St. Swithin’s Day is 15th July, a day on which people watch the weather for tradition says that what ever the weather is like on St. Swithin’s Day, it will continue so for the next forty days. In England we have been having many weeks of rain and this week we have had a months worth of rain in a day. Unfortunately it rained on St Swithun’s day and so if the rhyme is to believed it looks like this summer will definitely be a wash out!
The weather-rhyme is well known throughout the British Isles since Elizabethan times.
‘St Swithin’s Day, if it does rain
Full forty days, it will remain
St Swithin’s Day, if it be fair
For forty days, t’will rain no more.’ St. Swithin (or more properly, Swithun) was a Saxon Bishop of Winchester and legend says that as he lay on his deathbed, he asked to be buried out of doors, where he would be trodden on and rained on. For nine years, his wishes were followed, but then, the monks of Winchester attempted to remove his remains to a splendid shrine inside the cathedral on 15 July 971. According to legend there was a heavy rain storm either during the ceremony or on its anniversary.
This led to the old wives’ tale (folklore) that if it rains on St Swithin’s Day (July 15th), it will rain for the next 40 days in succession, and a fine 15th July will be followed by 40 days of fine weather.
So there you have it, it’s that old Saxon monks fault that it’s been raining cats and dogs every day.
