Ancient Cornish name:
Hu-evral, whirling month.
Jewel: Amethyst. Sincerity.
One month is past, another is begun,
Since merry bells rang out the dying year,
And buds of rarest green began to peer,
As if impatient for a warmer sun;
And though the distant hills are bleak and dun,
The virgin snowdrop, like a lambent fire,
Pierces the cold earth, with its green-streaked spire;
And in dark woods the wandering little one
May find a primrose.
Hartley Coleridge.
Fair rising from her icy couch,
Wan herald of the floral year,
The snowdrop marks the spring's approach,
Ere yet the primrose groups appear,
Or peers the arum from its spotted veil,
Or violets scent the cold capricious gale.
Charlotte Smith.
Candlemas shined, and the winter's behind.
If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
The winter will take another flight;
But if it should be dark and drear
Then winter is gone for another year.
When on the Purification sun hath shined,
The greater part of winter comes behind.
The badger peeps out of his hole on Candlemas Day, and if he finds snows, walks abroad; but if he sees the sun shining, he draws back into his hole.
German saying.
On Candlemas Day if the thorns hang-a-drop,
Then you are sure of a good pea crop.
When the wind's in the East on Candlemas Day,
There it will stick till the second of May.
February fill the ditch,
Black or white we don't care which.
Hants.
All the months of the year
Fear a fair Februeer.
The dim droop of a sombre February day.
There is an old proverb,
That birds of a feather
On Saint Valentine's day
Will meet together.
1733.
Why, Valentine's a day to choose
A mistress, and our freedom lose?
May I my reason interpose,
The question with an answer close?
To imitate we have a mind,
And couple like the winged kind.
John Dunton.
I early rose, just at the break of day,
Before the sun had chased the stars away;
Afield I went, amid the morning dew,
To milk my kine (for so should housewives do),
Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see.
In spite of fortune, shall our true-love be.
Gay.
Shrove-tide.
Beef and bacon's out of season,
I want a pan to parch my peason.
Berks.
Knick-knock, the pan's hot,
And we are come a-shroving,
For a piece of pancake,
Or a piece of bacon,
Or a piece of truckle cheese
Of your own making.
Hants.
On Shrove Tuesday night, though the supper be fat,
Before Easter Day thou mayst fast for that.
Isle of Man.
Pancake Bell. (Congleton.)
The housekeeper goes to the huxter's shop,
And the eggs are brought home, and there's flop! flop! flop!
And there's batter, and butter, and savoury smell,
While merrily rings the Pancake Bell.
So much sun as shineth on Pancake Tuesday, the like will shine every day in Lent.
A hoar frost,
Third day crost,
The fourth lost.
Lancs.
Bean Sowing.
One for the mouse, one for the crow,
One to rot, one to grow.
Sow peason and beans in the wane of the moone,
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soon;
That they with the planet may rest and rise,
And flourish with bearing, most plentiful wise.
Tusser.
If February gives much snow
A fine summer it doth foreshow.
Now set for thy pot
Best herbs to be got,
For flowers go set,
All sorts ye can get.
Tusser.
In Oxfordshire the first bee seen in February is saluted, as this is said to bring good luck.
Thrush's Song.
"Did he do it? Did he do it?
Come and see, come and see;
Knee deep, knee deep;
Cherry sweet, cherry sweet,
To me! to me! to me!"
The pretty lark,
Climbing the welkin clear,
Chaunts with a "Cheer, here, peer,
I near my dear!"
When stooping thence,
Seeming her fall to rue,
"Adieu," she cries,
"Adieu! dear Love, adieu!"
When after a rough and stormy day there is a lull in the wind at the going down of the sun, old men say: "Us shall have better weather now, for the wind's gone to sleep with the sun."
Devon.
When a moorland shepherd meets his sheep on a winter's night coming down from the hilltops (where they prefer to sleep) he knows that a storm is brewing.
