"If Candlemas day be dry and fair,
The half of winter's to come and mair;
If Candlemas day be wet and foul [pronounce _fool_],
The half of winter's gone to Yule."
=March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.=
=March comes in with adder heads and goes out with peacock
tails.=--_Scotch._
=A peck of March dust is worth a king's ransom.=
=A dry March never begs its bread.=
=A peck of March dust and a shower in May=
=Make the corn green and the fields gay.=
=March winds and April showers=
=Bring forth May flowers.=
=March wind and May sun=
=Make clothes white and maids dun.=
=So many mists in March you see,=
=So many frosts in May will be.=
=March grass never did good.=
"When gnats dance in March it brings death to sheep" (Dutch).[784]
=When April blows his horn it's good both for hay and corn.=
"That is," says Ray, "when it thunders in April, for thunder is usually
accompanied with rain."
=A cold April the barn will fill.=
=April and May are the keys of the year.=
=A May flood never did good.=
This applies to England. In Spain and Italy they say, "Water in May is
bread for all the year."[785]
=To wed in May is to wed poverty.=
There were fewer marriages in Scotland in May, 1857, than in any other
month of the year: it is an "unlucky month." The proverb is recorded by
Washington Irving.
=A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay,=
=A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon,=
=But a swarm in July is not worth a fly.=
=A shower in July, when the corn begins to fill,=
=Is worth a plough of oxen and all belongs theretill.=
=A dry summer never made a dear peck.=
=Drought never bred dearth in England.=
The same thing, and no more, is meant by the following enigmatical
rhyme:--
"When the sand doth feed the clay,
England woe and well-a-day;
But when the clay doth feed the sand,
Then is it well with old England."
The first of these two contingencies occurs after a wet summer--the
second after a dry one; and, as there is more clay than sand in
England, there is a better harvest in the second case than in the first.
=Dry August and warm doth harvest no harm.=
They think differently on this point in the south of Europe. "A wet
August never brings dearth" (Italian).[786] "When it rains in August it
rains honey and wine" (Spanish).[787]
=September blow soft till the fruit's in the loft.
November take flail, let ships no more sail.=
=A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard.=
It is a popular notion that a mild winter is less healthy than a frosty
one; but the Registrar-General's returns prove that it is quite the
contrary. The mortality of the winter months is always in proportion
to the intensity of the cold. The proverb, therefore, must be given
up as a fallacy. There is some truth in this of the Germans, "A green
Christmas, a white Easter." The probability is that a very mild winter
will be followed by an inclement spring.
=A snow year, a rich year.=
=Under water, dearth; under snow, bread.=
=Winter's thunder and summer's flood=
=Never boded an Englishman good.=