St Swithun's Day

Growing up with an English Mum and Gran I learned a lot of English folklore such as to keep an eye on the weather today, 15 July, which is St Swithun's Day. Why? Because of an old rhyme that says if it rains today, it will be wet for 40 days, but if it's fair today, we'll have 40 days of sunshine.

Here is the rhyme:

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 mare.

Of course, growing up on the Great Plains, if we did happen to have a shower on St Swithun's Day, the odds were that we would NOT have 40 days of rain! In fact, since late July and August tend to be very dry, the odds were much better that any rain on St Swithun's Day would be followed by 40 days of sun.

Here's a bit of information about the good Bishop of Winchester from CatholicSaints.Info:

Also known as

• Swithin
• Svithin

Feast 

• 15 July (translation of relics)

Profile

Raised in an abbey. Priest. Chaplain to Egbert, King of the West Saxons. Tutor to prince Ethelwolf. Bishop of Winchester, England. Miracles associated with his relics. His shrine was destroyed during the Reformation. Almost 60 ancient British churches were named for him.

His patronage of the weather arose when monks tried to translate his body from an outdoor grave to a golden shrine in the Cathedral in 871. Swithun apparently did not approve as it started raining for 40 days. The weather on the festival of his translation indicates, according to an old rhyme, the weather for the next forty days:

Saint Swithun’s day, if thou dost rain,
For forty days it will remain;
Saint Swithun’s day, if thou be fair,
For forty days ’twill rain nae mair.

Born

• c.800 at Wessex, England

Died

• 2 July 862 of natural causes
• relics transferred to Canterbury, England in 1006 by Saint Alphege of Winchester

Canonized

• Pre-Congregation

Patronage

• against drought
• Stavenger, England
• Winchester, England

Additional Information

• Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Golden Legend
• Lives of the Saints, by Father Alban Butler
• Miniature Lives of the Saints
• Roman Martyrology