The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-07-19 00:00:00

"WU pleut le Jour de St. Midard (June 8),
11 pleut quarante lours plus tard ;
S'il pleut le Jour de St. Gervais et de St. Protais
(June 19),
II pleut quarante jours apres.
-

Secondly. The " trough " or coffin of St. Swithin
was movea from the outside to the inside of the church
at Winchester on the 15th of July, 971, AD,, some
hundred years or more after his burial. Now, the
popular story is that the proceedings on this occa-
sion were much disturbed by the heavy rain, and
that (owing, I suppose, to the disgust of the saint)
the weather has ever since for 40 subsequent days
been governed by its own conduct on that particular
one. But what was that day? It was the 15th, old style;
that is, the 27th now. Is, therefore, the weather
now-a-days to follow, not merely the translation of
the saint's body but also the subsequent translation of
the date itself, or is it to desert the saint and cleave
to the original date, that knows him no longer, as its
day of departure? This difficulty alone might comfort
the most superstitious,
Thirdly. A quotation from "rare Ben Jonson," a
century and a half before the adoption of the new
style, proves that the 15th was old style (Every man
out of his Humour." Act 1, s. 3) :

" Sordido (reading an almanac).-0, here St. Swithin's,
the xv. day, variable weather for the most part rain; good.
For the most part rain. Why, it should rain 40 days after
now, mere or less; it was a rule held afore I was able to
hold a plough, and yet here are two days no rain. Ha? it
makes me muse."

Fourthly. Perhaps the common sense view that
after a dry spring the chances are in favour of a wet
time after the middle of July? That the contrary may
now be the case will be the earnest desire of all, but
the probability of dry or wet must be left for the pro-
phecies of the scientific and the weather wise. Mean-
while, it can do no harm to beg St. Swithin to be
propitious, unless, indeed, he desire to bear the blame
of a drowning world upon his shoulders,

"Alights" also writes to The Times :
Sir,—l send you a memorandum of the results, re-
ported some years ago, of 20 years' observation at
Greenwich concerning St. Swithin's Day.
There were six years in which rain fen on St.
Swithin's Day.
During the 40 days immediately following the 15th
of July in these six years collectively rain fell on 110
days.
St. Swithin's was a dry day in 14 of the 20 years.
Rain fell, on the subsequent 14 x 40 days, on 267
days. Now 110 divided by 6 equals 18 and 14.32d5. ;
267 divided by 14 equals 19 and 3.42d5, so that more
rain fell in the 40 days following St. Swithin on an
average, in the years in which that day was dry, than
in which it was wet. Therefore the adage is naught
in every view of it.

In noticing St. Swithin's day, the Daily Chronicle
remarks :

- -
"King Ethelwolf's people were evidently as much troubled
about the weather as are Queen Victoria's, and we should
imagine that the summer of 862 was, if possible, as uncom-
fortable as the season we are now endeavouring to live
through. On the Second of July in that year the worthy Si,
Switlainshullied off his mortal coil. The people whom he
left must have been the victims of very extraordinary
weather, or they would scarcely have handed down his
memory to all time in inseparable association with an absurd
meteorological superstition. As we are reminded every
fifteenth of July—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 main" It is much to be regretted
that when the good Bishop was once laid to rest in Winchester
Churchyard the proposal to disturb the repose of his ashes
should ever have been made. On the day (July 15) when
the coffin containing all that was mortal of him was
removed from the churchyard to the cathedral it rained
so heavily that the disinterment could only be effected
under considerable difficulty. According to popular tradi-
tion, it continued to rain for forty days after. We
are assured by some authorities, however, that the
Saint's disinterment was not undertaken until a cen-
tury or so after his death, so that the subjects of King Ethel-
wolf may have been innocent of ascribing the control of the
weather from the Fifteenth of July to the Twenty-fourth
of Angust to St.Swithin's ghostly interference. The fact
is, however, that the St. Swithin superstition is not
exclusively of English growth. Other nations have
other saints to whom meteorological influence is attri-
buted. Again, if there are any persons who are still
inclined to pin their faith to traditional rather than to
scientific evidence relative to St. Swithin's influence over the
weather, it is important that they should at least be reminded
that by the adoption of the New Style of the calendar
the Fifteenth of July was in 1752 shifted to the
Twenty-seventh, so that Tuesday had really no claim
to be St. Swithin's Pay at all. However, people
still insist upon commemorating the good Bishop's
eccentricity on the 15th of the month, in spite of the Astrono-
mical Department. As it rained on Tuesday, we should
advise the believers in the Saint to adopt this year the
correct date—namely, the twenty-seventh. They will thus
be able to revive their hopes for forty days of fine
weather."