I'm surprised by Julia's report that in Italy a fine Candelora
means the end of winter, because most weather proverbs associated
with this day (outside Greece) that I know say just the opposite.
(Lupercalia, incidentally, was on the 15th.) This is what we have
on weather predictions and Groundhog Day:
Candlemas is particularly rich in weather proverbs. It is
widely believed that a fine Candlemas portends a prolongation of
winter, a rainy one an early spring. This belief is found as far
east as Crete, though elsewhere in the Greek world the Swithun
principle applies: as the weather is on Hypapante, so it will be
for the next forty days, or at least till the end of February.
The day is known as the Miller's Holiday, Miliarghousa: the
windmills stand idle, and in Crete it is said they will refuse to
turn even if the miller tries to start them.
John Skelton alluded to the custom of weather prediction in
1523: `How men were wonte for to discerne | By candlemes day,
what wedder shuld holde.' An almanack of 1696 offers the
prediction in two languages:
Si Sol splendescat Maria Purificante,
Major erit glacies post festum, quam fuit ante.
In English thus.
If a bright Sun salute the Virgin Pure,
Of a Second Winter Mortals may be sure.
(Maria se purificante would have been better Latin and better
metre.) From Whitby in Yorkshire comes:
If Cannlemas day be lound and fair,
yaw hawf o' t' winter's to come and mair;
if Cannlemas day be murk an' foul,
haw hawf o' t' winter's geean at Yule.
In Germany it was said that the shepherd would rather see the
wolf enter his stable on Candlemas Day than the sun.
Groundhog Day. In the United States, a German belief about the
badger (applied in Switzerland to the wolf) has been transferred
to the woodchuck, better known as the groundhog; on Candlemas he
breaks his hibernation in order to observe the weather: if he can
see his shadow he returns to his slumbers for six weeks, but if
it rains he stays up and about. This has earned Candlemas the
name of Groundhog Day. In Quarryville, Lancaster County, Pa., a
Slumbering Groundhog Lodge was formed, whose members, wearing
silk hats and carrying canes, went out in search of a groundhog
burrow; on finding one they watched its inhabitant's conduct and
reported back. Of twenty observations recorded, eight
prognostications proved true, seven false, and five were
indeterminate. The ritual is now carried on at Punxsutawney, Pa.,
where the weather prophet has been named Punxsutawney Phil.
Bonnie Blackburn
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bonnie Blackburn
67 St Bernard's Road
Oxford OX2 6EJ
tel. 01865 552808 fax 01865 512237
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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