Saint Swithun's Day

𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠!

Today is the feast day of Saint Swithun, who, along with Saints Medard (8th of June) and Gervais and Protais (19th of June) are associated with periods of weather lasting forty days. It is said:

St Swithun's Day, if thou dost rain,

For forty days it will remain;

St Swithun's Day, if thou be fair,

For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.

There is possibly a grain of truth in this. ‘Forty’ was never meant to be an exact count, just a prolonged spell. By mid-July, summer weather patterns over north-west Europe can become established, so the weather around this time is sometimes more persistent than at other seasons.

I just hope he’s wrong. We have all seen the awful devastation in the Forest of Fontainebleau by wildfires and must pray that the same fate does not befall our Forest.

Amen to that.