Ebook Weather Folk-Lore and Local Weather Signs

It is safe to assume that our first parents acquired weather wisdom by observing weather sequences and noting the foreshadowed effects of certain atmospheric conditions on objects animate and inanimate. We may assume further that the knowledge thus acquired was com municated to their descendants, and that it was handed down, with additions and amplifications, from generation to generation. We find in the earliest writings and in the Scriptures expressions of weather wisdom, many of which appear in collections of the popular weather sayings of to — day. Thus by assumption and deduction we know that man has ever employed inherited and acquired weather wisdom in the daily affairs of life. When ?ocks and herds have constituted his earthly possessions he has been prompted to lead his charges to places of safety when signs of impending storms appeared. As a navigator his interpretation of the signs of the air has, in innumerable instances, enabled him to adopt measures calculated to avert disaster to his frail craft. As an husbandman he has closely scanned the sky, the air, and the earth for signs that would indicate the weather of the coming day and season. The wisdom thus acquired has been perpetuated in the form of trite sayings or proverbs. Many of these sayings are polished gems of weather lore, others have lost their potency by transfer to foreign lands where dissimilar climatic conditions obtain, and a large propor tion have been born of fancy and superstition.