A collection of English proverbs digested into a convenient method for the speedy finding any one upon occasion : with short annotations : whereunto are added local proverbs with their explications, old proverbial rhythmes, less known or exotick proverbial sentences, and Scottish proverbs / by J. Ray, M.A. and Fellow of the Royal Society.

Proverbs and Proverbial Observations concerning Husbandry, Weather and the seasons of the year.

• JAniveer freez the pot by the fire.
• ...If the grass grow in Janiveer, It grows the worse for't all the year.

  There's no general rule without some exception: for in the year 1667 the winter was so mild, that the pastures were very green in January, yet was there scarce ever known a plentifuller crop of hay then the summer following.

• ...When Candlemas day is come and gone The snow lies on a hot stone.
• ...February fill dike, Be it black or be it white; But if it be white, It's the better to like.

  Pluye de Feburier vaut es gaux de fumier. Gall.

  Snow brings a double advantage: It not only preserves the corn from the bitterness of the frost and cold, but enriches the ground by reason of the nitrous salt which it is supposed to contain. I have observed the Alps and other high mountains covered all the winter with snow, soon after it is melted to become like a garden, so full of luxuriant plants and variety of flowers. It is worth the noting, that mountainous plants are for the most part larger then those of the same genus which grow in lower grounds; and that these snowy mountains afford greater variety of species then plain countreys.

• ...

• Februeer doth cut and shear.
• All the moneths in the year curse a fair Fe∣brueer. or thus,
• ...The Welchman had rather see his dam on the beer, Then so see a fair Februeer.
• ... March in Janiveer, Janiveer in March I fear.
• ... March hack ham, comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.
• A bushel of March dust is worth a Kings ran∣some.
• March grass never did good.
• March wind and May Sun, make clothes white and maids dun.
• March many weathers.
• April showers bring forth May flowers.
• ...When April blows his horn, It's good both for hay and corn.

  That is, when it thunders in April: for thunder is usu∣ally accompanied with rain.

• April borrows three days of March and they are ill.
• An April floud carries away the frog and her brood.
• ... A cold May and a windy, makes a full barn and a findy.
• The merry moneth of May.
• ...May come she early or come she late she'll make the cow to quake.

• ...

  May seldom passes without a brunt of cold weather. Some will have it thus, She'll bring the Cow. quake. i. e. Gramen tremulum, which is true, but I suppose not the in∣tent of the Proverb.

• A May flood never did good.
• ... Look at your corn in May, and you'll come weeping away: Look at the same in June, and you'll come home in ano∣ther tune.
• ... Shear your sheep in May, And shear them all away.
• ... A swarm of Bees in May, is worth a load of hay: But a swarm in July, is not worth a fly.
• ...When the wind's in the East, It's neither good for man nor beast.

  The East-wind with us is commonly very sharp, because it comes off the Continent. Midland Countreys of the same latitude are generally colder then maritime, and Continents then Islands: and it is observed in England that near the sea-side, as in the County of Cornwall, &c. the snow seldom lies three days.

• ...When the wind's in the South, It's in the rains mouth.

  This is an observation that holds true all over Europe; and I believe in a great part of Asia too. For Italy and Greece the ancient Latine and Greek Poets witness: as Ovid.

  Madidis notus evolat alis.

  and speaking of the South, Metamorph. 1. he saith,

  Contraria tellus nubibus assiduis pluviò{que} madescit ab Austro.

  Homer calles the North wind

  〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

  Pliny saith,

  In totum venti omnes à Septentrione ficclores quàm à meridie. lib. 2. cap. 47.

  For

• ...

  Judas in Asia the Scripture gives testimony;

  Prov. 25. 23. The North-wind drives away rain.

  Wherefore by the rule of contraries, the South-wind must bring it. The rea∣son of this with the ingenious Philosopher Des Cartes I conceive to be, because those countreys which lie un∣der and near to the course of the Sun, being sufficient∣ly heated by his almost perpendicular beams, send up a multitude of vapours into the air, which being kept in constant agitation by the same heat that raised them re∣quire a great space to perform their motions in, and new still ascending they must needs be cast off part to the South and part to the North of the Suns course; So that were there no winds the parts of the earth towards the North and South poles would be most full of clouds and vapours. Now the North-wind blowing, keeps back those va∣pours, and causes clear weather in these Northern parts: but the South wind brings store of them along with it, which by the cold of the air are here condensed into clouds, and fall down in rain. Which accompt is con∣firmed by what Pliny reports of Africa,

  loc. cit. Per∣mutant & duo naturam cum situ: Auster Africae screnus, Aquilo nubilus.

  The reason is, because Africa being under or near the course of the Sun, The South-wind carries away the vapours there ascending: but the North-wind de∣tains them, and so partly by compressing, partly by cooling them causes them to condense and descend in showers.

• ...When the wind's in the South, It blowes the bait into the fishes mouth.
• ... No weather is ill, If the wind be still.
• A hot May makes a fat Church-yard.
• A green winter makes a fat Church-yard.

  This Proverb was sufficiently confuted Anno 1667, in which the winter was very mild; and yet no mortality or Epi∣demical disease ensued the Summer or Autumn following.

• ...

  We have entertained an opinion, that frosty weather is the most healthful, and the hardest winters the best. But I can see no reason for it, for in the hottest countreys of the world, as Brazil, &c. Men are longest lived where they know hot what frost or snow means, the ordinary age of man being an hundred and ten years: and here in England we found by experience, that the last great plague succeeded one of the sharpest frosty win∣ters that hath lately happened.

• Winter never rots in the sky.

  Ne caldo, ne gelo resta mai in cielo.Ital.

• Neither heat nor cold abides always in the sky.
• It's pity fair weather should do any harm.
• Hail brings frost i'th'tail.
• A snow year, a rich year.

  Anno di neve anno di bene. Ital.

• A winters thunder's a summers wonder.

  Quand il tonne en Mars on peut dire helas. Gall.

• Drought never bred dearth in England.
• Whoso hath but a mouth, shall ne're in England suffer drought. v. in Sentent.
• ...When the sand doth feed the clay, (which is in a wet summer) England wo and well-a-day: But when the clay doth feed the sand, (which is in a dry summer) Then it is well with England.

  Because there is more clay then sandy ground in England.

• ... The worse for the rider, the better for the bider.

• Bon pais mauvais chemin. Gall.

  Rich land, bad way.
• ...

• ... When the Cuckow comes to the bare thorn, Sell your cow and buy you corn: But when she comes to the full bit, Sell your corn and buy you sheep. If the cock moult before the hen, We shall have weather thick and thin: But if the hen moult before the cock, We shall have weather hard as a block.

  These prognosticks of weather and future plenty, &c. I look upon as altogether uncertain; and were they narrowly observed would I believe, as often miss as hit.

• ... I'th' old o'th' moon A cloudy morning bodes a fair afternoon.
• ...As the days lengthen, so the cold strengthens.

  Cresce di cresce'l freddo dice il pescador. Ital.

  The reason is, for that the earth having been well heated by the Sun's long lying upon it in Summer time is not sud∣dainly cooled again by the recess of the Sun, but retains part of its warmth till after the Winter Solstice: which warmth, notwithstanding the return and accesse of the Sun, must needs still languish and decay, and so notwithstanding the lengthening of the days the weather grows colder, till the externall heat caused by the Sun is greater then the re∣maining internall heat of the earth for as long as the exter∣nall is lesser then the internall (that is, so long as the Sun hath not force enough to produce as great a heat in the earth as was remaining from the last Summer) so long the internall must needs decrease. The like reason there is why the hottest time of the day is not just at noon, but about two of the clock in the afternoon and the hotest time of the year not just at the Summer Solstice, but about a moneth after, because till then the externall heat of the Sun is

• ...

  greater then the heat produced in the earth. So if you put a plece of iron into a very hot fire it will not suddenly be heat so hot as the fire can make it, and though you abate your fire, before it be througly heated, yet will it grow hot∣ter and hotter, till it comes to that degree of heat which the fire it is in can give it.

• ... If there be a rainbow in the eve, it will rain and leave: But if there be a rainbow in the morrow, It will neither lend nor borrow.
• ...An evening red and a morning gray, Is a sign of a fair day.

  Le rouge soir & blanc matin Font rejouir le pelerin. Gall.

  Sera rossa & negro matino Allegra il pelegrino. Ital.

  A red evening and a white morning rejoyce the pilgrim.

• ... When the clouds are upon the hills they'll come down by the mills.
• ...David and Chad sow pease good or bad.

  That is about the beginning of March.

• ...This rule in gardening never forget, To sow dry, and to set wet.
• ...When the sloe-tree's as white as a sheet, Sow your barley whether it be dry or wet.
• ... Sow beans i'th' mud, and they'll grow like wood.
• ...Till St James his day be come and gone, You may have hops or you may have none.
• ...The pigeon never knoweth wo, But when she doth a benting go.
• ...If the Partridge had the wood cocks thigh, T'would be the best bird that ever did fly.
• ...

• Yule is good on yule even.

  That is, as I understand it, every thing in his season, Yule is Christmas.

• Tripe's good meat if it be well wip't.
• ... A Michaelmass rot comes n'ere i'th' pot.
• A nagg with a weamb and a mare with nean. i. e. none.
• ... Behind before, before behind, a horse is in danger to be prick't.
• You must look for grass on the top of the oak tree.

  Because the grass seldom springs well before the oak be∣gins to put forth, as might have been observed the last year.

• St. Matthie sends sap into the tree.
• A famine in England begins at the horse∣manger.

  In opposition to the rack: for in dry years when hay is dear, commonly corn is cheap: but when oats (or indeed any one grain) is dear, the rest are seldom cheap.

• ...Winters thunder and Summers flood, Never boded Englishman good.
• Butter's once a year in the cows horn.

  They mean when the cow gives no milk. And butter is said to be mad twice a year; once in Summer time in very hot weather, when it is too thin and fluid; and once in winter in very cold weather, when it is too hard and dif∣ficult to spread.

• ...

• Barly-straw's good fodder when the cow gives water.
• ... On Valentines day will a good goose lay.
• ... If shee be a good goose her dame well to pay, She will lay two eggs before Valentines day.
• ... Before S. Chad every goose layes both good and Bad.
• It rains by planets.

  This the Countrey people use when it rains in one place and not in another: meaning that the showres are governed by the Planets, which being erratick in their own motions, cause such uncertain wandring of clouds and falls of rain. Or it rains by Planets, that is, the falls of showers are as uncertain as the motions of the Planets are imagined to be.

• ...If Candlemas day be fair and bright Winter will have another flight: If on Candlemas day it be showre and rain, Winter is gone and will not come again.

  This is a translation or metraphrase of that old La-Latin Distich;

  Si Sol splendescat Maria purificante, Major erit glacies post festum quam fuit ante.

  Now though I think all observations about particular days superstitious and frivolous, yet because probably if the weather be fair for some days about this time of the year, it may betoken frost, I have put this down as it was deli∣vered me.

• ... Barnaby bright, the longest day and the shortest night.
• ...

• ... Lucy light, the shortest day and the longest night.
• ... S. Bartholomew brings the cold dew.
• S. Matthie all the year goes by.

  Because in Leap-year the supernumerary day is then in∣tercalated.

• ... S. Matthee shut up the Bee.
• ... S. Valentine set thy hopper by mine.
• ... S. Mattho, take thy hopper and sow.
• ... S. Benedick sow thy pease or keep them in thy rick.
• ...Red herring ne're spake word but een, Broyl my back, but not my weamb. Said the Chevin to the Trout, My head's worth all thy bouk.
• Meddlers are never good till they be rotten.
• ... On Candlemas day you must have half your straw and half your hay.
• At twelf-day the days are lengthened a Cock∣stride. The Italians say at Christmas.
• ...A cherry year a merry year: A plum year a dumb year.

  This is a puerile and senceless rythme without reason, as far as I can see.

• Set trees at Allhallontide and command them to prosper: Set them after Candlemas and entreat them to grow.

• ...

  This Dr. J. Beal alledgeth as an old English and Welch Proverb, concerning Apple and Pear-trees, Oak and Haw∣thorn quicks; though he is of Mr. Reed's opinion, that it's best to remove fruit-trees in the spring, rather then the Winter. Philosoph. Transact. N. 71.

• ...If you would fruit have, You must bring the leaf to the grave.

  That is you must transplant your trees just about the fall of the leaf, neither sooner nor much later: not sooner, because of the motion of the sap; not later, that they may have time to take root before the deep frosts.

To these I shall adjoin a few Italian.

• PRimo porco, ultimo cane. i. e. The first pig, but the last whelp of the litter is the best.
• ...Cavallo & cavalla cavalcalo in su la spalla, Asino & mulo cavalcalo in su'l culo. i. e. Ride a horse and mare on the shoulders, an Asse and mule on the buttocks.
• ...A buon'hora in pescaria & tardi in beccaria. Go early to the fish-market, & late to the butchery.
• ...Al amico cura li il fico, Al inimico il Persico. Pill a fig for your friend, and a peach for your enemy.