Hoping for Swithin to smile kindly upon us

Country Living with Francis Farragher

Midsummer’s Day might have come and gone but for those of us into that strange world of weather lore, old wives’ tales and quackery predictions, one of the big occasions of the high sun days, is Friday next, July 15, St. Swithin’s Day.

There never was, or never will be, even the slightest trinket of scientific research to back up our weather fables, but that won’t stop us from keeping a very close eye on the weather mood on the feast day of Swithin.

The gist of the old rhyme is that: “St. Swithin’s Day, if it does rain, for 40 days it will remain; St. Swithin’s Day if be fair, for 40 days it will rain no more.”

One of the great things about old saints, bishops and legends is, that with the passing of time – and we’re talking about centuries here – the bond with the fable seems to get stronger and stronger.

Swithin, or Swithun as was sometimes written in the older English, was a catholic bishop in the old Anglo Saxon kingdom of Wessex in the south-east of England, back in the 9th century.

In those days, much like the present time, there were good ones [bishops] and bad ones, but Swithin was by all accounts pretty high up in the ratings in terms of humility, prayerfulness and in looking after the poor.

Not being a man of airs and graces, when God called him ashore back in 862, his final humble request was that he be buried outside, close to Winchester Church where his flock could tread on the ground where his body lay.

Not too much to ask, one might think, from such a virtuous man of the cloth, but of course those who came after him, just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

One of his more pretentious successors deemed it appropriate that poor old Swithin be rooted up from his outdoor resting place and be reinterred in an internal church tomb.

Needless to say, even the patient Swithin, had by then, taken enough, and in the days following his transfer indoors, back in 972, it rained for 40 days and nights, without any respite, flooding the entire local countryside.

To finish with the post life traumas of Bishop Swithin, he didn’t enjoy much comfort in later years either, with his shrine destroyed in the Reformation days of the 16th century and his bones distributed as relics across the region.

So keep a close eye on Friday, if you’re into the world of lore and religion, but so far it has been quite a mixed Summer, a bit like the curate’s egg – good in spots – with the highlight so far being that fortnight towards the end of May and early June, when the thermometer hit the mid-20s.

After a very slow Spring in terms of growth, there’s been a lot of catch-up done since thanks to the cocktail of warm soils, moisture and good spells of sunshine too, even if they are intermittent.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.