Scottish
Weather Rhymes
Many
of the old rhymes about weather have a grain or more of truth
in them, but others have not. ‘When the cock goes crowing
to his bed, he’ll rise inthe morning with a watery head!’
Well, I’ve been out of my bed at night as often as most
people, and have heard cocks crowing at bedtime, midnight, dawn
and at every hour in between. As often as not the next day was
exceptionally fine. In actual fact, if one cock starts crowing
at night, other cocks hear him and respond—that’s
all there is to it ?
Nevertheless,
before the days of scientific forecasting, country and sea-faring
folk had to keep their weather eye open, and they realised that
the swing of the wind, the movements of birds, beasts and insects,
the clarity of the air, etc., meant a change for good or ill.
Flashes of wildfire, or the weird appearance of “the Merry
Dancers” were sure indications of unsettled weather. “Grey
mares’ tails” in the upper sky meant that a wet
spell would continue. Spiders spinning, and swallows flying
high indicated good weather to be.
A
well-known Angus rhyme introduces the Sidlaws:
When
Craigowl puts on his cowl,
and Coolie Law his hood,
The folk o’ Lundie may look dool,
for the day’ll no’ be good.
There
is a Fife version:
When
Falkland Hill puts on his cap,
the Howe o’ Fife will get a drap,
And when the Bishop draws his cowl,
look out for wind and weather foul!
Another
rhyme—’ Mony haws, mony snaws ‘—connects
a rich harvest of hedgerow berries with a cold winter. Apparently,
too, ‘An air winter maks a sair winter.’
Another
traditional rhyme claims that ‘Winter thunder bodes summer
hunger,’ but the connection seems far—fetched, and
it is doubtful if many of these long—term forecasts had
any truth in them at all.
Some
rhymes feature the moon:
‘When
the moon is on her back,
Gae mend yer shoon and sort yer thack!’
Here
is another:
‘When
round the moon there is a brugh,
The weather will be cauld and rough!’
The
cold late spring of the hills and glens (where snow may linger
into April and May) is caught in the Gaelic saying:
‘Spring
with a serpent’s head and a peacock’s tail.’
And
typical east—coast weather (in bad years, at least) is
well described in the line:
‘It
greets a winter, and girns a’ summer.
Two
rather similar rhymes from Angus:
Geese
tae the sea,
guid weather tae be;
Geese tac the hill,
guid weather tac spill.
And
here is the other:
Mist
on the hills, weather spills;
Mist inthe howes, weather grows.
There
are many others, including that old—time question put
by country bairns to a passing snail:
Snailie,
snailie. shoot oot yer horn,
And tell us if it’ll be a bonny day the morn.
In
Angus, at the lambing time in the glens (April) they still speak
of “the Teuchat’s storms.” In Fife they talk
of “the coo-quack o’ May.”
The
local sayings sound better when given in the local dialect,
and so you'll just have to visit.
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