her face, and she knew from the weather-lore which she, as a child of the hills, had learned in past years, that a wild night was between her and the house whose shelter she sought in her despair. Phenomenally rapid was the onrush of the storm.

Of the numerous other instances of weather-lore associated with agricultural operations, it is said in relation to rain: "Sow beans in the mud, and they'll grow like wood." And a saying in East Anglia is to this effect: A further admonition advises the farmer to "Sow wheat in dirt, and rye in dust;" While, according to a piece of folk-lore current in East Anglia, "Wheat well-sown is half-grown."

Another variation of the same adage in Kent is, "A plum year, a dumb year," and, "Many nits, many pits," implying that the abundance of nuts in the autumn indicates the "pits" or graves of those who shall succumb to the hard and inclement weather of winter; but, on the other hand, "A cherry year, a merry year." A further piece of weather-lore tells us: