The ev'ning red, and the morning gray,

Are the tokens of a bonny day.

Winter's thunder

Is the world's wonder.

From Lancashire.

As the days grow longer,

The storms grow stronger;

As the days lengthen,

So the storms strengthen.

No weather is ill,

If the wind be still.

When clouds appear like rocks and towers,

The earth's refresh'd by frequent showers.

This proverb is sufficiently homely, yet the first line reminds us of the description of the clouds in Anthony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 12; but the commonest observer must have seen the "tower'd citadel," and the "pendant rock."

A northern har

Brings drought from far.

A har is a mist or thick fog.

First comes David, next comes Chad,

Then comes Whinwall as if he was mad.

Alluding to the storms about the day of St. Winwaloe, March 3d, called St. Whinwall by the country people.

Rain, rain, go to Spain;

Come again another day:

When I brew and when I bake,

I'll give you a figgy cake.

This appears to be a child's address to rain, a kind of charm or entreaty for its disappearance. A plum-cake is always called a figgy cake in Devonshire, where raisins are denominated figs, and hence the term. Other versions are given by Chambers, p. 155, who remarks that it was the practice among the children of Greece, when the sun happened to be obscured by a cloud, to exclaim, ??e?' ? f??' ???e—Come forth, beloved sun! Howell, in his Proverbs, 1659, p. 20, has,—

Rain, rain, go to Spain;

Fair weather, come again.

"Little children have a custome, when it raines, to sing or charme away the raine; they all joine in a chorus, and sing thus, viz.:

Raine, raine, goe away,

Come againe a Saterday.

I have a conceit that this childish custome is of great antiquity, and that it is derived from the gentiles." (Aubrey, MS. Lansd. 231.)

If Candlemas day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another flight.

It is generally the case that fine weather continues if it is mild at Candlemas. A somewhat similar proverb is given by M. Kuhn, GebrÄuche und Aberglauben, ii. 12.

It is time to cock your hay and corn,

When the old donkey blows his horn.

The braying of the ass is said to be an indication of rain or hail.