By Nicholas Rhea

THERE is a belief, seldom highlighted, that suggests the weather lore and associated sayings of the past provide a good indication that our climate is changing. If we are to consider that that may be partially correct, we may expand the idea by linking it to other indicators – for example, many pieces of weather lore did not apply solely to England.

European countries, particularly those fairly close to us, made good use of similar weather sayings and forecasts.

Like our lore, that of continental Europe was based on observations noted in former times and often associated with saints’ days and religious festivals, but when the calendar changes were brought into force in this country on the day following September 2, 1752, eleven days were removed from the calendar. That occurred more than 260 years ago, when the amended calendar became known as the New Style, which is the one we follow now – we still refer to some dates as Old, e.g. Old Christmas Day, Old St Swithin’s Day, Old St Valentine’s and so forth.

The days themselves did not disappear, they were merely given new names (i.e. dates) but the omission of those eleven days caused riots and petitions by groups in England who thought they had been cheated out of them.

There were protest marches with people carrying slogans such as “Give us back our eleven days” while some believed it was a Popish plot connived by and brought into force through Pope Gregory the Great in 1582. England, which had adopted the Protestant rather than Catholic faith at the Reformation, suspected some kind of Papist skulduggery and refused to bring their calendar into line with Europe. They maintained their old calendar until King George II signed an Act of Parliament (24 Geo II c23) which brought this country into line 170 years later.

There had been several earlier attempts to produce a calendar which would accurately reflect the movement of the earth around the sun, and therefore affect the length of a year. The snag was, and still is, that the earth does not travel around the sun in precisely 365 or 366 days. Its precise timing – a year in fact – is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45.9747 seconds.

As long ago as 46BC, Julius Caesar become worried about it and commissioned a learned astronomer called Sosigenes to try and solve the problem. He came up with the idea that, once every four years, the calendar should have an extra day, i.e. a year of 366 days, but this was still not accurate. Caesar therefore enacted that the months should have differing alternate lengths of 30 and 31 days – at that time, the year began on March 25 – and it was Emperor Augustus who shortened February to 28 days, and gave one of them to August, the month named in his honour.

Despite all these efforts, the calendar stubbornly refused to conform accurately to the earth’s movements around it and so Pope Gregory the Great commissioned a leading astronomer, Christopher Clavius, to try and rectify matters. The Pope was worried because the inaccuracies affected the date of Easter and so Clavius produced the idea of re-correcting the calendar by decreeing that the day following October 4, 1582, should become October 15.

Pope Gregory also decided that there should be a century leap year which would be a leap year but only if the year number was divisible by 400. Thus 1600 became a century leap year with an extra day added at the end of February while 1700, 1800 and 1900 all persisted with 365 days. The year 2000, however, was a century leap year, the first since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

Down the centuries, there have been many attempts to correct the calendar so that it is always in tune with our journey around the sun, but it seems it will require some further adjustment in the future. As things stand, if we still used the old calendar, St Swithin’s Day (July 15) should be celebrated on July 19, which conforms to the passage of the seasons, but not relying wholly on dates.

There is no doubt that the calendar changes played havoc with our folk memories and customs. I recall one countryman who persisted in believing that if there were lots of acorns on the oaks on Michaelmas Day, then we could expect snow later in the year.

The snag was that he followed the “old” Michaelmas Day on a date that escapes me but the current St Michael’s or Michaelmas Day falls on September 29. I think the old fellow’s belief stemmed from an inherited memory of centuries of work on the land by his ancestors and he thought a good crop of acorns heralded food in plenty for creatures both domestic and wild. He would have no truck with the amended date of Michaelmas Day.

With reference to the oncoming February, this month used to be last in the calendar year until c450 BCE when it became the second

month. It had suffered many other changes – it once had only 23 then 24 days, and later it was extended to 27 days. It was Pope Gregory who gave February 28 and 29 days, but despite all the changes, it remained the second month of the calendar year. For a time, New Year's Day was March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, otherwise known as Lady Day.

It was the calendar changes of 1752 in this country that introduced us to January 1 as New Year’s Day.

It seems that most of the folklore in this country and other parts of Europe relates to a wintry February. A warm and fair February is not welcomed in England, Scotland, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal. Welsh lore says that a Welsh farmer would rather see his wife at her funeral than witness a fair February.

February is sometimes depicted as a two-faced month, probably because its isolated fine days are regarded as weather-breeders, i.e. they produce storms. In Cornwall, it is said that a February spring is not worth a pin while the Spanish say that mad February takes his father into the sunshine and beats him!

Probably the best known weather lore of February is associated with Candlemas Day, February 2, which this year arrives on Monday. In several European countries, including ours, it is regarded as the half-way stage of winter with warnings that a fine and sunny Candlemas Day heralds bad weather.

In France, it is said that a fine Candlemas Day means another winter is on the way while here in the North of England, wise farmers and other country folk often say that we should have half our stocks of food and fuel left at Candlemas. They will be needed during the bad weather which will follow a fine and sunny Candlemas Day.