stavenatives

St. Swithun was the Bishop of Winchester who died July 2, 862.
Whilst he was dying he asked to be buried out of doors, where he would be trodden on and rained on, in the following century he was regarded as a saint, and the then Bishop had his bones reburied in a shrine inside the cathedral on 15 July 971.

The story goes that as St. Swithun was being exhumed, it started to rain. Unfortunately the rain didn’t stop for forty days and forty nights… sound familiar? Apparently this was St. Swithun showing his disapproval and punishing the monks.

I wish we could all be that certain in our forecasts!

St. Swithun’s Day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days, it will remain:
St. Swithun’s Day, if thou be fair,
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.

According to the Meteorological Office this is untrue. They have tested the myth on 55 occasions and each time 40 days of similar weather did not follow.

Now, this is Stromness in Orkney… what’s the likelihood of no rain today? Looks promising just now, bright but misty! It’s early though… (yawn)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 7:26 am and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.