“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.”
L.M. Montgomery · Anne of Green Gables, 1908
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St. Swithin's day, if thou dost rain, for forty days it will remain; St. Swithin's day, if thou be fair, for forty days 'twill rain no more.
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About this quote
Meaning
This traditional English proverb links the weather on the fifteenth of July, the feast day of St. Swithin, to the weather that will follow for the next forty days. If it rains on that day, the saying goes, rain will persist for forty more days; if the day is fine and dry, fair weather will continue. The proverb reflects the deep human desire to find patterns in nature and to predict what is coming, especially in a climate where weather is changeable and consequential.
Context
St. Swithin was a ninth-century bishop of Winchester in England. The legend associated with his feast day appears to have grown up well after his lifetime, and the proverb itself was circulating in various forms by the early modern period at the latest. Weather proverbs of this kind were once genuinely useful in agricultural communities, where knowing what conditions to expect could affect decisions about harvests and livestock. This particular saying became one of the best-known folk traditions in English culture, observed and discussed every year on the fifteenth of July even by people who do not believe it is literally true.
About the author
This is a traditional proverb with no single identifiable author. It belongs to the long tradition of English folk sayings that grew from the rhythms of rural and seasonal life. Such proverbs were passed down orally across generations before being recorded in written form.
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